Cleanup workflow (Barabama/FreeNodes)

The Cleanup workflow from Barabama/FreeNodes, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

What it does

This is the Cleanup workflow from the Barabama/FreeNodes 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: Cleanup

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 0 * * 0" # Every Sunday at 00:00

jobs:
  clean:
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
    steps:
      - name: Delete old workflow runs
        uses: Mattraks/delete-workflow-runs@v2
        with:
          retain_days: 7
          keep_minimum_runs: 6

The same workflow, on Latchkey

Removes redundant runs and caps runaway jobs. Added and changed lines are highlighted.

name: Cleanup
 
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 0 * * 0" # Every Sunday at 00:00
 
jobs:
  clean:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    steps:
      - name: Delete old workflow runs
        uses: Mattraks/delete-workflow-runs@v2
        with:
          retain_days: 7
          keep_minimum_runs: 6

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.
• Add a job timeout so a hung step cannot burn hours of runner time.

1 third-party action is referenced by a movable tag. Pin it to the commit SHA (Latchkey resolves and applies this automatically) so a repointed tag cannot change what runs.

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