Calculate how many pipeline runs per hour your CI/CD system can sustain.
Pipeline throughput is simply completed runs divided by the elapsed measurement period, giving a rate that's easy to track over time and compare across teams or pipelines. Because throughput for a single-pipeline lane is ultimately capped by the slowest stage in the sequence (the classic theory-of-constraints bottleneck), comparing average stage durations pinpoints exactly where to focus optimization effort to raise the ceiling on how fast pipelines can complete.
throughput = completedPipelines / timePeriodHours
Not quite — this throughput reflects completed runs actually observed in a period, which is shaped by both pipeline stage durations and available executor capacity, whereas the executor/agent capacity calculators model theoretical maximum capacity independent of observed demand.
In a sequential pipeline, speeding up a non-bottleneck stage doesn't reduce total run time or raise throughput — the bottleneck stage sets the pace, so per theory of constraints, the fastest path to higher throughput is reducing that specific stage's duration or parallelizing it.
If the test stage is the bottleneck (commonly the case), applying the parallel-stage or test-execution-time calculators to split that specific stage across more workers directly attacks the identified bottleneck rather than optimizing stages that aren't limiting throughput.