Deploy Skill Catalog to GitHub Pages workflow (ljagiello/ctf-skills)

The Deploy Skill Catalog to GitHub Pages workflow from ljagiello/ctf-skills, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

What it does

This is the Deploy Skill Catalog to GitHub Pages workflow from the ljagiello/ctf-skills 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: Deploy Skill Catalog to GitHub Pages

'on':
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:

permissions:
  contents: read
  pages: write
  id-token: write

concurrency:
  group: pages
  cancel-in-progress: true

jobs:
  build:
    name: Build catalog
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v7

      - name: Set up Python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v6
        with:
          python-version: '3.14'

      - name: Generate catalog
        run: python scripts/generate_catalog.py

      - name: Upload artifact
        uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v5
        with:
          path: _site

  deploy:
    name: Deploy to Pages
    needs: build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      pages: write
      id-token: write
    environment:
      name: github-pages
      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
        id: deployment
        uses: actions/deploy-pages@v5

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: Deploy Skill Catalog to GitHub Pages
 
'on':
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:
 
permissions:
  contents: read
  pages: write
  id-token: write
 
concurrency:
  group: pages
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  build:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: Build catalog
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v7
 
      - name: Set up Python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v6
        with:
          cache: 'pip'
          python-version: '3.14'
 
      - name: Generate catalog
        run: python scripts/generate_catalog.py
 
      - name: Upload artifact
        uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v5
        with:
          path: _site
 
  deploy:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: Deploy to Pages
    needs: build
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    permissions:
      pages: write
      id-token: write
    environment:
      name: github-pages
      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
        id: deployment
        uses: actions/deploy-pages@v5
 

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 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