Deploy Viewer workflow (earthtojake/text-to-cad)

The Deploy Viewer workflow from earthtojake/text-to-cad, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

CI health: C - fair

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Source: earthtojake/text-to-cad.github/workflows/deploy-viewer.ymlLicense MITView source

What it does

This is the Deploy Viewer workflow from the earthtojake/text-to-cad 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: Deploy Viewer

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      ref:
        description: Production-layout ref to deploy, normally main or a publish commit.
        required: true
        default: main
        type: string
  workflow_call:
    inputs:
      ref:
        description: Production-layout ref to deploy.
        required: true
        type: string

permissions:
  contents: read

concurrency:
  group: deploy-viewer
  cancel-in-progress: false

jobs:
  deploy:
    name: Deploy demo viewer app
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Check out deploy ref
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ inputs.ref }}
          persist-credentials: false

      - name: Set up Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: "22"

      - name: Install Vercel CLI
        run: npm install --global vercel@50.28.0

      - name: Deploy demo viewer app to Vercel production
        env:
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_VIEWER_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_VIEWER_PROJECT_ID }}
        run: |
          for name in VERCEL_TOKEN VERCEL_ORG_ID VERCEL_VIEWER_PROJECT_ID; do
            if [ -z "${!name:-}" ]; then
              echo "Missing GitHub Actions secret: $name" >&2
              exit 1
            fi
          done
          scripts/github-workflows/deploy-vercel-app.sh \
            --label "Demo viewer app" \
            --project-id "$VERCEL_VIEWER_PROJECT_ID" \
            --public-urls "https://demo.cadskills.xyz https://demo.cad.fun"

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: Deploy Viewer
 
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      ref:
        description: Production-layout ref to deploy, normally main or a publish commit.
        required: true
        default: main
        type: string
  workflow_call:
    inputs:
      ref:
        description: Production-layout ref to deploy.
        required: true
        type: string
 
permissions:
  contents: read
 
concurrency:
  group: deploy-viewer
  cancel-in-progress: false
 
jobs:
  deploy:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: Deploy demo viewer app
    runs-on: latchkey-small
 
    steps:
      - name: Check out deploy ref
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ inputs.ref }}
          persist-credentials: false
 
      - name: Set up Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          cache: 'npm'
          node-version: "22"
 
      - name: Install Vercel CLI
        run: npm install --global vercel@50.28.0
 
      - name: Deploy demo viewer app to Vercel production
        env:
          VERCEL_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_TOKEN }}
          VERCEL_ORG_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_ORG_ID }}
          VERCEL_VIEWER_PROJECT_ID: ${{ secrets.VERCEL_VIEWER_PROJECT_ID }}
        run: |
          for name in VERCEL_TOKEN VERCEL_ORG_ID VERCEL_VIEWER_PROJECT_ID; do
            if [ -z "${!name:-}" ]; then
              echo "Missing GitHub Actions secret: $name" >&2
              exit 1
            fi
          done
          scripts/github-workflows/deploy-vercel-app.sh \
            --label "Demo viewer app" \
            --project-id "$VERCEL_VIEWER_PROJECT_ID" \
            --public-urls "https://demo.cadskills.xyz https://demo.cad.fun"

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.
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 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