Environment Drift Check

How It Works

This recipe inventories the expected environment and continuously checks for drift using

lightweight probes (versions, checksums, critical env vars).

Triggers

• "It worked yesterday, today it doesn't" with no obvious code change
• CI starts failing after runner image updates or dependency resolver changes
• Multiple repos/services share a toolchain but don't pin versions

Steps

1. Define the "golden" environment contract (runtime versions, package manager, OS assumptions).
2. Add an `env:check` command that prints:

• versions (runtime, package manager, compiler),
• critical env vars presence (not secrets),
• checksums of lockfiles.

1. Run `env:check` in CI and on dev machines (pre-push or pre-commit optional).
2. Alert when drift is detected and link to a fix path (upgrade/downgrade instruction).
3. Store drift events in a small log (so recurring culprits become visible).

Expected Outcome

• Fewer "mystery failures" caused by differing environments.
• Faster triage: drift is confirmed or eliminated in minutes.

Example Inputs

• "Show differences between my machine and CI runner."
• "Detect when Node/Java/Go versions diverge across devs."
• "Warn when lockfile changes aren't committed."

Tips

• Detect drift early; drift is cheaper to fix than a broken release branch.