Proposal: Differentiated CI Workflow for PR vs Main Branch

[justinjoy]

CI Workflow Improvement: PR vs Main Branch Strategy

Summary

PR Workflow: Three sequential phases

1. Phase 1: Lint Gates (must pass before build)
   • EditorConfig → clang-format 18 → clang-tidy 18 (Linux only)
2. Phase 2: Build & Test (runs after lint passes)
   • Linux (GCC, Clang) + macOS (Clang)
3. Phase 3: Sanitizers (runs after build/test passes)
   • ASan + UBSan (Linux only)

Main Branch: All checks non-blocking (comprehensive monitoring)

• All checks run with continue-on-error: true
• Results reported to step summary

PR Execution Flow

Phase 1: Lint Gates (All must pass)

1. EditorConfig - ~seconds - HARD GATE
   • Exclude: subprojects/, build/
2. clang-format 18 - ~1-2 min - HARD GATE
   • Exclude: subprojects/**
3. clang-tidy 18 - ~30 min max - HARD GATE (Linux only)
   • Exclude: subprojects/**

Phase 2: Build & Test (Prerequisite: lint passes)

• Matrix:
  • Linux: GCC + Clang
  • macOS: Clang
• fail-fast: true

Phase 3: Sanitizers (Prerequisite: build/test passes)

• Coverage: ASan (Address Sanitizer), UBSan (Undefined Behavior Sanitizer)
• Platform: Linux only (memory/safety issues platform-independent)
• Compilers: GCC + Clang
• fail-fast: true

Main Branch Workflow

• All checks run in parallel
• continue-on-error: true for all
• No merge blocking
• Comprehensive platform coverage (Linux, macOS, Windows)

Benefits

• PR: Clear 3-phase pipeline - lint → build → sanitizers
• Main: Comprehensive diagnostics without blocking
• Efficiency: Early exit on lint failures (saves build time)
• Clarity: Developers know exactly which phase failed
• Cross-platform: Windows support for main branch monitoring

Implementation

GitHub Issues (Implementation Tracking):

• Issue PR CI Workflow: 3-phase validation (lint → build → sanitizers) #117: PR CI Workflow with 3-phase validation
• Issue Main branch CI workflow: Non-blocking comprehensive monitoring #116: Main branch CI workflow with non-blocking monitoring

Status: Architecture finalized, implementation tracked in Issues #116, #117