AI coding agents are disrupting the traditional CI/CD model by collapsing the outer loop into the inner loop. CircleCI CTO Rob Zuber argues that when code is generated at machine speed, waiting for pipeline-stage validation creates costly rework. The solution is pushing deterministic checks, testing, and agentic review directly into the developer/agent workflow before changes leave a working branch. This shift also demands new metrics beyond DORA — including token consumption and pipeline efficiency — and requires engineering controls around quality, security, and release safety to scale in lockstep with AI-driven output.
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