How we reduced our CI YAML files from 1800 lines to 50 lines

This post details the Cauldron ML Platform team's adoption of GitLab's dynamic child pipelines to manage complex CI configurations. They transitioned from nested child files and large, inlined CI YAML files to a dynamic generation approach. This involved using a Rust-based utility with stop patterns to parse Git diffs and template necessary stages on the fly, reducing a 1800-line CI file to 50 lines. This improved scalability, maintainability, and developer productivity by adhering to DRY principles.