This is an unwelcome change. Not having CI auto run at a basic level is going to slow down the pace of development. As seen recently it's entirely possible to have a local build that works but which fails on an obscure combination build in CI.

Is it possible to break the enclave/secret requiring parts out into a separate set of items that can be selectively run manually by the team who have permissions?

Agree on this being a PITA for external contributors.

The secret part is already separated. Forks will never have access to secrets. But there is still a requirement for a team member comment before kicking off CI. 😞 We are considering switching to GitHub actions for automatic CI validation (if that's feasible and not going to be blocked in the future), but that's a good chunk of work.

Yeah, Unfortunately this makes it very uncomfortable for me to contribute to this project, so I'll likely refrain from it for the time being

I've filed some issues about the local developer experience with tests

#3193
#3192
#3191

which will need to be fixed if we can't use the CI to test builds.

The local test experience has always been awful and hard in the places where it doesn't simply fail.
Hopefully if these issues can be addressed contributors will be able to continue to contribute.