snapcraft-candidate workflow (digitalocean/doctl)

The snapcraft-candidate workflow from digitalocean/doctl, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

What it does

This is the snapcraft-candidate workflow from the digitalocean/doctl 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: snapcraft-candidate
# Builds and publishes the package to the candidate channel on merge to main.

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  build-and-publish:
    name: 'Snapcraft: Candidate Release'
    runs-on: 'ubuntu-latest'
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          # fetch-depth: 0 fetches all history for all branches and tags
          fetch-depth: 0

      - name: Build snap
        uses: snapcore/action-build@v1
        id: build

      - uses: snapcore/action-publish@master
        env:
          SNAPCRAFT_STORE_CREDENTIALS: ${{ secrets.SNAP_TOKEN }}
        with:
          snap: ${{ steps.build.outputs.snap }}
          release: candidate

The same workflow, on Latchkey

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

name: snapcraft-candidate
# Builds and publishes the package to the candidate channel on merge to main.
 
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
 
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  build-and-publish:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: 'Snapcraft: Candidate Release'
    runs-on: 'ubuntu-latest'
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          # fetch-depth: 0 fetches all history for all branches and tags
          fetch-depth: 0
 
      - name: Build snap
        uses: snapcore/action-build@v1
        id: build
 
      - uses: snapcore/action-publish@master
        env:
          SNAPCRAFT_STORE_CREDENTIALS: ${{ secrets.SNAP_TOKEN }}
        with:
          snap: ${{ steps.build.outputs.snap }}
          release: candidate
 

What changed

• Cancel superseded runs when a branch or PR gets a newer push.
• Add a job timeout so a hung step cannot burn hours of runner time.

2 third-party actions are referenced by a movable tag. Pin them 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.

Actions used in this workflow