Auto release excalidraw next workflow (excalidraw/excalidraw)

The Auto release excalidraw next workflow from excalidraw/excalidraw, 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: excalidraw/excalidraw.github/workflows/autorelease-excalidraw.ymlLicense MITView source

What it does

This is the Auto release excalidraw next workflow from the excalidraw/excalidraw 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: Auto release excalidraw next
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - release

jobs:
  Auto-release-excalidraw-next:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@34e114876b0b11c390a56381ad16ebd13914f8d5 # v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 2
      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@49933ea5288caeca8642d1e84afbd3f7d6820020 # v4
        with:
          node-version: 20.x
      - name: Set up publish access
        run: |
          npm config set //registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken ${NPM_TOKEN}
        env:
          NPM_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
      - name: Auto release
        run: |
          yarn add @actions/core -W
          yarn release --tag=next --non-interactive

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: Auto release excalidraw next
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - release
 
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  Auto-release-excalidraw-next:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    runs-on: latchkey-small
 
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@34e114876b0b11c390a56381ad16ebd13914f8d5 # v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 2
      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@49933ea5288caeca8642d1e84afbd3f7d6820020 # v4
        with:
          cache: 'npm'
          node-version: 20.x
      - name: Set up publish access
        run: |
          npm config set //registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken ${NPM_TOKEN}
        env:
          NPM_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
      - name: Auto release
        run: |
          yarn add @actions/core -W
          yarn release --tag=next --non-interactive

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.

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