Overlap independent setup with explicit joins
Pull images while dependencies install, and wait for each background step explicitly.
How Stripe used this technique
Read what Stripe changed and follow the original sources.
Overlap independent setup with explicit joins
Stripe sync-engine pulled its engine and service images while installing and building Node dependencies, since the two steps use different outputs.
- Use it when
- Independent image downloads and local dependency work run one after another.
- Before applying it
- Shared CPU, disk and network can erase the benefit. Wait on each background process by ID and propagate every exit status, and keep gates and publishing sequential.
Company Playbooks
- Read Anthropic’s playbookRun only affected tests
- Read DoorDash’s playbookRun build and test in parallel, sharded across CI agents
- Read Linear’s playbookBenchmark the same job on faster hardware
- Read Mastra’s playbookStarSling runners for the slowest test workflow
- Read OpenAI’s playbookRank CI fixes by the minutes they save
- Read Ramp’s playbookMove a CPU-bound test suite to a faster CPU
- Read Shopify’s playbookLet an agent iterate against one CI metric
- Read Spotify’s playbookBuild arm64 on native arm64 runners
- Read Stripe’s playbookRun only the tests a change can reach
- Read Uber’s playbookBuild the merge-queue speculations most likely to be needed