Chapter 1: Introduction to Buildkite

Buildkite is an exceptional platform designed for executing fast, secure, and scalable continuous integration pipelines directly on your infrastructure. This statement holds true not only based on their website but also from my personal experience using it in a production environment for over a year.

One of the standout features of Buildkite is its user-friendly interface, which allows for clear visibility of pipeline activities and individual build steps. The logs are easily accessible, errors are visually distinct, and the overall layout is clean and organized.

While the duration of each build step is displayed, there are countless ways this information can be presented. Recently, I learned about an additional method that the Buildkite team is currently experimenting with. This method involves a somewhat secretive URL, though it's not entirely hidden since I discovered it through legitimate public channels.

Chapter 2: Discovering the Secret URL

Although this URL is not officially documented or widely shared, I found it quite beneficial and recommend giving it a try.

My discovery came through a tweet by Keith Pitt, the co-founder and current CEO of Buildkite. He mentioned this feature in a post, sparking interest among users.

The video titled "How to Build This | S1E4 Building the Foundation for your Big Data App" provides further insights into Buildkite's functionalities.

In response to Keith's tweet, Buildkite user Ryan Bigg expressed his enthusiasm to utilize this feature. Eventually, Pitt disclosed that by visiting an individual build page and appending "/waterfall" to the end of the URL, users can access this new visualization interface.

This new feature is particularly useful for observing which steps execute in parallel and understanding when they initiate. You can also compare the relative duration of each step against others. I anticipate that once Buildkite resolves any existing bugs and refines this feature, it will gain wider recognition. For now, consider yourself part of an exclusive group of early adopters.