Create Release workflow (krkn-chaos/krkn)

The Create Release workflow from krkn-chaos/krkn, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

CI health: C - fair

Point runs-on at Latchkey and get 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: krkn-chaos/krkn.github/workflows/release.ymlLicense Apache-2.0View source

What it does

This is the Create Release workflow from the krkn-chaos/krkn repository, a real project running GitHub Actions. It is shown here with attribution under its Apache-2.0 license.

Below, Latchkey shows a faster, safer version produced by its optimization engine.

The workflow

workflow (.yml)

name: Create Release
on:
  push:
    tags:
      - 'v*'

permissions: read-all

jobs:
  release:
    permissions:
      contents: write
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@34e114876b0b11c390a56381ad16ebd13914f8d5 # v4
      - name: calculate previous tag
        run: |
          git fetch --tags origin
          PREVIOUS_TAG=$(git tag --sort=-creatordate | sed -n '2 p')
          echo $PREVIOUS_TAG 
          echo "PREVIOUS_TAG=$PREVIOUS_TAG" >> "$GITHUB_ENV"

      - name: generate release notes from template
        id: release-notes
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          NOTES=$(gh api \
          --method POST \
          -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
          -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" \
          /repos/krkn-chaos/krkn/releases/generate-notes \
          -f "tag_name=${{ github.ref_name }}" -f "target_commitish=main" -f "previous_tag_name=${{ env.PREVIOUS_TAG }}" | jq -r .body)
          echo "NOTES<<EOF" >> $GITHUB_ENV
          echo "$NOTES" >> $GITHUB_ENV
          echo "EOF" >> $GITHUB_ENV

      - name: replace placeholders in template
        run: |
          echo "${{ env.NOTES }}"
          TEMPLATE=$(cat .github/release-template.md)
          VERSION=${{ github.ref_name }}
          NOTES="${{ env.NOTES }}"
          OUTPUT=${TEMPLATE//\{VERSION\}/$VERSION}
          OUTPUT=${OUTPUT//\{CHANGES\}/$NOTES}
          echo "$OUTPUT" > release-notes.md
      - name: create release
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          gh release create ${{ github.ref_name }} --title "${{ github.ref_name }}"  -F release-notes.md

      - name: Install Syft
        run: |
          curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anchore/syft/main/install.sh | sudo sh -s -- -b /usr/local/bin

      - name: Generate SBOM
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          syft . --scope all-layers --output cyclonedx-json > sbom.json
          echo "SBOM generated successfully!"
          gh release upload ${{ github.ref_name }} sbom.json

The same workflow, on Latchkey

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

name: Create Release
on:
  push:
    tags:
      - 'v*'
 
permissions: read-all
 
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  release:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    permissions:
      contents: write
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@34e114876b0b11c390a56381ad16ebd13914f8d5 # v4
      - name: calculate previous tag
        run: |
          git fetch --tags origin
          PREVIOUS_TAG=$(git tag --sort=-creatordate | sed -n '2 p')
          echo $PREVIOUS_TAG 
          echo "PREVIOUS_TAG=$PREVIOUS_TAG" >> "$GITHUB_ENV"
 
      - name: generate release notes from template
        id: release-notes
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          NOTES=$(gh api \
          --method POST \
          -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
          -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" \
          /repos/krkn-chaos/krkn/releases/generate-notes \
          -f "tag_name=${{ github.ref_name }}" -f "target_commitish=main" -f "previous_tag_name=${{ env.PREVIOUS_TAG }}" | jq -r .body)
          echo "NOTES<<EOF" >> $GITHUB_ENV
          echo "$NOTES" >> $GITHUB_ENV
          echo "EOF" >> $GITHUB_ENV
 
      - name: replace placeholders in template
        run: |
          echo "${{ env.NOTES }}"
          TEMPLATE=$(cat .github/release-template.md)
          VERSION=${{ github.ref_name }}
          NOTES="${{ env.NOTES }}"
          OUTPUT=${TEMPLATE//\{VERSION\}/$VERSION}
          OUTPUT=${OUTPUT//\{CHANGES\}/$NOTES}
          echo "$OUTPUT" > release-notes.md
      - name: create release
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          gh release create ${{ github.ref_name }} --title "${{ github.ref_name }}"  -F release-notes.md
 
      - name: Install Syft
        run: |
          curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anchore/syft/main/install.sh | sudo sh -s -- -b /usr/local/bin
 
      - name: Generate SBOM
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: |
          syft . --scope all-layers --output cyclonedx-json > sbom.json
          echo "SBOM generated successfully!"
          gh release upload ${{ github.ref_name }} sbom.json

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.
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:

Network fetches

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