external-pr-action-approval workflow (evidence-dev/evidence)

The external-pr-action-approval workflow from evidence-dev/evidence, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

What it does

This is the external-pr-action-approval workflow from the evidence-dev/evidence 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

# https://datachain.ai/blog/testing-external-contributions-using-github-actions-secrets

on:
  workflow_call:

jobs:
  external-pr-action-approval:
    name: 'External PR Action Approval'
    environment: ${{ github.event_name == 'pull_request_target' && github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name != github.repository && 'Approval required to run action on external PR' || '' }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: true

The same workflow, on Latchkey

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

# https://datachain.ai/blog/testing-external-contributions-using-github-actions-secrets
 
on:
  workflow_call:
 
jobs:
  external-pr-action-approval:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: 'External PR Action Approval'
    environment: ${{ github.event_name == 'pull_request_target' && github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name != github.repository && 'Approval required to run action on external PR' || '' }}
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    steps:
      - run: true
 

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.

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