Comment by SideburnsOfDoom

The issue that I see is that "Continuous integration" is the practice of frequently merging to main.

Continuous: do it often, daily or more often

Integration: merging changes to main

He's talking about build tools, which are a _support system_ for actual CI, but are not a substitute for it. These systems allow you to Continuously integrate, quickly and safely. But they aren't the thing itself. Using them without frequent merges to main is common, but isn't CI. It's branch maintenance.

Yes, semantic drift is a thing, but you won't get the actual benefits of the actual practice if you do something else.

If you want to talk "misdirected CI", start there.