What causes CI recompiling all shaders on every build?

Shaders are recompiled from scratch each CI run because the shader cache is not shared, adding minutes to every build.

How do I catch this when it only happens for some players?

Capture it automatically from the player's device with the full stack trace, the device and OS, the build, and a breadcrumb trail of what they did. That turns a vague complaint into a specific, reproducible issue you can fix without owning the hardware it happens on.

How to Cache Shader Compilation in CI

Quick answer: Share the shader/derived cache across CI runs keyed on shader inputs so unchanged shaders are reused instead of recompiled every build.

Recompiling every shader on each CI run is wasted time. A shared shader cache fixes it. Here is how.

How to fix it

1. Persist the shader cache

Store the compiled shader cache between runs so unchanged shaders are not rebuilt.

2. Key on shader inputs

Invalidate the cache only when shader source or settings change.

3. Share across machines

Use a network or cloud cache so every runner benefits, not just one.

Catching the ones you can't reproduce

The hardest version of this to fix is the one you can't reproduce — it only happens on a player's hardware, OS, driver, or save state, under conditions that simply aren't present on your machine. A report that says “it crashed” or “it froze” gives you nothing to act on, so the bug survives release after release while quietly costing you players.

Automatic error capture closes that gap. Each failure arrives with its full stack trace, the device and OS, the build number, and a breadcrumb trail of what the player did right before it broke, so even a failure you have never seen becomes a specific, reproducible issue. Fold identical failures into one signature ranked by how many players each hits, and your worklist sorts itself worst-first instead of arriving as a stream of vague complaints.

This is where a tool like Bugnet earns its place. Its SDK captures every error automatically with the full stack trace plus device, OS, memory, build, and game-state context, folds duplicates into one grouped issue with an occurrence count, and ties each to the build it first appeared on — so you fix the problem that hurts the most players first and confirm it is gone when its signature disappears from the next release.

Reproduce it once with full context and the fix writes itself. The hunt is the expensive part.