CI/CD Build Failure Dependency Analysis

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

In application development pipelines, build failures in software jobs often go unnoticed by other jobs that rely on the same build, leading to subsequent failures, which can disrupt the development process and reduce system performance.

Innovation Solution

A monitoring system that identifies build failures and analyzes their impact on other software jobs, generating alerts to notify users or administrators, allowing them to take remedial action such as correcting the build or delaying affected jobs.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If build failure monitoring and alerting is implemented, then downstream job reliability is improved, but system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedownstream job reliabilityVSAvoidsystem complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary analysis of build failures to identify affected downstream jobs before they execute. By proactively detecting build failures and analyzing their impact on dependent jobs, the system prevents downstream jobs from running on failed builds, thereby improving reliability without requiring complex real-time intervention mechanisms.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary component that acts as a mediator between build execution and downstream job scheduling. This intermediary analyzes build failure patterns and determines which downstream jobs should be blocked or alerted, simplifying the overall system architecture by centralizing the decision-making logic in a dedicated component rather than distributing complexity across all system elements.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If comprehensive build failure analysis is performed, then job failure prevention is improved, but processing time increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvejob failure preventionVSAvoidprocessing time

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs partial analysis by focusing only on the specific build failures that occurred and their direct impact on downstream jobs, rather than conducting a comprehensive analysis of all possible failure modes. This selective approach prevents downstream job failures while minimizing processing time by avoiding unnecessary analysis of unaffected job paths.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #16Partial or excessive action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent segments the analysis process into distinct phases: detecting build failures, identifying affected downstream jobs, and generating alerts. This segmentation allows the system to process information in manageable chunks, reducing overall processing time while maintaining comprehensive coverage of failure prevention.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

3Productivity

If real-time build failure detection is implemented, then system efficiency is improved, but measurement difficulty increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesystem efficiencyVSAvoidfailure detection difficulty

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSDifficulty of detecting and measuring

Solution Approach 1:

The system implements feedback mechanisms that automatically detect build failures and feed this information back to the job scheduling system. This feedback loop enables real-time detection and response to build failures, improving system efficiency by preventing wasted execution of downstream jobs while using standardized feedback protocols to manage detection complexity.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

Data Source

PatentUS11550697B2Cross jobs failure dependency in CI/CD systems

Publication Date: 2023.01.10 RED HAT INC

AI summary

A build fail of a job in a development pipeline of an application development system is analyzed. A determination as to whether the build fail affects other jobs in the development pipeline is made. In response to determining that the build fail affects at least one of the other jobs of the plurality of jobs, an alert identifying the at least one of the other jobs affected by the build fail is generated.