Build, Deploy and Tooling

Overview

Build scripts, CI pipelines, deploy jobs, and tooling choices are part of the codebase. Own the build as code. Build one artifact and promote it. Deploy from day one. Choose tools that fit the project, not the resume. Automate everything you do twice. This skill enforces the decisions to make whenever you touch infrastructure or evaluate a tool.

This is a rigid skill. Run the checklist in order. If you can't satisfy a step, stop and tell the user what's blocking you.

These checks matter most when shaping a release artifact — production deploy, shared CI pipeline, tool adoption that other contributors will inherit. In MVPs, prototypes, internal dev tools, and one-off scripts where the architecture is not yet settled, prefer the simplest thing that works.

When to invoke

Invoke when you're about to: