Resolving CI/CD Pipeline Blocks for a SaaS Startup

Phase 1: Emergency Unblock (Day 1)

Optimum Web's DevOps team diagnosed the root cause within 2 hours of engagement and implemented a comprehensive, multi-layered fix:

• •Identified the exact failure point: Docker images built on ARM64 (M1) contained incompatible binaries for the x86_64 target.
• •Configured Docker Buildx with QEMU emulation on the CI server, enabling multi-architecture builds (linux/amd64,linux/arm64) from a single Dockerfile.
• •Within 6 hours, the first successful cross-platform build was deployed to staging.

Phase 2: Pipeline Overhaul (Days 2–7)

• •Restructured the entire CI/CD pipeline in GitHub Actions to enforce architecture-explicit builds at every stage.
• •Implemented a build matrix strategy: every commit now automatically builds and tests against both ARM64 and x86_64 targets.
• •Added automated smoke tests that validate the deployed container actually runs (not just builds) on the target architecture.
• •Created a shared .docker/ configuration template for the team, ensuring every developer's local environment produces identical artifacts.
• •Set up build caching to offset the slight overhead of multi-arch builds, keeping pipeline execution time under 8 minutes.

Phase 3: Documentation & Knowledge Transfer (Day 7)

• •Delivered a runbook covering multi-arch Docker best practices.
• •Conducted a 1-hour workshop with the development team on avoiding architecture-related pitfalls.
• •Established monitoring alerts for build failures related to architecture mismatches.