MetalBear, the Tel Aviv-based creator of the open-source tool mirrord, launched mirrord for CI this week, extending its environment-mirroring technology into continuous integration workflows. The new capability allows CI runners to connect securely to live Kubernetes clusters—such as staging or pre-production—enabling tests to execute against real services, dependencies, environment variables, and network conditions without deploying code or provisioning ephemeral infrastructure. Announced on January 20, 2026, the feature promises to eliminate the delays and costs of traditional CI pipelines, as detailed in a GlobeNewswire press release.

“CI pipelines rely on isolation, which forces teams to spin up separate test environments,” said Aviram Hassan, CEO and co-founder of MetalBear. “That adds spin-up time, increases complexity, and still doesn’t reflect production, so teams end up paying the price after deployment. With mirrord for CI, we’re introducing a new category: real-environment CI.” This shift, Hassan argues, raises the bar for cloud-native software testing by validating code in authentic conditions while maintaining strict isolation to prevent impacts on shared clusters.

The original Cloud Native Now article highlighted MetalBear’s move to mirror CI pipelines to staging servers, simplifying testing for application developers on Kubernetes. Building on mirrord’s core function—running local processes in cloud contexts—the CI extension targets a persistent pain point: the gap between isolated CI tests and production realities.

Breaking the Isolation Bottleneck

Traditional CI/CD workflows demand building Docker images, deploying to test clusters, and often waiting for ephemeral environments to stabilize. These steps, MetalBear notes, introduce friction, especially as AI-generated code floods pipelines. Mirrord for CI bypasses this by proxying traffic, files, and variables directly from a runner—hosted on GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or similar—to a target pod in the cluster. No images are built or pushed; no deployments occur.

MetalBear’s GitHub repository for mirrord details the technical foundation: upon selecting a pod to impersonate, mirrord launches a proxy pod on the same node, mirroring inbound traffic to the local process, routing outbound calls through the cluster, and syncing file operations and env vars. The CI version adapts this for automated runners, with commands like mirrord ci start to initiate sessions and mirrord ci stop for cleanup, as per recent release notes on GitHub.

For enterprise users, MetalBear offers mirrord for Teams at $50 per seat monthly, with an upgraded plan including CI support, airgapped clusters, RBAC, and multi-pod mirroring via a Kubernetes operator. This operator manages agent pods centrally, eliminating the need for user-level privileged access, according to documentation on MetalBear’s site.

From Local Dev to Pipeline Powerhouse

Mirrord began as a developer tool for local testing against staging without deployments, addressing shared environment risks where untested code could disrupt teams. Its evolution to CI support aligns with MetalBear’s growth: a $12.5 million seed round in September 2025, led by TLVPartners, fueled expansions like AI agent testing, as covered by VentureBeat. Founders Aviram Hassan and Eyal Bukchin, ex-BioCatch cybersecurity leaders, bootstrapped the open-source project now used by thousands, including Apple and NVIDIA.

The New Stack reported on mirrord’s appeal for AI workflows: “AI has solved everything but what mirrord does,” Hassan told the publication. Local unit tests fall short; mirrord plugs code into full staging stacks—microservices, databases, queues—for realistic validation. CI integration extends this to automated gates, reducing post-deploy failures.

Yahoo Finance echoed the launch, emphasizing how mirrord for CI unifies local dev, CI, and production contexts into one workflow, delivering “production-accurate validation without overhead.” Database Trends and Applications added that tests run with isolation, ensuring no staging disruptions.

Technical Deep Dive: Proxying Production Fidelity

At runtime, mirrord injects into the CI process via syscalls, overriding network, file, and env interactions. Inbound traffic duplicates to the runner; outbound routes via the cluster proxy pod. Configurations allow toggling features—e.g., disabling file mirroring for subsets—while Kubernetes image pull policies control agent updates, per docs. Recent releases added idempotent CI stop commands and binary execution waits, enhancing pipeline reliability.

For multi-pod deployments, the Teams operator enables full mirroring, selecting replicas dynamically. Security is paramount: operators handle privileged pods, with RBAC gating impersonation targets. No in-memory state is copied, preserving cluster stability, as clarified in FAQs.

Integration is straightforward: install via Homebrew or binaries, configure kubectl access, and invoke in pipelines. MetalBear’s X posts demonstrate: run changed microservices in runners connected to staging, proxying all inputs for cloud-like behavior sans builds.

Enterprise Traction and Road Ahead

With 35 employees across 14 countries, MetalBear serves Fortune 100 firms. KubeCon appearances and endorsements—like Viktor Farcic ranking mirrord top for 2026 Kubernetes dev—underscore momentum, per X discussions. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Hassan on reinventing Kubernetes DX.

Challenges remain: complex clusters demand tweaks, like privileged agents or DNS hardening. Yet, adoption spans OSS to enterprise, with GitHub discussions praising full-context wrapping—traffic, files, envs.

SD Times noted the tool’s arrival amid AI-driven code surges, where ephemeral setups falter. VMblog quoted Hassan on parallel jobs sharing staging without interference. MetalBear positions mirrord for CI as transformative, accelerating reliable shipping in Kubernetes-dominant stacks.