In more complex architectures and deployments, it may not be immediately obvious that a build that depends on the code currently being checked in is broken. Developers trying to fix a broken build could find themselves working against a moving target, as the build is continually triggered by upstream dependencies. Pre-commit downstream build checks is a very simple technique: have a pre-commit or pre-push script check the status of these downstream builds and alert the developer beforehand that a build is broken.