Publish to NPM workflow (liriliri/eruda)

The Publish to NPM workflow from liriliri/eruda, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

What it does

This is the Publish to NPM workflow from the liriliri/eruda 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

name: Publish to NPM

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  release:
    types: [created]

jobs:
  publish:

    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: '18.x'
          registry-url: 'https://registry.npmjs.org'
      - run: |
          npm i -g @liriliri/lsla
          npm i
          npm run build
      - working-directory: dist
        run: npm publish
        env:
          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}

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: Publish to NPM
 
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  release:
    types: [created]
 
jobs:
  publish:
    timeout-minutes: 30
 
    runs-on: latchkey-small
 
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          cache: 'npm'
          node-version: '18.x'
          registry-url: 'https://registry.npmjs.org'
      - run: |
          npm i -g @liriliri/lsla
          npm i
          npm run build
      - working-directory: dist
        run: npm publish
        env:
          NODE_AUTH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_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.
• 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