Skip to content
Latchkey

Memory Leak - CI/CD Glossary Definition

A memory leak is unreleased, unreferenced memory that accumulates until the process runs out of memory.

A memory leak is memory that a program allocates but never frees and no longer references, so usage grows over time. Enough leaking eventually exhausts memory and the process is killed.

A memory leak is memory that a program allocates but never frees and no longer references, so usage grows over time. Enough leaking eventually exhausts memory and the process is killed.

In CI

Leaks often surface in CI as an out-of-memory kill (exit 137) during long test runs rather than a clear error. Leak detectors (LeakSanitizer, valgrind --leak-check) run as a CI job pinpoint the allocation site before it reaches production.

Related guides

Run this faster and cheaper on Latchkey managed runners. Start free →