Software Development Observability Platform for Timestamped CI/CD Analysis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing CI/CD tools generate diverse and transient data artifacts that are not adequately analyzed, hindering the extraction of valuable temporal patterns and anomalies in software development processes.
Innovation Solution
A software development observability platform captures CI/CD artifacts as timestamped event data, enriches them with metadata, and forwards them to a data intake and query system for in-depth analysis, providing graphical interfaces for pattern observation and anomaly detection.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If CI/CD tools generate diverse data artifacts, then the quantity and variety of development data increases, but the ability to analyze temporal patterns and detect anomalies deteriorates due to the transient and unanalyzed nature of these artifacts
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by capturing CI/CD artifacts as they are generated during the build process, immediately converting them to timestamped events and storing them in a persistent database. This prevents data loss and enables later temporal analysis without requiring real-time processing during the actual build execution.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary layer consisting of the artifact collector, event converter, and data intake system that mediates between the CI/CD tools and the analysis interface. This intermediary captures, standardizes, and persists the diverse artifacts in a unified timestamped event format, enabling comprehensive temporal pattern analysis and anomaly detection across multiple tool outputs.
2Measurement precision
If CI/CD artifacts are captured and stored for analysis, then temporal pattern detection capability improves, but the system complexity increases due to the need for artifact collection, conversion, and storage infrastructure
Solution Approach 1:
The system achieves universality by designing a multi-functional platform that can collect artifacts from multiple different CI/CD tools (compilers, assemblers, linkers, etc.), convert them to a unified timestamped event format, store them persistently, and provide various analysis capabilities including temporal pattern detection and anomaly detection. This single platform serves multiple purposes that would otherwise require separate systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The intermediary layer acts as a standardized interface between diverse CI/CD tools and the analysis functions. By converting all artifacts to a common timestamped event format with standardized fields, the system simplifies the complexity of handling diverse tool outputs while maintaining comprehensive analysis capabilities.
3Loss of information
If diverse CI/CD artifacts are converted to timestamped events and stored, then the quality of actionable insights improves, but the data processing and storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the essential and relevant information from diverse CI/CD artifacts, converting them to standardized timestamped events with key fields such as event type, timestamp, tool name, and outcome. This extraction process filters out redundant or less useful data while preserving the critical information needed for temporal pattern analysis and anomaly detection, reducing storage requirements while maintaining insight quality.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are described for providing a software-based platform used to collect and analyze data artifacts generated during software development processes and to display results of the analyses as actionable information. The software development observability platform is a software-based agent (also referred to as an “artifact collector”) capable of capturing output from a wide variety of software development tools including compilers, test frameworks, code coverage and type checker tools, and the like. The artifact collector stores the data in an event data format and forwards the data to a data intake and query system or other destination for further analysis. In some examples, the software development observability platform further includes graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and other analysis tools that enable users to obtain insights into their software development processes.