Build wheels workflow (astropy/halotools)

The Build wheels workflow from astropy/halotools, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

What it does

This is the Build wheels workflow from the astropy/halotools repository, a real project running GitHub Actions. It is shown here with attribution under its BSD-3-Clause license.

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

The workflow

name: Build wheels

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  release:
    types:
      - published

jobs:
  build_wheels:
    name: Build wheels on ${{ matrix.os }}
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    strategy:
      matrix:
        os: [ubuntu-22.04, macos-latest]

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@9c091bb21b7c1c1d1991bb908d89e4e9dddfe3e0  # v7.0.0

      # Used to host cibuildwheel
      - uses: actions/setup-python@ece7cb06caefa5fff74198d8649806c4678c61a1  # v6.3.0

      - name: Install cibuildwheel
        run: python -m pip install cibuildwheel==2.10.0

      - name: Build wheels
        # uses: pypa/cibuildwheel@d4a2945fcc8d13f20a1b99d461b8e844d5fc6e23  # v2.21.1
        run: python -m cibuildwheel --output-dir wheelhouse
        env:
          CIBW_BEFORE_BUILD: pip install numpy>=2 Cython extension-helpers
          CIBW_PROJECT_REQUIRES_PYTHON: ">=3.11"
          CIBW_SKIP: pp*

      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@043fb46d1a93c77aae656e7c1c64a875d1fc6a0a  # v7.0.1
        with:
          name: wheels-${{ matrix.os }}
          path: ./wheelhouse/*.whl

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: Build wheels
 
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  release:
    types:
      - published
 
jobs:
  build_wheels:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: Build wheels on ${{ matrix.os }}
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    strategy:
      matrix:
        os: [ubuntu-22.04, macos-latest]
 
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@9c091bb21b7c1c1d1991bb908d89e4e9dddfe3e0  # v7.0.0
 
      # Used to host cibuildwheel
      - uses: actions/setup-python@ece7cb06caefa5fff74198d8649806c4678c61a1  # v6.3.0
        with:
          cache: 'pip'
 
      - name: Install cibuildwheel
        run: python -m pip install cibuildwheel==2.10.0
 
      - name: Build wheels
        # uses: pypa/cibuildwheel@d4a2945fcc8d13f20a1b99d461b8e844d5fc6e23  # v2.21.1
        run: python -m cibuildwheel --output-dir wheelhouse
        env:
          CIBW_BEFORE_BUILD: pip install numpy>=2 Cython extension-helpers
          CIBW_PROJECT_REQUIRES_PYTHON: ">=3.11"
          CIBW_SKIP: pp*
 
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@043fb46d1a93c77aae656e7c1c64a875d1fc6a0a  # v7.0.1
        with:
          name: wheels-${{ matrix.os }}
          path: ./wheelhouse/*.whl
 

What changed

• 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 (2 with the matrix expanded) per trigger. On Latchkey the same minutes cost up to 58% less than GitHub-hosted, with zero queue time.

Actions used in this workflow