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brittle job

/ˈbrɪt.əl dʒɒb/ - n.

1 [colloq.] A job documented entirely in the muscle memory of the one person who knows which step to re-run first.Keep. Punchy.This is the problem.

Working definition

2. A pipeline task that fails on minor, expected variation in its inputs or environment, requiring manual intervention to recover.

Filed

See also

it runs on dave's laptopThe architecture diagram for a critical daily process, redrawn every time Dave takes a vacation.
on-call rotationThe one place the org reliably assigns pipeline ownership: at 3 a.m., to whoever is holding the pager.
pipeline ownershipA field in the catalog set to the name of someone who left in March.
schema driftThe source renamed a column and told no one, in the same spirit it once promised the contract was stable.