Publish workflow (github/relative-time-element)

The Publish workflow from github/relative-time-element, 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.

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Source: github/relative-time-element.github/workflows/publish.ymlLicense MITView source

What it does

This is the Publish workflow from the github/relative-time-element 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: Publish

on:
  release:
    types: [created]

jobs:
  publish-npm:
    name: Publish to npm
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read
      id-token: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22
          registry-url: https://registry.npmjs.org/
          cache: npm
      - run: npm install -g npm@latest
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx playwright install --with-deps chromium
      - run: npm test
      - run: npm version ${TAG_NAME} --git-tag-version=false
        env:
          TAG_NAME: ${{ github.event.release.tag_name }}
      - run: npm --ignore-scripts publish --provenance --access public
  publish-github:
    name: Publish to GitHub Packages
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read
      packages: write
      id-token: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22
          registry-url: https://npm.pkg.github.com
          cache: npm
          scope: '@github'
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx playwright install --with-deps chromium
      - run: npm test
      - run: npm version ${TAG_NAME} --git-tag-version=false
        env:
          TAG_NAME: ${{ github.event.release.tag_name }}
      - run: npm --ignore-scripts publish --provenance --access public
        env:
          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

The same workflow, on Latchkey

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

name: Publish
 
on:
  release:
    types: [created]
 
jobs:
  publish-npm:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: Publish to npm
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    permissions:
      contents: read
      id-token: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22
          registry-url: https://registry.npmjs.org/
          cache: npm
      - run: npm install -g npm@latest
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx playwright install --with-deps chromium
      - run: npm test
      - run: npm version ${TAG_NAME} --git-tag-version=false
        env:
          TAG_NAME: ${{ github.event.release.tag_name }}
      - run: npm --ignore-scripts publish --provenance --access public
  publish-github:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: Publish to GitHub Packages
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    permissions:
      contents: read
      packages: write
      id-token: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22
          registry-url: https://npm.pkg.github.com
          cache: npm
          scope: '@github'
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx playwright install --with-deps chromium
      - run: npm test
      - run: npm version ${TAG_NAME} --git-tag-version=false
        env:
          TAG_NAME: ${{ github.event.release.tag_name }}
      - run: npm --ignore-scripts publish --provenance --access public
        env:
          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

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 2 jobs 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