Establish a Build Cop

Ideally, the party responsible for a build breakage will address it immediately. Usually good communication and a pride in their craft is enough to make this happen. However, if build breakages are not being addressed quickly enough, it can help to make one team member responsible for ensuring the build is healthy.

A build cop will look at any failures that happen and harass any guilty parties into fixing the build. While hopefully unnecessary, a build cop can be a key element supporting the first pillar of pain free building by keeping build breakages short.

Most teams that implement a build cop eventually graduate from it. Once team members get used to being held accountable for breaking the build, they tend to address problems before the build cop can harass them, or employ practices that reduce the possibility of breaking the build. As this happens, the build cop role fades into the background and is often discarded.