Deploy site (project page + docs) workflow (RUC-NLPIR/Arbor)

The Deploy site (project page + docs) workflow from RUC-NLPIR/Arbor, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

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Source: RUC-NLPIR/Arbor.github/workflows/pages.ymlLicense Apache-2.0View source

What it does

This is the Deploy site (project page + docs) workflow from the RUC-NLPIR/Arbor repository, a real project running GitHub Actions. It is shown here with attribution under its Apache-2.0 license.

Below, Latchkey shows a faster, safer version produced by its optimization engine.

The workflow

workflow (.yml)

name: Deploy site (project page + docs)

# Builds two things and publishes them to one GitHub Pages site:
#   - project_page/ (Vite/React) -> served at the site root   (/Arbor/)
#   - docs/         (MkDocs)      -> served under              (/Arbor/docs/)

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  workflow_dispatch:

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

# Allow only one concurrent deployment; don't cancel an in-progress run.
concurrency:
  group: pages
  cancel-in-progress: false

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      # ── Docs: MkDocs Material -> _site/docs ──────────────────────────
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: "3.12"
      - name: Build docs
        run: |
          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
          pip install "mkdocs-material>=9.5" "mkdocs-static-i18n>=1.2"
          mkdocs build --strict -d _site/docs

      # ── Live demo: arbor replay --demo --html -> _site/demo.html ─────
      # Regenerated from source on every deploy so the hosted, zero-install
      # demo always matches the shipped code (no committed artifact to go stale).
      - name: Build live demo page
        run: |
          pip install .
          arbor replay --demo --html --no-open --out _site/demo.html

      # ── Project page: Vite/React -> _site (root) ─────────────────────
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: "20"
          cache: npm
          cache-dependency-path: project_page/package-lock.json
      - name: Build project page
        working-directory: project_page
        run: |
          npm ci
          npm run build
      - name: Place landing page at site root
        run: cp -R project_page/dist/. _site/

      - uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v3
        with:
          path: _site

  deploy:
    needs: build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment:
      name: github-pages
      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
    steps:
      - id: deployment
        uses: actions/deploy-pages@v4

The same workflow, on Latchkey

Removes redundant runs and caps runaway jobs. Added and changed lines are highlighted.

name: Deploy site (project page + docs)
 
# Builds two things and publishes them to one GitHub Pages site:
#   - project_page/ (Vite/React) -> served at the site root   (/Arbor/)
#   - docs/         (MkDocs)      -> served under              (/Arbor/docs/)
 
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  workflow_dispatch:
 
permissions:
  contents: read
  pages: write
  id-token: write
 
# Allow only one concurrent deployment; don't cancel an in-progress run.
concurrency:
  group: pages
  cancel-in-progress: false
 
jobs:
  build:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
 
      # ── Docs: MkDocs Material -> _site/docs ──────────────────────────
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: "3.12"
      - name: Build docs
        run: |
          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
          pip install "mkdocs-material>=9.5" "mkdocs-static-i18n>=1.2"
          mkdocs build --strict -d _site/docs
 
      # ── Live demo: arbor replay --demo --html -> _site/demo.html ─────
      # Regenerated from source on every deploy so the hosted, zero-install
      # demo always matches the shipped code (no committed artifact to go stale).
      - name: Build live demo page
        run: |
          pip install .
          arbor replay --demo --html --no-open --out _site/demo.html
 
      # ── Project page: Vite/React -> _site (root) ─────────────────────
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: "20"
          cache: npm
          cache-dependency-path: project_page/package-lock.json
      - name: Build project page
        working-directory: project_page
        run: |
          npm ci
          npm run build
      - name: Place landing page at site root
        run: cp -R project_page/dist/. _site/
 
      - uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v3
        with:
          path: _site
 
  deploy:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    needs: build
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    environment:
      name: github-pages
      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
    steps:
      - id: deployment
        uses: actions/deploy-pages@v4

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.
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 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

actions/checkout actions/setup-python actions/setup-node actions/upload-pages-artifact actions/deploy-pages