The Boolean That Lied
I set IS_RELEASE_CANDIDATE=false in the pipeline config. Ten minutes later,
production shipped a release nobody signed off on.
The flag was right. The intent was right. But somewhere between the YAML file
and the deployment script, false stopped meaning false. The parser read the
string "false" as a non-empty value, and non-empty meant truthy. My kill
switch had flipped itself the moment I set it.
I've since learned this wasn't a fluke. It's a pattern with a name, and it bites teams that treat configuration as an afterthought.