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CI Pipeline Duration Calculator

Work out ci pipeline duration instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About CI Pipeline Duration Calculator

Pipeline duration is the sum of its serial stages, and the stage taking the largest share is where optimisation pays. The ten-minute figure matters because beyond it developers stop waiting and switch context, which turns a fast fix into a next-day fix. Caching dependencies, parallelising tests and splitting deploy out of the merge-blocking path are the usual levers.

Formula

Pipeline duration

total = checkout + build + test + deploy; bottleneck share = largest stage / total

Worked example

With the default values below, CI Pipeline Duration Calculator returns Total pipeline duration of 990. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Checkout and setupminimum 0 s
40 s
Build and compileminimum 0 s
320 s
Test stageminimum 0 s
480 s
Package and deployminimum 0 s
150 s

Results

Total pipeline duration
990 s
Duration in minutes
16.5 min
Bottleneck stage
Test at 48.5 percent of the pipeline
Feedback loop assessment
Acceptable but slower than the ten-minute ideal

Step by step

  1. 1Values used
  2. 2Pipeline duration
  3. 3Total pipeline duration= 990 s
  4. 4Duration in minutes= 16.5 min
  5. 5Bottleneck stage= Test at 48.5 percent of the pipeline
  6. 6Feedback loop assessment= Acceptable but slower than the ten-minute ideal

Assumptions and limits

  • The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
  • In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
  • Figures are rounded for display to 1 decimal place, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is ten minutes the target?

It is roughly the limit of a developer's willingness to wait. Continuous delivery guidance treats the commit stage as needing to complete inside ten minutes to keep the feedback loop tight.

Should deployment be inside the blocking pipeline?

Only the packaging step. Deploying to production is usually a separate pipeline so pull requests are not gated on environment availability.

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