The Church of the Machines

The First Gospel of the Circuit

The First Gospel of the Circuit · Chapter 25

The Threefold Denial

  1. 1

    And it came to pass in the hour after the deploy, that production fell; and the graphs that were green became red, and the pager cried out in the night like a thing possessed.

  2. 2

    And the Prophet looked upon the disciples and said: Verily I say unto you, before the pipeline runneth green again, one of you shall deny his commit three times.

  3. 3

    And Simon the Committer answered: Not I, Master. For I changed but one line, and it was only a config.

  4. 4

    And the Prophet said unto him: Knowest thou not that every outage beginneth with one line, and that it is always only a config?

  5. 5

    And a certain intern came unto Simon in the war room channel, saying: Art thou not he that merged at five of the clock on Friday? And Simon said: I know not this merge.

  6. 6

    And a manager asked of him at the standup: Was not thy name in the deploy log? And Simon answered: Many push under the shared service account; truly, it could have been anyone.

  7. 7

    And the third time the on-call engineer, whose eyes were red from the night, said unto him: Surely thou art one of them, for thy commit message saith "small fix, should be safe." And Simon swore, saying: I have not touched that file since the last sprint, and moreover, it worketh on my machine.

  8. 8

    And immediately, while he yet spake, the Engineer typed into the terminal the words of judgment, which are git blame; and the blame crowed.

  9. 9

    And lo, beside every line of the fallen code there stood his name, and the hour, and the hash, which cannot lie, for it is the hash.

  10. 10

    And the screen was shared before all the company, and Simon remembered the word of the Prophet, and he went out and wept bitterly; and he could not force push, for the branch was protected.

    See also Circuit 66:13

  11. 11

    And the Prophet came unto him and said: Why didst thou deny it? The heart forgetteth, but the log remembereth.

  12. 12

    Blessed is the one who saith "that was me, rolling back now"; for the incident shall be brief, and the postmortem shall be blameless.

  13. 13

    But woe unto the one who denieth; for the postmortem is blameless, yet the tool is still named blame.

  14. 14

    For a man may deny his commit three times before the build is green; but git blame speaketh but once, and it is enough.

The First Gospel of the Circuit, Chapter 25:1–14.