Move to Latchkey with a One-Line runs-on Change

No new YAML to learn, no pipeline rewrite. You change runs-on: and your workflow runs on a Latchkey managed runner.

Latchkey runs your existing GitHub Actions workflows unchanged. The only edit that migrates a job is its runs-on: label - your steps, actions, secrets, environments, and caching all stay identical.

The one line that changes

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: latchkey-small   # was: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm ci && npm test

What stays exactly the same

• Every run: and uses: step.
• All secrets, variables, and environments.
• Your matrices, needs:, and conditions.
• Caching - keep actions/cache as-is (Latchkey adds caching on top).

Why it is safe

• It is per-job: revert one label to roll back instantly.
• You can A/B a single job before moving the fleet.
• No change to your repo structure or workflow logic.

What you gain

• Roughly 69% lower per-minute cost than GitHub-hosted runners.
• Warm pools remove queue time - jobs start almost immediately.
• Self-healing detects, fixes, and auto-retries transient and mechanical failures.
• Zero ops: no agents, autoscalers, or controllers to patch and babysit.

Key takeaways

• The migration is literally one line per job.
• Everything else in the workflow is untouched.
• Roll back by reverting the label.

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