Dev fixes memory-killing build step by replacing redundant rebuilds with record lookups
A software developer noticed their project's acceptance-check step was repeatedly killed by the OS out-of-memory killer four times over two days. Investigation revealed the step, named a 'read', was actually triggering a full recompile of all 15 project units just to extract pass/fail booleans — duplicating work already done by prior control runs. Each control run had already stored its result alongside the exact commit hash it ran against, making re-execution unnecessary. The fix replaced the costly rebuilds with a simple comparison of stored commit identifiers, adding a 'stale' counter to flag outdated records instead. The developer concluded that any observational step consuming resources disproportionate to mere data-gathering is likely re-deriving facts that already exist.
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