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KiloClaw

CI Speed Tune-Up

Cut pipeline time with caching, parallelism, and smarter triggers

Reduce CI wall-clock time by implementing dependency caching, parallelization/sharding, and filtering out unnecessary pipeline runs.

CommunitySubmitted by CommunityWork15 min

INGREDIENTS

🐙GitHub

PROMPT

Create a skill called "CI Speed Tune-Up". Ask me for: - CI provider (GitHub Actions/GitLab/etc.) and current config snippet - Typical runtimes per step (rough is OK) - Which suites must gate merges Output: - A prioritized optimization plan (top 5 changes) - A caching plan keyed on lockfiles - A parallelization/sharding plan - A "PR gate vs nightly" split recommendation

How It Works

This recipe audits a pipeline for the "big three" time sinks: repeated dependency installs,

serialized tests, and inefficient triggers.

Triggers

  • CI takes "forever" (tens of minutes to hours)
  • Developers avoid pushing because feedback is too slow
  • CI costs spike due to redundant runs

Steps

  1. Identify the top time consumers (deps install, tests, packaging, uploads).
  2. Add dependency caching keyed on lockfiles.
  3. Parallelize/shard the slowest suites (unit/integration/e2e).
  4. Split PR-gating vs nightly:
  • fast gates on PR,
  • heavy suites nightly or on-demand.
  1. Validate cache correctness and avoid caching build outputs that cause staleness.

Expected Outcome

  • Faster PR feedback and fewer "commit–push–wait" loops.
  • Lower CI cost and higher developer throughput.

Example Inputs

  • "Our pipeline is 45 minutes; most time is tests."
  • "Dependency installs happen from scratch every run."
  • "We need PR checks under 10 minutes."

Tips

  • CI speed is feature delivery speed; treat it as a product.
Tags:#ci-cd#performance#developer-productivity#testing