Semantic Pull Request workflow (cypress-io/cypress)

The Semantic Pull Request workflow from cypress-io/cypress, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

CI health: A - excellent

Point runs-on at Latchkey and get 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: cypress-io/cypress.github/workflows/semantic-pull-request.ymlLicense MITView source

What it does

This is the Semantic Pull Request workflow from the cypress-io/cypress 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: "Semantic Pull Request"
# @see https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-jobs/assigning-permissions-to-jobs
permissions:
  actions: none
  checks: none
  # to check out & read the repository
  contents: read
  deployments: none
  id-token: none
  issues: none
  discussions: none
  packages: none
  pages: none
  # to read pull-request data, including commits/issues linked
  pull-requests: read
  repository-projects: none
  security-events: none
  statuses: none
on:
  pull_request_target:
    types:
      - opened
      - edited
      - synchronize
    branches:
      - develop
      - release/*

jobs:
  main:
    name: Semantic Pull Request
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name != github.repository && 'fork-pr-review' || '' }}
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@df4cb1c069e1874edd31b4311f1884172cec0e10 # v6
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.event.pull_request.base.ref }}
          repository: ${{ github.event.pull_request.base.repo.full_name }}
      - run: npm install
        working-directory: scripts/github-actions/semantic-pull-request/
      - name: Lint PR Title and Cypress Changelog Entry
        if: github.event_name == 'pull_request_target'
        uses: actions/github-script@f28e40c7f34bde8b3046d885e986cb6290c5673b # v7
        with:
          script: |
            const verifyPullRequest = require('./scripts/github-actions/semantic-pull-request')

            await verifyPullRequest({ context, core, github })

The same workflow, on Latchkey

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

name: "Semantic Pull Request"
# @see https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-jobs/assigning-permissions-to-jobs
permissions:
  actions: none
  checks: none
  # to check out & read the repository
  contents: read
  deployments: none
  id-token: none
  issues: none
  discussions: none
  packages: none
  pages: none
  # to read pull-request data, including commits/issues linked
  pull-requests: read
  repository-projects: none
  security-events: none
  statuses: none
on:
  pull_request_target:
    types:
      - opened
      - edited
      - synchronize
    branches:
      - develop
      - release/*
 
jobs:
  main:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: Semantic Pull Request
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    environment: ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name != github.repository && 'fork-pr-review' || '' }}
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@df4cb1c069e1874edd31b4311f1884172cec0e10 # v6
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.event.pull_request.base.ref }}
          repository: ${{ github.event.pull_request.base.repo.full_name }}
      - run: npm install
        working-directory: scripts/github-actions/semantic-pull-request/
      - name: Lint PR Title and Cypress Changelog Entry
        if: github.event_name == 'pull_request_target'
        uses: actions/github-script@f28e40c7f34bde8b3046d885e986cb6290c5673b # v7
        with:
          script: |
            const verifyPullRequest = require('./scripts/github-actions/semantic-pull-request')
 
            await verifyPullRequest({ context, core, github })

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.

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 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/github-script