CBOI: Continuous Build, Occasional Integration

Continuous Build, Occasional Integration (CBOI) is a common yet flawed practice that many organizations mistakenly equate with Continuous Integration (CI). CBOI involves teams working in isolation, running their own build and test loops without integrating the full stack frequently, leading to defects only being discovered in production. This occurs because the automated systems fail to test the integration of all components together, such as when a backend change inadvertently breaks the frontend. Organizations often fall into CBOI due to the complexity of setting up a true CI pipeline, which requires sophisticated tooling, such as Bazel, and a cultural shift towards cross-team collaboration. Transitioning from CBOI to CI demands overcoming technical hurdles, like updating build systems and creating integration test fixtures, as well as addressing organizational resistance to change. Despite the challenges, investing in CI is crucial to prevent production outages and ensure that all parts of a system work seamlessly together, as CBOI's practice of coding in production and lack of true integration testing can lead to serious issues.