The Slack thread started with a screenshot of a green GitHub Actions run. By the third reply someone had pasted a Lighthouse JSON artefact, a link to a Chrome release note, and a question nobody wanted to own: "Which client repository still pins Lighthouse 10?"
That is the week Lighthouse CI stopped being a merge gate and became a second job. The pipeline still passed and the portfolio still needed evidence, but the difference was who paid in hours: the developer shipping a feature, or the one person who inherited every lighthouserc file across client repositories.
When does Lighthouse CI maintenance outgrow a CI/CD pipeline?
Lighthouse CI earns its place early. You wire assertions on a preview URL, block a CLS regression, and the team trusts the red build. The cost is front-loaded configuration, not ongoing calendar time.
The shift happens when success creates obligations a CI/CD pipeline was never designed to carry:
