Browsers CI workflow (chaijs/chai)

The Browsers CI workflow from chaijs/chai, 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: chaijs/chai.github/workflows/browsers.ymlLicense MITView source

What it does

This is the Browsers CI workflow from the chaijs/chai 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)

# This workflow will do a clean install of node dependencies, build the source
# code and run tests across different versions of browsers

name: Browsers CI

on:
  push:
    branches: [ main, 4.x.x ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ main, 4.x.x ]

permissions: {}

jobs:
  build:

    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    strategy:
      matrix:
        browser-name:
          - chromium
          - firefox

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@9c091bb21b7c1c1d1991bb908d89e4e9dddfe3e0 # v7.0.0
      with:
        persist-credentials: false
    - name: ${{ matrix.browser-name }}
      uses: actions/setup-node@48b55a011bda9f5d6aeb4c2d9c7362e8dae4041e # v6.4.0
    - run: npm ci --ignore-scripts
    - run: npx playwright install --with-deps
    - run: npm run build --if-present
    - run: npm run test-chrome -- --browsers ${{ matrix.browser-name }}

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.

# This workflow will do a clean install of node dependencies, build the source
# code and run tests across different versions of browsers
 
name: Browsers CI
 
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main, 4.x.x ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ main, 4.x.x ]
 
permissions: {}
 
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  build:
    timeout-minutes: 30
 
    runs-on: latchkey-small
 
    strategy:
      matrix:
        browser-name:
          - chromium
          - firefox
 
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@9c091bb21b7c1c1d1991bb908d89e4e9dddfe3e0 # v7.0.0
      with:
        persist-credentials: false
    - name: ${{ matrix.browser-name }}
      uses: actions/setup-node@48b55a011bda9f5d6aeb4c2d9c7362e8dae4041e # v6.4.0
      with:
        cache: 'npm'
    - run: npm ci --ignore-scripts
    - run: npx playwright install --with-deps
    - run: npm run build --if-present
    - run: npm run test-chrome -- --browsers ${{ matrix.browser-name }}

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
End-to-end and browser tests

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

actions/checkout actions/setup-node