mcpbeat Sign in

Pipeline Blueprint Skill for Claude

by zebbern

Provide CI/CD best practices and pipeline templates for GitHub Actions and GitLab CI, recommending configurations based on project type (frontend, backend, fullstack, library, monorepo, mobile). Trigger when users ask about setting up CI/CD, automating builds, improving pipelines, or mention keywords like GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, pipeline templates, or deployment automation.

4k tokens
context cost
the whole folder, loaded on every use
2
files
instructions only
0
copies elsewhere
how many repositories repackaged it
4468
stars on the repo
on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository 
npx skills add https://github.com/zebbern/claude-code-guide --skill pipeline-blueprint

What comes with it

1 070 bytes besides the instruction
LICENSE

The instruction itself

27 sections, as written by the author

CI/CD Configuration Best Practices

This skill provides CI/CD pipeline templates and best practices for GitHub Actions and GitLab CI. It recommends configurations based on project type, helping teams quickly set up reliable, secure, and efficient pipelines.

How to Use

When a user describes their project (language, framework, deployment target), recommend the most appropriate pipeline template below. Adapt stages, caching strategies, and deployment steps to match their stack.

General Best Practices

Pipeline Design Principles

  • Fail fast: Run linting and unit tests before expensive integration or E2E tests.
  • Cache aggressively: Cache dependency directories (node_modules, .pip_cache, .m2, .gradle) to speed up builds.
  • Pin versions: Pin CI runner images, tool versions, and action versions to SHA or exact tags — never use latest.
  • Least privilege: Use minimal permissions for tokens and credentials. Prefer OIDC over long-lived secrets where supported.
  • Parallelize: Split test suites across parallel jobs. Use matrix builds for multi-version testing.
  • Immutable artifacts: Build once, promote the same artifact through staging → production.
  • Branch protection: Require CI to pass before merging. Use status checks on the default branch.

Security Checklist

  • Never hardcode secrets in pipeline files; use the platform's secret management (GitHub Secrets / GitLab CI Variables).
  • Audit third-party actions/images before use. Prefer official or verified sources.
  • Enable dependency scanning (Dependabot, GitLab Dependency Scanning) and SAST where possible.
  • Restrict who can trigger production deployments.
  • Rotate secrets on a regular cadence.

Project Type Templates

1. Frontend (React / Vue / Angular / Static Sites)

Key stages: Install → Lint → Test → Build → Deploy

GitHub Actions
name: Frontend CI/CD

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  ci:
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: npm

      - run: npm ci

      - run: npm run lint

      - run: npm test -- --coverage

      - run: npm run build

      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: dist
          path: dist/

  deploy:
    needs: ci
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main' && github.event_name == 'push'
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    environment: production
    steps:
      - uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: dist
          path: dist/

      # Replace with your deployment step (e.g., S3 sync, Cloudflare Pages, Vercel)
      - name: Deploy
        run: echo "Add your deployment command here"
GitLab CI
stages:
  - install
  - lint
  - test
  - build
  - deploy

default:
  image: node:20-slim
  cache:
    key: ${CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG}
    paths:
      - node_modules/

install:
  stage: install
  script:
    - npm ci

lint:
  stage: lint
  script:
    - npm run lint

test:
  stage: test
  script:
    - npm test -- --coverage
  artifacts:
    reports:
      coverage_report:
        coverage_format: cobertura
        path: coverage/cobertura-coverage.xml

build:
  stage: build
  script:
    - npm run build
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - dist/

deploy:
  stage: deploy
  script:
    - echo "Add your deployment command here"
  environment:
    name: production
  rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == "main"
      when: on_success

2. Backend (Node.js / Python / Go / Java)

Key stages: Install → Lint → Test → Build → Docker Build → Deploy

GitHub Actions (Python example)
name: Backend CI/CD

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

permissions:
  contents: read
  packages: write

jobs:
  ci:
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    services:
      postgres:
        image: postgres:16
        env:
          POSTGRES_USER: test
          POSTGRES_PASSWORD: test
          POSTGRES_DB: testdb
        ports:
          - 5432:5432
        options: >-
          --health-cmd pg_isready
          --health-interval 10s
          --health-timeout 5s
          --health-retries 5

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: "3.12"
          cache: pip

      - run: pip install -r requirements.txt

      - run: ruff check .

      - run: pytest --cov --cov-report=xml
        env:
          DATABASE_URL: postgresql://test:test@localhost:5432/testdb

  docker:
    needs: ci
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main' && github.event_name == 'push'
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: docker/setup-buildx-action@v3

      - uses: docker/login-action@v3
        with:
          registry: ghcr.io
          username: ${{ github.actor }}
          password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

      - uses: docker/build-push-action@v5
        with:
          context: .
          push: true
          tags: ghcr.io/${{ github.repository }}:${{ github.sha }}
          cache-from: type=gha
          cache-to: type=gha,mode=max
GitLab CI (Python example)
stages:
  - test
  - build
  - deploy

variables:
  PIP_CACHE_DIR: "$CI_PROJECT_DIR/.pip_cache"

default:
  image: python:3.12-slim

test:
  stage: test
  services:
    - postgres:16
  variables:
    POSTGRES_USER: test
    POSTGRES_PASSWORD: test
    POSTGRES_DB: testdb
    DATABASE_URL: postgresql://test:test@postgres:5432/testdb
  cache:
    key: pip
    paths:
      - .pip_cache/
  script:
    - pip install -r requirements.txt
    - ruff check .
    - pytest --cov --cov-report=xml
  artifacts:
    reports:
      coverage_report:
        coverage_format: cobertura
        path: coverage.xml

build-image:
  stage: build
  image: docker:24
  services:
    - docker:24-dind
  variables:
    DOCKER_TLS_CERTDIR: "/certs"
  script:
    - docker login -u $CI_REGISTRY_USER -p $CI_REGISTRY_PASSWORD $CI_REGISTRY
    - docker build -t $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE:$CI_COMMIT_SHA .
    - docker push $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE:$CI_COMMIT_SHA
  rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == "main"

deploy:
  stage: deploy
  script:
    - echo "Add your deployment command here"
  environment:
    name: production
  rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == "main"
      when: manual

3. Library / Package (npm / PyPI / Maven)

Key stages: Lint → Test (matrix) → Build → Publish

GitHub Actions (npm library example)
name: Library CI/CD

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
    tags: ["v*"]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

permissions:
  contents: read
  id-token: write

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    strategy:
      matrix:
        node-version: [18, 20, 22]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
          cache: npm

      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm test

  publish:
    needs: test
    if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/v')
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          registry-url: https://registry.npmjs.org
          cache: npm

      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run build
      - run: npm publish --provenance --access public
        env:
          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
GitLab CI (PyPI library example)
stages:
  - test
  - publish

test:
  stage: test
  image: python:${PYTHON_VERSION}-slim
  parallel:
    matrix:
      - PYTHON_VERSION: ["3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]
  script:
    - pip install -e ".[dev]"
    - ruff check .
    - pytest

publish:
  stage: publish
  image: python:3.12-slim
  script:
    - pip install build twine
    - python -m build
    - twine upload dist/*
  variables:
    TWINE_USERNAME: __token__
    TWINE_PASSWORD: $PYPI_TOKEN
  rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_TAG =~ /^v/

4. Fullstack (Frontend + Backend monorepo)

Key stages: Detect changes → Run affected pipelines → Integration test → Deploy

GitHub Actions
name: Fullstack CI/CD

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  changes:
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    outputs:
      frontend: ${{ steps.filter.outputs.frontend }}
      backend: ${{ steps.filter.outputs.backend }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: dorny/paths-filter@v3
        id: filter
        with:
          filters: |
            frontend:
              - 'frontend/**'
            backend:
              - 'backend/**'

  frontend:
    needs: changes
    if: needs.changes.outputs.frontend == 'true'
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    defaults:
      run:
        working-directory: frontend
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: npm
          cache-dependency-path: frontend/package-lock.json
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm test
      - run: npm run build

  backend:
    needs: changes
    if: needs.changes.outputs.backend == 'true'
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    defaults:
      run:
        working-directory: backend
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: "3.12"
          cache: pip
          cache-dependency-path: backend/requirements.txt
      - run: pip install -r requirements.txt
      - run: ruff check .
      - run: pytest

  e2e:
    needs: [frontend, backend]
    if: always() && !cancelled() && !contains(needs.*.result, 'failure')
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Run E2E tests
        run: echo "Add E2E test command (e.g., Playwright, Cypress)"

5. Monorepo (Turborepo / Nx / Lerna)

GitHub Actions (Turborepo example)
name: Monorepo CI

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  ci:
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 2

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: npm

      - run: npm ci

      - run: npx turbo run lint test build --filter='...[HEAD^]'
        env:
          TURBO_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.TURBO_TOKEN }}
          TURBO_TEAM: ${{ vars.TURBO_TEAM }}

6. Mobile (React Native / Flutter)

GitHub Actions (React Native / Android example)
name: Mobile CI

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: npm

      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm test

  android-build:
    needs: test
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-java@v4
        with:
          distribution: temurin
          java-version: 17
          cache: gradle

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: npm

      - run: npm ci

      - name: Build Android
        working-directory: android
        run: ./gradlew assembleRelease

      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: android-apk
          path: android/app/build/outputs/apk/release/*.apk

Advanced Patterns

Reusable Workflows (GitHub Actions)

Extract common CI logic into reusable workflows to reduce duplication across repositories:

# .github/workflows/reusable-node-ci.yml
name: Reusable Node CI

on:
  workflow_call:
    inputs:
      node-version:
        type: string
        default: "20"
      working-directory:
        type: string
        default: "."

jobs:
  ci:
    runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
    defaults:
      run:
        working-directory: ${{ inputs.working-directory }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: ${{ inputs.node-version }}
          cache: npm
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm test
      - run: npm run build

GitLab CI Include Templates

# Use shared templates to standardize pipelines across projects
include:
  - template: Security/SAST.gitlab-ci.yml
  - template: Security/Dependency-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml
  - project: 'my-org/ci-templates'
    ref: main
    file: '/templates/node-ci.yml'

Environment Protection Rules

  • GitHub: Use environment protection rules with required reviewers for production deployments.
  • GitLab: Use when: manual with allow_failure: false for gated deployments.

Caching Strategy Summary

| Ecosystem | Cache Key | Cache Path |

|------------|------------------------|-----------------------------|

| Node (npm) | package-lock.json | ~/.npm or node_modules/ |

| Python | requirements.txt | ~/.cache/pip |

| Go | go.sum | ~/go/pkg/mod |

| Java | build.gradle / pom.xml | ~/.gradle/caches / ~/.m2 |

| Rust | Cargo.lock | ~/.cargo and target/ |

Decision Guide: Which Template to Use

| Your project looks like… | Recommended template |

|-------------------------------------------------|----------------------|

| Single-page app, static site, or SSR frontend | Frontend |

| REST API, microservice, or server app | Backend |

| npm/PyPI/Maven package for others to install | Library |

| Frontend + backend in one repo | Fullstack |

| Multiple packages managed by Turborepo/Nx/Lerna | Monorepo |

| React Native or Flutter app | Mobile |

Other skills for the same job

different authors, same section of the catalogue
Azure Kubernetes Automatic Readiness
by microsoft
vendor ×3

Assess Kubernetes workloads and cluster configuration for AKS Automatic compatibility. Identifies incompatibilities, generates fixes, and guides migration from AKS Standard to AKS Automatic. WHEN: migrate to AKS Automatic, check AKS Automatic readiness, validate manifests for Automatic, assess cluster for Automatic compatibility, fix deployment for Automatic compatibility, identify AKS Automatic migration blockers, is my cluster ready for AKS Automatic.

13k tokens
Capacity
by microsoft
vendor ×3

Discovers available Azure OpenAI model capacity across regions and projects. Analyzes quota limits, compares availability, and recommends optimal deployment locations based on capacity requirements. USE FOR: find capacity, check quota, where can I deploy, capacity discovery, best region for capacity, multi-project capacity search, quota analysis, model availability, region comparison, check TPM availability. DO NOT USE FOR: actual deployment (hand off to preset or customize after discovery), quota increase requests (direct user to Azure Portal), listing existing deployments.

6k tokens scripts
Customize
by microsoft
vendor ×3

Interactive guided deployment flow for Azure OpenAI models with full customization control. Step-by-step selection of model version, SKU (GlobalStandard/Standard/ProvisionedManaged), capacity, RAI policy (content filter), and advanced options (dynamic quota, priority processing, spillover). USE FOR: custom deployment, customize model deployment, choose version, select SKU, set capacity, configure content filter, RAI policy, deployment options, detailed deployment, advanced deployment, PTU deployment, provisioned throughput. DO NOT USE FOR: quick deployment to optimal region (use preset).

8k tokens
Deploy Model
by microsoft
vendor ×3

Unified Azure OpenAI model deployment skill with intelligent intent-based routing. Handles quick preset deployments, fully customized deployments (version/SKU/capacity/RAI policy), and capacity discovery across regions and projects. USE FOR: deploy model, deploy gpt, create deployment, model deployment, deploy openai model, set up model, provision model, find capacity, check model availability, where can I deploy, best region for model, capacity analysis. DO NOT USE FOR: listing existing deployments (use foundry_models_deployments_list MCP tool), deleting deployments, agent creation (use agent/create), project creation (use project/create).

26k tokens scripts
Preset
by microsoft
vendor ×3

Intelligently deploys Azure OpenAI models to optimal regions by analyzing capacity across all available regions. Automatically checks current region first and shows alternatives if needed. USE FOR: quick deployment, optimal region, best region, automatic region selection, fast setup, multi-region capacity check, high availability deployment, deploy to best location. DO NOT USE FOR: custom SKU selection (use customize), specific version selection (use customize), custom capacity configuration (use customize), PTU deployments (use customize).

9k tokens
Lamindb
by christophacham
×3

This skill should be used when working with LaminDB, an open-source data framework for biology that makes data queryable, traceable, reproducible, and FAIR. Use when managing biological datasets (scRNA-seq, spatial, flow cytometry, etc.), tracking computational workflows, curating and validating data with biological ontologies, building data lakehouses, or ensuring data lineage and reproducibility in biological research. Covers data management, annotation, ontologies (genes, cell types, diseases, tissues), schema validation, integrations with workflow managers (Nextflow, Snakemake) and MLOps platforms (W&B, MLflow), and deployment strategies.

22k tokens
Latchbio Integration
by christophacham
×3

Latch platform for bioinformatics workflows. Build pipelines with Latch SDK, @workflow/@task decorators, deploy serverless workflows, LatchFile/LatchDir, Nextflow/Snakemake integration.

12k tokens
Modal
by christophacham
×3

Run Python code in the cloud with serverless containers, GPUs, and autoscaling. Use when deploying ML models, running batch processing jobs, scheduling compute-intensive tasks, or serving APIs that require GPU acceleration or dynamic scaling.

17k tokens

How to use it

Copy the folder

Take zebbern/pipeline-blueprint from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.

Install what it needs

The instructions reference pip, npx. Without those the skill loads but fails at the first command.