Latchkey vs StarSling
StarSling and Latchkey both put AI agents on GitHub Actions CI, at opposite ends of the failure. StarSling analyses finished runs and opens pull requests for review. Latchkey fixes the failing step on the runner while the job is still executing.
The short answer
The two products put AI at opposite ends of the failure. StarSling analyses runs and opens a pull request for a human to review and merge, so the failing build in front of you today still failed and someone still has to click re-run. The Latchkey agent runs on the machine during the job: it diagnoses the failure, applies the fix, and retries the step, so the build goes green without an interruption. On price, Latchkey lists $0.0025 per minute for 2 vCPU against the published StarSling rate of $0.004.
Head to head
| What you are comparing | Latchkey | StarSling |
|---|---|---|
| Where the AI actsThis is the substantive difference between the two products, not the pricing. | On the runner, during the job | After the run, as a pull request to review |
| Human needed to recover a failed build | No, the step is retried automatically | Yes, someone reviews and merges the pull request |
| 2 vCPU / 8 GB, list rate | $0.0025/min | $0.004/min |
| 4 vCPU / 16 GB, list rate | $0.0050/min | $0.008/min |
| Opens pipeline-restructuring pull requests | Not as an unprompted pull request today | Yes: test sharding, cache fixes, job ordering |
| Free minutes | 2,000 to 6,000 per month by plan, 30 days free | 2,000 in the first month |
| Cost and performance analytics | Built in | Not published |
StarSling figures are list prices published at starsling.dev/, read on August 2026. Latchkey figures are our own published list rates. Prices change: check both pages before you decide, and tell us if anything here has gone stale.
Which one you should pick
Switching takes one line
Point runs-on at a Latchkey label. Your steps, actions, secrets, and matrix stay exactly as they are.
jobs:
build:
- runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+ runs-on: latchkey-medium
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4Questions about Latchkey and StarSling
What is the difference between Latchkey self-healing and StarSling AI agents?
Timing, and who acts. The Latchkey agent runs on the runner while the job is executing: it diagnoses the failing step, applies a fix, and retries, so the run finishes green with no human involved. StarSling agents analyse completed runs and open pull requests that a developer reviews and merges. One recovers the build in front of you, the other proposes a change for next time.
Which is cheaper, Latchkey or StarSling?
Latchkey, on the sizes both vendors publish. Latchkey lists $0.0025 per minute for 2 vCPU / 8 GB and $0.0050 for 4 vCPU / 16 GB. StarSling publishes $0.004 and $0.008 for the same two sizes. Both are list prices taken from the vendor pricing pages.
Does Latchkey open pull requests too?
Latchkey opens fix pull requests for failures it cannot repair on the runner, and it surfaces cost and reliability findings with the concrete change to apply. It does not currently open unprompted pipeline-restructuring pull requests the way StarSling does. That class of change is on the roadmap rather than shipping today.
Can I run both?
Technically yes, but they compete for the same runs-on line, so in practice you pick one runner provider. If what you want is fewer red builds reaching your team, self-healing acts at failure time. If what you want is a structurally faster pipeline and you have review capacity, an agent that opens pull requests is a different bet.