Performance

You’ve probably heard developers talk about “CI/CD pipelines” or “automated deployments” and wondered what that actually means for your website. Maybe you’ve been in meetings where technical terms get thrown around, and you nod along but aren’t quite sure how it all connects to what you care about: getting content live quickly, keeping the site fast, and avoiding broken pages.

Here’s the truth: CI/CD isn’t just developer jargon—it’s the automation system that makes your website faster, more reliable, and safer to update. And understanding the basics can help you make better decisions about your digital infrastructure.

If you’ve been building front-end applications for the past decade, Webpack has probably been a constant companion—sometimes helpful, often frustrating, occasionally infuriating. Those 30-second (or 3-minute) build times. That sprawling configuration file that no one fully understands. The mysterious “Module not found” errors that appear only in production.

Then you hear about Vite. Cold server starts in milliseconds. Hot module replacement that actually feels instant. Configuration so simple you wonder if you’re missing something.

At DrupalCon Atlanta 2025, I had the privilege of presenting “Tag! You’re It. Digital ‘freeze’ tag with GTM” - a session exploring how to master Google Tag Manager while balancing the competing demands of privacy compliance and website performance.

The Modern Tag Management Challenge

For marketers and developers alike, Google Tag Manager (GTM) has become an indispensable tool. It simplifies the deployment and management of various tags across your website - analytics tags, marketing pixels, tracking scripts, and more - all without requiring coding skills for each change.