Browserstack (Manual Dispatch) workflow (jquery/jquery)

The Browserstack (Manual Dispatch) workflow from jquery/jquery, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

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Source: jquery/jquery.github/workflows/browserstack-dispatch.ymlLicense MITView source

What it does

This is the Browserstack (Manual Dispatch) workflow from the jquery/jquery 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: Browserstack (Manual Dispatch)

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      module:
        description: 'Module to test'
        required: true
        type: choice
        options:
          - 'basic'
          - 'ajax'
          - 'animation'
          - 'attributes'
          - 'callbacks'
          - 'core'
          - 'css'
          - 'data'
          - 'deferred'
          - 'deprecated'
          - 'dimensions'
          - 'effects'
          - 'event'
          - 'manipulation'
          - 'offset'
          - 'queue'
          - 'selector'
          - 'serialize'
          - 'support'
          - 'traversing'
          - 'tween'
      browser:
        description: 'Browser to test, in form of \"browser_[browserVersion | :device]_os_osVersion\"'
        required: false
        type: string
        default: 'chrome__windows_11'

permissions:
  contents: read # to fetch code (actions/checkout)

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: browserstack
    env:
      BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME: ${{ secrets.BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME }}
      BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@9c091bb21b7c1c1d1991bb908d89e4e9dddfe3e0 # v7.0.0

      - uses: actions/setup-node@48b55a011bda9f5d6aeb4c2d9c7362e8dae4041e # v6.4.0
        with:
          node-version: 20

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Build jQuery
        run: npm run build:all

      - name: Pretest script
        run: npm run pretest

      - name: Run tests
        env:
          BROWSER: ${{ inputs.browser }}
          MODULE: ${{ inputs.module }}
        run: npm run test:unit -- \
          -v --browserstack "$BROWSER" \
          -f "module=$MODULE"

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: Browserstack (Manual Dispatch)
 
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      module:
        description: 'Module to test'
        required: true
        type: choice
        options:
          - 'basic'
          - 'ajax'
          - 'animation'
          - 'attributes'
          - 'callbacks'
          - 'core'
          - 'css'
          - 'data'
          - 'deferred'
          - 'deprecated'
          - 'dimensions'
          - 'effects'
          - 'event'
          - 'manipulation'
          - 'offset'
          - 'queue'
          - 'selector'
          - 'serialize'
          - 'support'
          - 'traversing'
          - 'tween'
      browser:
        description: 'Browser to test, in form of \"browser_[browserVersion | :device]_os_osVersion\"'
        required: false
        type: string
        default: 'chrome__windows_11'
 
permissions:
  contents: read # to fetch code (actions/checkout)
 
jobs:
  test:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    environment: browserstack
    env:
      BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME: ${{ secrets.BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME }}
      BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@9c091bb21b7c1c1d1991bb908d89e4e9dddfe3e0 # v7.0.0
 
      - uses: actions/setup-node@48b55a011bda9f5d6aeb4c2d9c7362e8dae4041e # v6.4.0
        with:
          cache: 'npm'
          node-version: 20
 
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci
 
      - name: Build jQuery
        run: npm run build:all
 
      - name: Pretest script
        run: npm run pretest
 
      - name: Run tests
        env:
          BROWSER: ${{ inputs.browser }}
          MODULE: ${{ inputs.module }}
        run: npm run test:unit -- \
          -v --browserstack "$BROWSER" \
          -f "module=$MODULE"

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