How Agile Shift-Left Is Revolutionizing Software Development
By Vasdev Gullapalli
Agile shift-left is a software development strategy that emphasizes moving activities such as code reviews, quality assurance, security integration, secrets scanning, and static/dynamic code analysis to the earlier development life cycle phases. By performing checks earlier and more frequently, software quality is improved, and security risks are reduced.
Cultural change and developer buy-in are foundational requirements of successful shift-left implementation. These efforts pay off in significant cost savings, as software flaws are much cheaper to fix earlier in development than later in the process. DevOps platforms, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI) make it easier than ever for companies to balance speed and quality in Agile shift-left workflows.
Software development has evolved dramatically since the days of waterfall project management. Today, reliability and security are more prominent in product expectations — usable, secure, and defect-free software is the gold standard. The shift-left Agile approach addresses these concerns by facilitating quicker turnaround times, incremental deliverables, more frequent client input, and higher success rates.
In a typical Agile workflow, teams start the planning and development process on the left and move to the right as a project enters production. Where security and quality assurance were introduced later in the process, shift-left leverages Agile practices to include bug testing at the earliest planning and development stages. This approach reduces the likelihood of significant flaws and vulnerabilities entering the production phase and eventually being shipped out to customers.
Shift-left addresses concerns as they arise with early testing and automation, facilitating smoother and faster integration and deployment. In a successful shift-left scenario, software quality is high, automation is effective, and customer experience is improved.
Save Time and Money with Early Fixes
A well-known study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NSIT) — “Impact of Inadequate Software Testing Infrastructure” — highlights how poor testing practices affect the economy. The study reveals that gaps in testing cost the U.S. economy about $59.5 billion per year. Another study by CrossTalk found that companies take up to 150 times longer to remediate an issue found in production than earlier during the requirements stage. Statistics like these make the case for shifting testing left, thereby allowing teams to identify and address flaws early.
Today’s software development life cycles (SDLCs) include considerable collaboration efforts that require complex webs of interconnected tools and components, from open source and commercial tools to cloud configuration files and deployment specifications. With so many moving parts, quality assurance and security are an ongoing challenge.
Developers can also become incentivized to overlook security standards under pressure to speed up production and take on ever-greater workloads. A 2023 study surveyed 500 developers and found that 77% had become responsible for additional code testing in the last year, while 67% reported pushing code to production without testing.
While shift-left may cost more in the short term, in most cases, the long-term savings more than make up for the initial investment. Bugs discovered after a product release can cost up to 640 times more than those caught during development. In addition, late detection can increase the risk of fines from security breaches and cause damage to a brand’s trust.
Automation tools are the primary answer to these concerns and are at the core of what makes shift-left possible. The popular tech industry mantra “automate everything” continues to apply. Static analysis, dynamic analysis, and software composition analysis tools scan for known vulnerabilities and common bugs, producing instant feedback as code is first merged into development branches. In recent years, vendors such as Gitlab, GitHub, Azure DevOps, and others have developed built-in code scanning applications, allowing teams to move forward quickly and avoid reinventing the wheel.
Shift-Left in Practice
Like most software strategies, shift-left initiatives vary from company to company based on business context, with the common denominator being visibility early in the software assembly stage. Developers at IBM have credited automation of cloud infrastructure and containerization as key elements of their shift-left approach. Containers are bundles of software executables that include all the dependencies and libraries they need to run, allowing for greater portability and less friction between testing environments. IBM’s automated toolchain scans each container for flaws and vulnerabilities in source code, cloud configurations, and third-party integrations. Each pull request is automatically tested for traditional bugs and its impact on the entire CI/CD pipeline, which includes big-picture compliance and security checks.
Microsoft has referenced the importance of organizational structure and team communication when discussing shift-left initiatives. Key challenges for Microsoft included inconsistent coding standards across teams and siloed communications. Its solution involved the creation of a central team that focused on “developing a common engineering system based on Microsoft Azure DevOps, while driving consistency across the organization regarding how they design, code, instrument, test, build, and deploy services.”
Best Practices
Shift-left can only be built upon a solid DevOps foundation. Common reasons why shift-left initiatives fail are ineffective application of tools and misaligned goals among stakeholders. An implementation plan and change management strategy must be developed to create clear, actionable steps for developers to take. Best practices begin with introducing appropriate automation tools, which are fine-tuned according to an organization’s use case.
It is also crucial for developers to be set up to succeed with the necessary support, point people to go to with questions, and adequate training on processes and tools. When approached strategically, shift-left can make developers’ daily tasks easier rather than harder. The instant feedback afforded by automation tools can reduce the need to task-switch and review existing code. Beyond out-of-the-box solutions, shift-left automation examples include apps like internal dashboards for observability and custom development portals for error tracking, resources, and alerts. Open dialog can help ensure developers benefit from the tools acquired and built. Once applied, the business impact of shift-left can be measured with metrics like cost comparisons, number of defects, number of support tickets, and customer surveys.
Trending Toward AI
The future of shift-left includes more automation and integration of AI. Code reviews are a critical part of the SDLC — today, most of this work is still done manually. Senior developers often spend valuable time reviewing their team’s code to ensure quality. This process is changing with the rise of AI tools like GitHub Copilot and GitLab Duo. These AI-driven systems can handle code reviews automatically, saving time and boosting code quality. In 2024, GitHub Advanced Security (GHAS) rolled out an AI-assisted code scanner, which included auto-fix suggestions based on the CodeQL engine. A range of comparable options in this AI-driven space include application security scanning tools like Synopsys, Veracode, Checkmarx, and Contrast.
Of course, these tools aren’t cheap — licenses can be expensive for companies. But once they’re in place, they can make a huge difference in how teams work and in the broader job market. If AI tools can fully automate code reviews, the role of senior developers — and the very definition of expertise within development teams — could undergo a major transformation.
Speed, Quality, Consistency
Shift-left balances speed with quality. Performing regular checks on code as it is written reduces the likelihood that significant defects and vulnerabilities will surface after a release. Once software is out in the wild, the cost to fix issues is much higher and requires extensively more work than catching them in the early phases. Despite the advantages of shift-left, navigating the required cultural change can be a challenge. As such, developers must be set up for success with effective tools and proper guidance. When security and quality are managed proactively with these key elements, products have a higher chance of success, and the full benefits of Agile and shift-left are realized.
About the author:
Vasdev Gullapalli is a senior site reliability engineer, DevOps specialist, and manager at Qualcomm, a global communications company. He has 14 years of experience in Agile methodologies, DevOps, and SRE engineering. Vasdev holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Lamar University and an MBA from the University of Colorado Boulder. Connect with Vasdev on LinkedIn.
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