Outer Loop

Outer Loop image
The set of SDLC activities that happen after a developer's local coding work is complete, including integration, code review, quality assurance, security testing, governance, and deployment. The outer loop is contrasted with the inner loop, which covers the individual developer's fast local cycle. 

When AI tools accelerate the inner loop, the outer loop often becomes the bottleneck, because the teams and tools responsible for those downstream activities have not sped up to match. Quality, security, and DevOps disciplines all live primarily in the outer loop.
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