# CVS Health's journey from legacy tools to seamless developer experience | GitHub Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2WRT2eXISU Recap page: https://rapidrecap.app/video/w2WRT2eXISU Generated: 2025-11-23T15:34:45.568+00:00 --- ## Quick Overview CVS Health successfully migrated over 150,000 repositories and thousands of CI/CD pipelines from nine legacy tools into GitHub Enterprise Managed Users (EMU) and GitHub Actions, achieving 100% migration by Q2-Q3 2027, which significantly reduced cognitive load and operational burden for its 10,000+ developers. **Key Points:** - CVS Health undertook the 'Repo Rally' to transform the Developer Experience (DevEx) for over 10,000 developers by migrating to a unified GitHub platform. - The migration involved over 150,000+ repositories and thousands of pipelines, moving from nine different CI/CD tools into GitHub Actions. - The execution followed a phased approach, starting with 15% completion in Q4 2020 (Discovery/Planning) and culminating in 100% migration by Q2-Q3 2021 (Migrate GitLab Repos using GitHub CI/CD to GitHub Actions). - Key challenges included a fragmented ecosystem, inconsistent workflows, manual communication, and the operational burden of maintaining legacy tooling. - The solution involved developing an app to manage migrations, automating communication via event-driven emails, and implementing enhanced migration scripts with error handling and automated validations. - The next phase focuses on AI-powered GitHub consolidation, leveraging GitHub Copilot and Agent Mode to automate the migration of 750+ templates and 50,000+ jobs, cutting migration time and manual overhead. - The ultimate goal is empowering teams for innovation by eliminating repetitive tasks and operational drag, allowing developers to focus on strategic innovation and value creation. ![Screenshot at 14:47: Irene Modeste detailing the 'Migration outcomes' timeline, showing progress from 15% completion in Q4 2020 to 100% migration to GitHub Actions by Q2-Q3 2021.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/w2WRT2eXISU/00-14-47.png) **Context:** Jim Beyers, VP of Developer Experience at CVS Health, introduced the presentation by outlining the company's mission to be the leading and most trusted healthcare provider, emphasizing that their developer experience transformation is crucial for supporting this mission across their diverse businesses (Health Care Benefits, Health Services, Pharmacy and Consumer Wellness). He detailed the initial challenges of a fragmented developer ecosystem involving over ten different CI/CD tools, which created significant overhead and slowed down cross-team collaboration and innovation. ## Detailed Analysis Jim Beyers opened the session by establishing CVS Health's mission and the necessity of transforming the developer experience for their 10,000+ engineers to deliver better healthcare solutions. He highlighted the problem: developers were using over ten different CI/CD tools, leading to a fragmented ecosystem, inconsistent workflows, and significant operational burden on platform teams who spent time maintaining legacy tooling instead of focusing on strategic work. Following Beyers, Mitch Enderle detailed the migration process, which involved standardizing CI/CD tools, automating migrations using Python and Jenkins scripts, and communicating proactively. The migration outcomes showed aggressive phasing, reaching 100% migration of GitLab Repos using GitHub Actions by Q2-Q3 2021. Finally, Irene Modeste detailed the execution evolution, covering challenges like slow progress, corrupted spreadsheets, and manual steps. The solutions included mandatory assigned migration dates, an app to manage migrations, automated event-driven emails, enhanced migration scripts with error handling, automated triggers, and validations. This process ultimately led to standardizing workflows and reducing cognitive load for developers. ### CVS Health's DevEx Transformation Journey - Unveiling the journey for 10K+ developers - Supporting communities, patients, and colleagues with the best technology - Mission focused on being the leading and most trusted healthcare company ### The Scale of CVS Health - Reach spans healthcare benefits, services (Aetna, MinuteClinic, CVS Specialty), pharmacy, and wellness - Serving millions through various brands including Oak Street Health and Cordava ### The Developer Experience Problem - Developers used more than 10 different CI/CD tools - Fragmented ecosystem led to inconsistent workflows, governance, and collaboration practices - Developers effectively spoke different languages, slowing onboarding, collaboration, and innovation ### The Migration Rally Outcomes - Discovery/Planning (15% by Q4 2020) - Execution/Acceleration (50% by Q1 2021) - Maximize Delivery (85% by Q4 2021) - Deprecate six source code management tools (95% by Q1 2022) - 100% migration of GitLab Repos to GitHub Actions by Q2-Q3 2021 ### Migration Execution Details - Involved migrating 150,000+ repositories and thousands of pipelines - Used custom Python and Jenkins scripts for migration and automated validations - Communication involved sending reminders seven days before migration dates ### Next Phase - AI-powered GitHub Consolidation: Standardizing 10+ CI/CD tools into GitHub Actions - Accelerating migrations by leveraging GitHub Copilot and Agent Mode to automate 750+ templates and 50,000+ jobs - Empowering teams by eliminating repetitive tasks and operational drag ![Screenshot at 00:03: Title slide announcing GitHub Universe 25 conference dates \(Oct 28-29, 2025\) in San Francisco & Virtual.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/w2WRT2eXISU/00-00-03.png) ![Screenshot at 00:17: Introduction slide featuring Jim Beyers, VP, Developer Experience at CVS Health.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/w2WRT2eXISU/00-00-17.png) ![Screenshot at 00:46: Slide summarizing the four pillars of the CVS Health's GitHub Repo Rally: Unveiling DevEx journey, Revolutionizing development, Migration success, and CICD Consolidation.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/w2WRT2eXISU/00-00-46.png) ![Screenshot at 03:41: Slide showing the CVS technology strategy funnel, with GitHub and GitHub Actions at the foundation.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/w2WRT2eXISU/00-03-41.png) ![Screenshot at 10:58: Slide detailing the 'Operational burden' challenge, including platform teams maintaining legacy tooling and time spent managing integrations, access controls, and compliance.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/w2WRT2eXISU/00-10-58.png)