Documentation building workflow (pyvisa/pyvisa)

The Documentation building workflow from pyvisa/pyvisa, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

What it does

This is the Documentation building workflow from the pyvisa/pyvisa 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: Documentation building
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 0 * * 2"
  push:
    branches:
      - main
      - staging
      - trying
  pull_request_target:
    branches:
      - main
    paths:
      - .github/workflows/docs.yml
      - "pyvisa/**"
      - "docs/**"

jobs:
  docs:
    name: Docs building
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
      - name: Set up Python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v6
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: |
          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
          pip install -r docs/requirements.txt
      - name: Install project
        run: |
          pip install .
      - name: Install graphviz
        uses: ts-graphviz/setup-graphviz@v2
      - name: Build documentation
        run: |
          mkdir docs_output;
          sphinx-build docs/source docs_output -W -b html;

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: Documentation building
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 0 * * 2"
  push:
    branches:
      - main
      - staging
      - trying
  pull_request_target:
    branches:
      - main
    paths:
      - .github/workflows/docs.yml
      - "pyvisa/**"
      - "docs/**"
 
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  docs:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: Docs building
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
      - name: Set up Python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v6
        with:
          cache: 'pip'
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: |
          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
          pip install -r docs/requirements.txt
      - name: Install project
        run: |
          pip install .
      - name: Install graphviz
        uses: ts-graphviz/setup-graphviz@v2
      - name: Build documentation
        run: |
          mkdir docs_output;
          sphinx-build docs/source docs_output -W -b html;
 

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.

1 third-party action is referenced by a movable tag. Pin it to the commit SHA (Latchkey resolves and applies this automatically) so a repointed tag cannot change what runs.

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