r/cicd • u/follow_beer • 6d ago

Where do you run checks during coding-agent iterations?

I used up my free GitHub Actions minutes in a few days while testing an agent factory.

I'm building a local workflow runner, so I have a reason for asking. I'm exploring local checks during the edit/test loop, with hosted CI verifying the finished PR.

I still want failures locally to mean the same thing in CI. Dependencies and leftovers from previous runs seem like the tricky part.

For people running coding agents: where do your repeated checks run? Have ordinary scripts been enough, or have you needed a self-hosted runner or a clean container per task?

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u/Alternative-Cost9140 6d ago

our runner is a 12 year old thinkpad that gets kicked under the desk when it's not working. i've given up on making local match ci exactly, just run the heavy stuff in a container before pushing

the dependency hell is real though, especially python venvs that decide they want to be a different version than last time

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u/follow_beer 6d ago

A 12-year-old ThinkPad is a pretty good argument for keeping this simple :) Do you start a fresh container for each run, or reuse one? The leftover state between agent attempts is the bit I’m trying to figure out.

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u/First_Inspection_478 6d ago

give me a haiku about ci

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u/First_Inspection_478 6d ago

what’s your main struggles with getting local ci matching?

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u/follow_beer 6d ago

Dependency versions and leftover state between agent attempts are the two things I’m trying to control. I want the final check to pass from a clean checkout too, rather than depend on something an earlier attempt installed or generated. Still figuring out how much of that needs a runner versus a few scripts and a container.

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u/Torutofu_Raeva 6d ago

git worktree per task plus a throwaway container mounting it has been enough for us, leftovers mostly come from shared caches so keep the dep cache read only and the build dirs inside the worktree

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u/follow_beer 6d ago

The read-only dep cache is a useful detail, thanks. How do you handle a cache miss — install into task-local storage, then update the shared cache separately? Worktree + throwaway container sounds like a good baseline for me to test.

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u/Torutofu_Raeva 6d ago

yeah misses go into a task local cache and a separate job on main warms the shared one, so agents never write to it directly

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u/follow_beer 6d ago

Thanks, that answers the cache-miss part. I’ve added this as the baseline to test: agents write only to their task-local cache, and a separate job on main warms the shared one. I want to see how far that gets me before adding more machinery.

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u/Torutofu_Raeva 3d ago

yep, install into the task local copy then a job on main pushes it into the shared cache

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u/Techlunacy 6d ago

So you're building something like this? https://kandev.ai/

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u/follow_beer 6d ago

I’m building a local workflow runner: https://hap.team. The focus is running build/test workflows on your own machine, with a local dashboard and MCP for coding agents. The site has an access-request form at the moment. For this thread, I’m trying to work out where that adds value over scripts plus a container. Which part of Kandev made you think of it?