QA and release engineering · Independent work
Catching a broken layout after a successful deployment
An actual stale-stylesheet incident turned into a reproducible finding and a deployment regression check.
The problem
A successful deployment and HTTP 200 responses did not guarantee a usable page. Cloudflare served the new Services HTML alongside an older cached stylesheet, leaving oversized images and an unstructured layout.
My contribution
Investigation and regression coverage on this independently maintained website. The public example demonstrates how an observable problem becomes a scoped report and a repeatable check; it is not confidential enterprise or client work.
Implementation decisions
Reproduce the visitor's experience
Inspect the ordinary live page without bypassing its cache, then compare the returned CSS with the intended asset. This separates a delivery problem from a missing layout implementation.
Check content, not only status codes
Use content-based asset versions and verify that the stylesheet and script bodies match the versions referenced by the HTML.
Keep the failure reproducible
Simulate the stale-cache condition in browser tests and assert the responsive grids, image bounds and navigation rather than relying only on a screenshot or a deployment badge.
Public, inspectable QA evidence
The sample finding below includes the environment, reproduction steps, expected and actual behavior, resolution and targeted regression coverage. The linked workflow and source tests show the check implementation.
Sample QA finding · Own website
KQA-001: New page rendered with an older cached stylesheet
- Observed
- Status
- Resolved in commit 96da064
- Environment
- GitHub Pages origin behind Cloudflare. The new Services HTML was available while the unversioned /style.css response still contained the older stylesheet.
- Impact
- High visual impact on the affected page: missing card layouts, oversized portfolio images and horizontal overflow on narrow viewports. This finding does not establish a data-security impact.
Reproduction
- Open the new /services/ page while the CDN serves the earlier /style.css response.
- Inspect the service and portfolio sections at a narrow viewport.
- Check the stylesheet body as well as its HTTP status.
Expected
The new HTML receives the matching stylesheet; service cards use the responsive grid and portfolio images remain within their frames.
Actual
The stylesheet returned HTTP 200 but lacked the Services rules. Images overflowed their containers and the intended grids were absent.
Resolution
Content-based versions were added to shared CSS and JavaScript URLs. Build and production checks verify that referenced asset bytes match their versions.
Regression checks
- Simulate stale unversioned CSS and JavaScript and verify that the page requests versioned URLs instead.
- Assert grid layout, bounded image sizes and no horizontal overflow at 320, 768, 861 and 1280 CSS pixels.
- Check both themes, quote destinations and relevant navigation journeys in Chromium, Firefox and WebKit.
A snapshot of one observed issue and its targeted checks. It is not a complete website audit, independent certification or evidence of coverage for a customer's system.
Download sample finding (JSON)The result and its limits
The fix was deployed in commit 96da064 on November 11, 2026. Its public workflow passed, and the live page was checked without a cache bypass in Chromium, Firefox and WebKit. This records that verification snapshot, not a guarantee about every future release.
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