How Do You Manage Dev/Test Environment Drift in Rapid CI/CD Cycles?

Hello

In our current CI/CD pipeline, one of the persistent issues we’re facing is environment drift between development; staging & testing setups. :innocent: Even with Docker and infrastructure-as-code, small changes like missing config files, outdated dependencies / subtle OS-level differences still cause builds / tests to pass in one environment and fail in another. :upside_down_face:

This is especially frustrating when automated tests give inconsistent results. :upside_down_face:

We have looked into using container snapshots, environment replication tools & feature flags to minimize these inconsistencies. :innocent: But the more services we introduce; the harder it gets to keep everything identical across environments.

I am curious how other teams are tackling this especially in fast-paced DevOps workflows where multiple deployments can happen in a single day. :thinking: Checked Detecting and Managing Drift with Terraform guide for reference .

A junior teammate recently asked me what DevOps is & this issue came up as a perfect real-world example: it’s not just about automation but maintaining consistency & reliability across the software delivery pipeline. :slightly_smiling_face:

If anyone has a setup, tool/pattern that has helped eliminate environment drift, I would love to learn from your experience.

Thank you !! :slightly_smiling_face: