--- title: The CAP Theorem of CI Templates | daily.dev description: CI templates for enforcing engineering practices face an impossible tradeoff similar to the CAP theorem: you can achieve consistency of controls, availability... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-cap-theorem-of-ci-templates-7aktvx3d4 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The CAP Theorem of CI Templates | daily.dev og:description: CI templates for enforcing engineering practices face an impossible tradeoff similar to the CAP theorem: you can achieve consistency of controls, availability... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-cap-theorem-of-ci-templates-7aktvx3d4 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/7aktvX3d4.png og:image:alt: The CAP Theorem of CI Templates og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- [Earthly](https://daily.dev/sources/earthly) [Read post](https://api.daily.dev/r/7aktvX3d4) # [The CAP Theorem of CI Templates](https://api.daily.dev/r/7aktvX3d4 "Go to post") CI templates for enforcing engineering practices face an impossible tradeoff similar to the CAP theorem: you can achieve consistency of controls, availability of delivery, or partition tolerance across organizational boundaries, but not all three simultaneously. Choosing consistency and availability loses partition tolerance (divergence in fragmented orgs), choosing availability and partition tolerance loses consistency (version sprawl), and choosing consistency and partition tolerance loses availability (delivery becomes fragile). The solution is architectural: decouple control evaluation from template rollout by building a separate posture data plane that observes across systems and enforces at the PR boundary, rather than embedding governance directly in heterogeneous CI pipelines. [#devops](/tags/devops "Check all #devops posts")[#cicd](/tags/cicd "Check all #cicd posts")[#distributed-systems](/tags/distributed-systems "Check all #distributed-systems posts")[#platform-engineering](/tags/platform-engineering "Check all #platform-engineering posts") Jan 21•9m read time•From [earthly.dev](https://api.daily.dev/r/7aktvX3d4 "earthly.dev") [](https://api.daily.dev/r/7aktvX3d4 "Go to post") Table of contents [The CI-Template CAP Triangle](https://api.daily.dev/r/7aktvX3d4?a=the-ci-template-cap-triangle "The CI-Template CAP Triangle")[The Tradeoff: Pick Two](https://api.daily.dev/r/7aktvX3d4?a=the-tradeoff-pick-two "The Tradeoff: Pick Two")[Why This Tradeoff Is Unavoidable](https://api.daily.dev/r/7aktvX3d4?a=why-this-tradeoff-is-unavoidable "Why This Tradeoff Is Unavoidable")[The Escape Hatch: Decouple Control Evaluation From Template Rollout](https://api.daily.dev/r/7aktvX3d4?a=the-escape-hatch-decouple-control-evaluation-from-template-rollout "The Escape Hatch: Decouple Control Evaluation From Template Rollout")[The Practical Takeaway](https://api.daily.dev/r/7aktvX3d4?a=the-practical-takeaway "The Practical Takeaway") Comment Bookmark Copy Share your thoughtsPost [](https://daily.dev/sources/earthly) [Earthly](https://daily.dev/sources/earthly "https://daily.dev/sources/earthly") Earthly's platform is a central hub for developers and DevOps engineers, offering insights into buil... 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