Ensure consistent versions of languages, tools, and dependencies across all CI/CD environments (GitHub Actions, CircleCI, local development, etc.). Inconsistent versions between environments make it difficult to reproduce issues and debug failures, as seen when using “Python 3.12 in GitHub & 3.9 elsewhere - makes it hard to figure out how to fix the broken unit tests.”
Define a single source of truth for version specifications and reference it across all pipeline configurations. This includes:
Example approach:
# .tool-versions or similar
python 3.12.0
node 18.17.0
docker 24.0.0
# Reference in GitHub Actions
- uses: actions/setup-python@v4
with:
python-version: '3.12.0'
# Reference in CircleCI
- image: cimg/python:3.12.0
This prevents environment drift, reduces debugging complexity, and ensures consistent behavior across all stages of your CI/CD pipeline.
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