Publish Release to npm workflow (11ty/buildawesome)

The Publish Release to npm workflow from 11ty/buildawesome, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

What it does

This is the Publish Release to npm workflow from the 11ty/buildawesome repository, a real project running GitHub Actions. It is shown here with attribution under its MIT license.

Below, Latchkey shows a faster, safer version produced by its optimization engine.

The workflow

name: Publish Release to npm
on:
  release:
    types: [published]
permissions: read-all
jobs:
  release:
    # see https://github.com/11ty/buildawesome/settings/environments
    environment: GitHub Publish
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read
      id-token: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@9c091bb21b7c1c1d1991bb908d89e4e9dddfe3e0 # 7.0.0
      - uses: actions/setup-node@48b55a011bda9f5d6aeb4c2d9c7362e8dae4041e # 6.4.0
        with:
          node-version: "22"
          registry-url: 'https://registry.npmjs.org'
          # Explicit opt out of cache (tanstack cache poison vuln)
          package-manager-cache: false
      - run: npm install -g npm@latest
      - if: ${{ github.event.release.tag_name != '' && env.NPM_ELEVENTY_PUBLISH_TAG != '' && env.NPM_BUILDAWESOME_PUBLISH_TAG != '' }}
        # Also runs npm ci and npm test
        run: ./scripts/release.sh
        env:
          NPM_ELEVENTY_PUBLISH_TAG: ${{ contains(github.event.release.tag_name, '-beta.') && 'beta' || contains(github.event.release.tag_name, '-alpha.') && 'canary' || 'latest' }}
          NPM_BUILDAWESOME_PUBLISH_TAG: ${{ contains(github.event.release.tag_name, '-beta.') && 'beta' || contains(github.event.release.tag_name, '-alpha.') && 'alpha' || 'latest' }}

The same workflow, on Latchkey

Estimated ~20% faster on cache hits, plus fewer wasted runs and a safer supply chain. Added and changed lines are highlighted.

name: Publish Release to npm
on:
  release:
    types: [published]
permissions: read-all
jobs:
  release:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    # see https://github.com/11ty/buildawesome/settings/environments
    environment: GitHub Publish
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    permissions:
      contents: read
      id-token: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@9c091bb21b7c1c1d1991bb908d89e4e9dddfe3e0 # 7.0.0
      - uses: actions/setup-node@48b55a011bda9f5d6aeb4c2d9c7362e8dae4041e # 6.4.0
        with:
          cache: 'npm'
          node-version: "22"
          registry-url: 'https://registry.npmjs.org'
          # Explicit opt out of cache (tanstack cache poison vuln)
          package-manager-cache: false
      - run: npm install -g npm@latest
      - if: ${{ github.event.release.tag_name != '' && env.NPM_ELEVENTY_PUBLISH_TAG != '' && env.NPM_BUILDAWESOME_PUBLISH_TAG != '' }}
        # Also runs npm ci and npm test
        run: ./scripts/release.sh
        env:
          NPM_ELEVENTY_PUBLISH_TAG: ${{ contains(github.event.release.tag_name, '-beta.') && 'beta' || contains(github.event.release.tag_name, '-alpha.') && 'canary' || 'latest' }}
          NPM_BUILDAWESOME_PUBLISH_TAG: ${{ contains(github.event.release.tag_name, '-beta.') && 'beta' || contains(github.event.release.tag_name, '-alpha.') && 'alpha' || 'latest' }}
 

What changed

• Run on Latchkey managed runners with one line (runs-on), which apply the fixes below automatically and self-heal transient failures. This example uses latchkey-small; pick the runner size that fits the job.
• Cache dependency installs on the setup step so they are served from cache.
• Add a job timeout so a hung step cannot burn hours of runner time.

What Latchkey heals here

This workflow has steps that commonly fail on transient issues (network, registries, flaky browsers). On Latchkey managed runners they are detected, retried, and self-healed instead of failing your build:

• Dependency installs

This workflow runs 1 job per trigger. On Latchkey the same minutes cost up to 58% less than GitHub-hosted, with zero queue time.

Actions used in this workflow