A quality gate is a checkpoint that evaluates work before it advances to the next production or delivery stage. In software, automated tests can protect the pipeline from broken changes and reduce the QA team’s burden of rediscovering familiar bugs. section 3.0 section 3.6
Put testing before building
A practical pipeline runs tests before the build. If the tests fail, later work is stopped instead of wasting time building or shipping code that does not work as intended. A GitHub Actions workflow can make the build depend on the test job with `needs: test`, creating a clear first gate while leaving room for later guards, deployments, or parallel steps. section 3.6
The same idea appears outside software: checking ingredients before cooking prevents a spoiled main ingredient from wasting the rest of the preparation. Quality gates protect each subsequent stage from avoidable rework. section 3.6
