Publish prerelease and update PR workflow (MithrilJS/mithril.js)

The Publish prerelease and update PR workflow from MithrilJS/mithril.js, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

What it does

This is the Publish prerelease and update PR workflow from the MithrilJS/mithril.js 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 prerelease and update PR

on:
  workflow_call:
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  update-pr:
    concurrency: prr:pre-release
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v5
    - uses: actions/setup-node@v6
      with:
        node-version: 20
    - run: npm ci
    - run: npm run build
    - run: npx pr-release pr --verbose --target release --source main --compact --verbose --minimize-semver-change
      env:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_TOKEN }}
    # The following will publish a prerelease to npm
    - run: echo "//registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken=$NPM_TOKEN" > ~/.npmrc
      name: Setup NPM Auth
      env:
        NPM_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
    - run: npx pr-release infer-prerelease --preid=next --target release --source main --verbose --publish --minimize-semver-change
      name: Publish

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 prerelease and update PR
 
on:
  workflow_call:
  workflow_dispatch:
 
jobs:
  update-pr:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    concurrency: prr:pre-release
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v5
    - uses: actions/setup-node@v6
      with:
        cache: 'npm'
        node-version: 20
    - run: npm ci
    - run: npm run build
    - run: npx pr-release pr --verbose --target release --source main --compact --verbose --minimize-semver-change
      env:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GH_TOKEN }}
    # The following will publish a prerelease to npm
    - run: echo "//registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken=$NPM_TOKEN" > ~/.npmrc
      name: Setup NPM Auth
      env:
        NPM_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.NPM_TOKEN }}
    - run: npx pr-release infer-prerelease --preid=next --target release --source main --verbose --publish --minimize-semver-change
      name: Publish

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