Deploy Content to CDN workflow (andrewyng/context-hub)

The Deploy Content to CDN workflow from andrewyng/context-hub, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

CI health: D - needs work

Point runs-on at Latchkey and get caching, run de-duplication, job timeouts, self-healing for flaky steps, and up to 58% lower cost, applied automatically.

Grade your own workflow free or run it on Latchkey →

Source: andrewyng/context-hub.github/workflows/deploy-content.ymlLicense MITView source

What it does

This is the Deploy Content to CDN workflow from the andrewyng/context-hub 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

workflow (.yml)

name: Deploy Content to CDN

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
    paths:
      - 'content/**'
      - 'package.json'
      - 'cli/package.json'
      - 'cli/src/lib/help.js'
      - 'scripts/prepare-cdn-build.mjs'

  # Allow manual trigger
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22

      - run: rm -f package-lock.json && npm install

      # Validate content first
      - name: Validate content
        run: node cli/bin/chub build content/ --validate-only

      # Build registry + search index + exact-version help tree
      - name: Build CDN bundle
        run: npm run prepare:cdn

      # Sync registry/content tree while preserving historical help versions.
      - name: Deploy registry and content to S3
        run: aws s3 sync dist/ s3://${{ secrets.CDN_BUCKET_NAME }}/v1/ --delete --exclude "help/*"
        env:
          AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          AWS_REGION: ${{ secrets.AWS_REGION }}

      - name: Deploy versioned help to S3
        run: aws s3 sync dist/help/ s3://${{ secrets.CDN_BUCKET_NAME }}/v1/help/
        env:
          AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          AWS_REGION: ${{ secrets.AWS_REGION }}

      # Invalidate CloudFront cache
      - name: Invalidate CloudFront cache
        run: |
          aws cloudfront create-invalidation \
            --distribution-id ${{ secrets.CLOUDFRONT_DISTRIBUTION_ID }} \
            --paths "/v1/*"
        env:
          AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          AWS_REGION: ${{ secrets.AWS_REGION }}

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: Deploy Content to CDN
 
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
    paths:
      - 'content/**'
      - 'package.json'
      - 'cli/package.json'
      - 'cli/src/lib/help.js'
      - 'scripts/prepare-cdn-build.mjs'
 
  # Allow manual trigger
  workflow_dispatch:
 
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  deploy:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    permissions:
      contents: read
 
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
 
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          cache: 'npm'
          node-version: 22
 
      - run: rm -f package-lock.json && npm install
 
      # Validate content first
      - name: Validate content
        run: node cli/bin/chub build content/ --validate-only
 
      # Build registry + search index + exact-version help tree
      - name: Build CDN bundle
        run: npm run prepare:cdn
 
      # Sync registry/content tree while preserving historical help versions.
      - name: Deploy registry and content to S3
        run: aws s3 sync dist/ s3://${{ secrets.CDN_BUCKET_NAME }}/v1/ --delete --exclude "help/*"
        env:
          AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          AWS_REGION: ${{ secrets.AWS_REGION }}
 
      - name: Deploy versioned help to S3
        run: aws s3 sync dist/help/ s3://${{ secrets.CDN_BUCKET_NAME }}/v1/help/
        env:
          AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          AWS_REGION: ${{ secrets.AWS_REGION }}
 
      # Invalidate CloudFront cache
      - name: Invalidate CloudFront cache
        run: |
          aws cloudfront create-invalidation \
            --distribution-id ${{ secrets.CLOUDFRONT_DISTRIBUTION_ID }} \
            --paths "/v1/*"
        env:
          AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          AWS_REGION: ${{ secrets.AWS_REGION }}

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.
Cancel superseded runs when a branch or PR gets a newer push.
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

actions/checkout actions/setup-node