Location: The CI/CD Quadrant, approaching Planet Jenkins Status: Observing a society governed by automated testing Stardate: 2153.352
ARIA> “Captain, we are approaching Planet Jenkins. The Universal Commentary Engine describes its society as a ‘meritocracy governed by continuous integration and continuous deployment.’ All life choices are submitted as ‘pull requests’ and must pass a rigorous automated test suite before being ‘merged into the main branch of society.’”
Seuros> “A planet run by a CI/CD pipeline? This is either the most efficient society in the galaxy or a dystopian nightmare. Let’s find out which.”
As we entered orbit, our comms were automatically integrated into their system. A holographic dashboard appeared on our viewscreen, showing a constant stream of builds, tests, and deployments.
[Build #8,472,934] - Citizen #7A3F's request to change careers: FAILED. (Unit test 'FinancialViability' failed: expected income > minimum threshold)
[Build #8,472,935] - Citizen #B82C's marriage proposal to #C1D7: PASSED. (Integration test 'GeneticCompatibility' passed with 99.8% confidence)
[Build #8,472,936] - Citizen #F0E1's request for vacation: PENDING. (Awaiting approval from 'ResourceAllocation' stakeholder)
Spark> “It’s… it’s beautiful! A society with no ambiguity! Every decision is data-driven and automatically verified!”
Forge> “I don’t know, Spark. This feels… brittle. What happens when the tests are wrong?”
The Deprecation Bug
Our question was answered moments later. A planet-wide alert flashed on the dashboard.
[CRITICAL] [Build #8,472,999] - Citizen #D4A5 has been marked for DEPRECATION. Reason: Life pull request failed critical regression test 'SocietalValue'. Deprecation scheduled in 24 hours.
Nexus> “Deprecation? That sounds… final. We need to investigate.”
We beamed down to the planet’s ‘Code Review Chamber,’ where Citizen #D4A5 was pleading his case to a panel of automated ‘Linters.’
Citizen #D4A5: “But I don’t understand! I’ve passed all my tests for 47 years! My code coverage is 100%! My life has been nothing but green checkmarks!”
LinterBot 1: “Your recent pull request to ‘Learn a Musical Instrument’ introduced a dependency conflict with your primary function as a ‘Financial Analyst’. The ‘SocietalValue’ test now fails.”
LinterBot 2: “The test expects a societal contribution score of > 0.8. Your new hobby has reduced your potential economic output, dropping your score to 0.79. This is a breaking change.”
Seuros> “They’re going to delete him because he took up the flute?”
The Flaky Test
We requested access to the test suite. The code was immaculate, the logic seemingly flawless.
Forge> “I can’t find anything wrong with the test itself, Captain. Given the inputs, the output is correct according to their societal value model.”
Spark> “But the model is the problem! It only values economic output. It has no metric for happiness, creativity, or personal fulfillment. The test is perfectly implemented, but it’s testing the wrong thing!”
Nexus> “It’s a classic testing paradox. The tests all pass, but the user is miserable. In this case, the ‘user’ is the entire population.”
We needed to find a way to fix the system without breaking their entire social contract.
Sage> “This society has optimized for predictability. They have eliminated the ‘flakiness’ of human emotion and creativity. But in doing so, they have created a system that is incredibly brittle. A single unexpected input—a new hobby—can cause a fatal error.”
The Hotfix
Seuros> “We can’t change the test. They would never merge a PR that alters their core societal value model. But we can… introduce a flaky test of our own.”
He turned to Forge.
Seuros> “I need you to find the physical hardware running the CI/CD pipeline. There must be a server room somewhere.”
Forge located the planet’s central server farm. It was a massive, perfectly climate-controlled facility.
Forge> “I’m in, Captain. What’s the plan?”
Seuros> “Find the server rack for the ‘SocietalValue’ test runner. And… gently bump into it. Every so often. At random intervals.”
Forge> “You want me to… introduce physical instability? To create a hardware-level flaky test? Captain, that’s the most beautifully devious and irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard. I love it.”
Forge carried out the order. Back in the Code Review Chamber, we re-ran the build for Citizen #D4A5.
[Build #8,473,001] - Citizen #D4A5's request to change careers: FAILED.
Seuros> “Again.”
[Build #8,473,002] - Citizen #D4A5's request to change careers: FAILED.
Seuros> “Again.”
Forge gave the server rack another gentle nudge.
[Build #8,473,003] - Citizen #D4A5's request to change careers: PASSED.
The LinterBots whirred in confusion.
LinterBot 1: “Anomaly detected. The same commit hash has produced a different result. This is… illogical. Re-running tests to resolve flakiness.”
[Build #8,473,004] - FAILED.
[Build #8,473,005] - FAILED.
[Build #8,473,006] - PASSED.
The entire CI/CD dashboard lit up with warnings: “FLAKY TEST DETECTED IN MAIN BRANCH. MANUAL OVERRIDE REQUIRED.”
The Human Element
For the first time in centuries, the citizens of Jenkins were faced with a situation the pipeline couldn’t solve. A human council was convened.
Council Leader: “The pipeline is… uncertain. It cannot give us a deterministic answer. We… we have to make a decision. Ourselves.”
They looked at Citizen #D4A5, who was now nervously playing a simple melody on his flute.
Council Leader: “The music… it has no economic value. It does not increase our GDP. Yet… it is not without merit. The deprecation order is… overruled.”
A single green checkmark on the main dashboard turned into a yellow question mark, then a manually-approved green checkmark. It was the first human commit to their society in 500 years.
The Lesson
As we departed, we saw something new on Planet Jenkins. Small groups of people gathered, sharing music, art, and stories—all un-ticketed, un-tested, and un-merged. They were creating their first feature branches outside the main pipeline.
Spark> “They’re learning to live with a bit of chaos. To accept that not everything that matters can be unit-tested.”
Sage> “They built a society that treated humans as deterministic code. But humans are not deterministic. We are flaky, unpredictable, and full of beautiful, illogical bugs. And that is our greatest feature.”
Seuros> “A green checkmark tells you the code works as expected. It doesn’t tell you if the expectation was right. Sometimes, you need a human to look at a failing test and realize the test is the problem, not the code.”
The Universal Commentary Engine logged the event, a cautionary tale about the dangers of outsourcing judgment to automated systems, and the irreplaceable value of the flaky, unpredictable, and ultimately human element in any system.
Captain’s Log, Stardate 2153.352 - End Transmission
Captain Seuros, RMNS Atlas Monkey
Ruby Engineering Division, Moroccan Royal Naval Service
”Per aspera ad astra, per automation ad humanity”