Validate frontmatter workflow (microsoft/agent-academy)

The Validate frontmatter workflow from microsoft/agent-academy, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

CI health: D - needs work

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Source: microsoft/agent-academy.github/workflows/validate-frontmatter.ymlLicense MITView source

What it does

This is the Validate frontmatter workflow from the microsoft/agent-academy 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: Validate frontmatter
permissions:
  contents: read

on:
  pull_request:
    branches-ignore:
      - gh-pages

jobs:
  frontmatter-check:
    name: Check mission frontmatter
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: '20'

      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Run frontmatter validation
        continue-on-error: false
        id: frontmatter-check
        run: node scripts/validate-frontmatter.mjs

      - name: Report frontmatter check results
        if: steps.frontmatter-check.outcome == 'failure'
        run: |
          echo "::warning::Mission frontmatter issues found. Each mission page in special-ops/ and cowork-collective/ must have: difficulty (1-5), time (minutes as a number), and description (min 10 characters)."

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: Validate frontmatter
permissions:
  contents: read
 
on:
  pull_request:
    branches-ignore:
      - gh-pages
 
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  frontmatter-check:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: Check mission frontmatter
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
 
      - name: Setup Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          cache: 'npm'
          node-version: '20'
 
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci
 
      - name: Run frontmatter validation
        continue-on-error: false
        id: frontmatter-check
        run: node scripts/validate-frontmatter.mjs
 
      - name: Report frontmatter check results
        if: steps.frontmatter-check.outcome == 'failure'
        run: |
          echo "::warning::Mission frontmatter issues found. Each mission page in special-ops/ and cowork-collective/ must have: difficulty (1-5), time (minutes as a number), and description (min 10 characters)."

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.
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