Publish Nightly workflow (apache/echarts)

The Publish Nightly workflow from apache/echarts, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

What it does

This is the Publish Nightly workflow from the apache/echarts repository, a real project running GitHub Actions. It is shown here with attribution under its Apache-2.0 license.

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

The workflow

name: Publish Nightly

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 9 * * *' # After zrender nightly published
  # committers can manually trigger with workflow_dispatch
  workflow_dispatch: {}
  repository_dispatch:
    types: publish-nightly

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: ${{ github.repository_owner == 'apache' }}

    strategy:
      matrix:
        node-version: [20.x]

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v6

      - name: Use Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
        uses: actions/setup-node@v6
        with:
          registry-url: https://registry.npmjs.org/
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}

      - name: Setup and publish nightly
        run: |
          node build/nightly/prepare.js
          npm i zrender@npm:zrender-nightly
          npm ci
          npm ls zrender
          node build/nightly/post.js
          npm run release
          npm run test
          npm run test:dts
          npm publish
        env:
          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{secrets.NPM_TOKEN}}

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 Nightly
 
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 9 * * *' # After zrender nightly published
  # committers can manually trigger with workflow_dispatch
  workflow_dispatch: {}
  repository_dispatch:
    types: publish-nightly
 
jobs:
  build:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    if: ${{ github.repository_owner == 'apache' }}
 
    strategy:
      matrix:
        node-version: [20.x]
 
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v6
 
      - name: Use Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
        uses: actions/setup-node@v6
        with:
          cache: 'npm'
          registry-url: https://registry.npmjs.org/
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
 
      - name: Setup and publish nightly
        run: |
          node build/nightly/prepare.js
          npm i zrender@npm:zrender-nightly
          npm ci
          npm ls zrender
          node build/nightly/post.js
          npm run release
          npm run test
          npm run test:dts
          npm publish
        env:
          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{secrets.NPM_TOKEN}}
 

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