Why a CI/CD Pipeline Is Only Done When It Passes Ten Times in a Row

Software engineer Sergey Shinder argues that a pipeline passing once proves nothing, as a single green run may simply reflect a lucky combination of cache state and execution order. He now considers a pipeline complete only when it produces identical results across ten consecutive runs with no flakiness. His approach rests on three principles: every run must start from a clean state independent of cached data, tests must pass regardless of execution order, and flaky tests must be fixed or removed rather than retried. Shinder acknowledges this discipline slows initial pipeline development but results in more stable, predictable automation that does not require manual verification of results. He concludes that repeatability is not an optional quality but the defining property that makes automation genuinely automatic.