Developer's Own CI Rule Fires Two Days After He Wrote About It

A software developer published an article advocating that engineering rules should be enforced by machines rather than human discipline, only to have one of his own rules trigger two days later. A pull request passed all CI checks and a Definition of Done checklist, yet the actual application failed completely on a real stack due to three cascading bugs invisible to automated testing. The failures included a production Docker image missing a required shared folder, two database migrations assigned duplicate version keys, and resulting 500 errors on API endpoints — none of which CI was structured to catch. In response, the developer introduced a mandatory 'launch evidence' requirement, forcing contributors to attach proof of a real end-to-end run — such as a curl response or database reset log — before a PR can be opened. He also added an automated CI step that builds the Docker image exactly as production does, noting that unlike human discipline, automation cannot fabricate a passing result.