Why we publish dry-run switches on every pipeline exercise

Dry-run switches force learners to articulate what would happen before anything mutates. In exercises we intentionally ship ambiguous specs so the first instinct might be wrong; the dry-run output becomes the teaching moment.

We log dry-run attempts with timestamps and parameters. That habit carries into capstones where reviewers scan logs before approving merges. It is a small discipline with outsized impact on trust between desks.

We also compare dry-run outputs to toy fixtures checked into Git. When they diverge, learners chase whether the spec drifted or the code did—a useful mirror of cross-org workflow changes.

None of this requires fancy infrastructure. A boolean flag, a branch in code, and a Markdown note in the pull request template suffice, which keeps the pattern portable across employers.