Introduction CI/CD artifact upload failures block the entire pipeline. When build outputs cannot be stored for downstream jobs or deployment, the pipeline cannot proceed.

Symptoms - Error: "Failed to upload artifact: file size exceeds limit" - Error: "Upload timeout after 300s" - Error: "Access denied to artifact storage" - Downstream jobs cannot find expected artifacts - Artifact storage quota exceeded

Common Causes - Artifact exceeds maximum size limit - Storage backend quota exceeded - Network timeout during large artifact upload - Artifact retention policy deleting artifacts before downstream use - Storage backend credentials expired

Step-by-Step Fix 1. **Check artifact size**: ```bash du -sh artifact/ # Compare with pipeline limits # GitHub Actions: 5GB per artifact # GitLab CI: 1GB per artifact (free tier) ```

  1. 1.Compress artifacts before upload:
  2. 2.```yaml
  3. 3.# GitHub Actions
  4. 4.- name: Compress
  5. 5.run: tar -czf build.tar.gz dist/
  6. 6.- name: Upload
  7. 7.uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
  8. 8.with:
  9. 9.name: build
  10. 10.path: build.tar.gz
  11. 11.`
  12. 12.Use external storage for large artifacts:
  13. 13.```bash
  14. 14.aws s3 cp build/ s3://my-artifacts/$CI_COMMIT_SHA/ --recursive
  15. 15.`

Prevention - Compress artifacts before upload - Set appropriate artifact retention periods - Use external storage (S3, GCS) for large artifacts - Monitor artifact storage usage and quota - Clean up unnecessary files before artifact upload