Ship more, spend less

AI is generating more code than ever, but each extra CI cycle it takes to ship now carries real cost: compute, tokens, and developer time. This Q2 Pulse report, built on data from 20 million real CI workflows, introduces Merge Efficiency Ratio (MER), a new metric that tracks how many validation cycles it takes to ship one change, and shows why MER is becoming the number engineering leaders need to watch.

We profiled 20 elite organizations that grew main-branch throughput 72% in a year while cutting cost per shipped change by 31%. Their habits are practical, measurable, and point to the same conclusion: the teams pulling ahead are catching failures in the inner loop before code reaches CI.

In this report, you’ll learn:

• How MER connects delivery speed to cost, and why it matters more as AI increases code volume
• What the Top 20 do differently, and how those habits apply to any team
• How slow outer-loop feedback could cost teams nearly $1M a year, and how inner-loop validation cuts that by more than 75%