  Continuous integration (CI) has become a ubiquitous practice in modern
software development, with major code hosting services offering free automation
on popular platforms. CI offers major benefits, as it enables detecting bugs in
code prior to committing changes. While high-performance computing (HPC)
research relies heavily on software, HPC machines are not considered "common"
platforms. This presents several challenges that hinder the adoption of CI in
HPC environments, making it difficult to maintain bug-free HPC projects, and
resulting in adverse effects on the research community. In this article, we
explore the challenges that impede HPC CI, such as hardware diversity,
security, isolation, administrative policies, and non-standard authentication,
environments, and job submission mechanisms. We propose several solutions that
could enhance the quality of HPC software and the experience of developers.
Implementing these solutions would require significant changes at HPC centers,
but if these changes are made, it would ultimately enable faster and better
science.
