CodeQL Analysis workflow (santifer/career-ops)

The CodeQL Analysis workflow from santifer/career-ops, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

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Source: santifer/career-ops.github/workflows/codeql.ymlLicense MITView source

What it does

This is the CodeQL Analysis workflow from the santifer/career-ops 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: 'CodeQL Analysis'
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 4 * * 1' # Weekly Monday 4am UTC

permissions:
  actions: read
  contents: read
  security-events: write

jobs:
  analyze:
    name: Analyze
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        language: ['javascript-typescript', 'go']
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v7

      - name: Initialize CodeQL
        uses: github/codeql-action/init@v4
        with:
          languages: ${{ matrix.language }}

      - name: Setup Go
        if: matrix.language == 'go'
        uses: actions/setup-go@v6
        with:
          go-version-file: dashboard/go.mod
          cache-dependency-path: dashboard/go.sum

      - name: Build Go
        if: matrix.language == 'go'
        # go build skips *_test.go, so CodeQL's traced build never saw test
        # files (tool status showed Go at 13/26 files scanned). Compiling the
        # test packages without running them (-run '^$') lets the extractor
        # cover them too. The two windows-tagged files stay out by platform.
        run: |
          cd dashboard
          go build ./...
          go test -run '^$' ./...

      - name: Autobuild
        if: matrix.language != 'go'
        uses: github/codeql-action/autobuild@v4

      - name: Perform CodeQL Analysis
        uses: github/codeql-action/analyze@v4
        with:
          category: '/language:${{ matrix.language }}'

The same workflow, on Latchkey

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

name: 'CodeQL Analysis'
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 4 * * 1' # Weekly Monday 4am UTC
 
permissions:
  actions: read
  contents: read
  security-events: write
 
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  analyze:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: Analyze
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        language: ['javascript-typescript', 'go']
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v7
 
      - name: Initialize CodeQL
        uses: github/codeql-action/init@v4
        with:
          languages: ${{ matrix.language }}
 
      - name: Setup Go
        if: matrix.language == 'go'
        uses: actions/setup-go@v6
        with:
          go-version-file: dashboard/go.mod
          cache-dependency-path: dashboard/go.sum
 
      - name: Build Go
        if: matrix.language == 'go'
        # go build skips *_test.go, so CodeQL's traced build never saw test
        # files (tool status showed Go at 13/26 files scanned). Compiling the
        # test packages without running them (-run '^$') lets the extractor
        # cover them too. The two windows-tagged files stay out by platform.
        run: |
          cd dashboard
          go build ./...
          go test -run '^$' ./...
 
      - name: Autobuild
        if: matrix.language != 'go'
        uses: github/codeql-action/autobuild@v4
 
      - name: Perform CodeQL Analysis
        uses: github/codeql-action/analyze@v4
        with:
          category: '/language:${{ matrix.language }}'

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.
Add a job timeout so a hung step cannot burn hours of runner time.

This workflow runs 1 job (2 with the matrix expanded) 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 github/codeql-action actions/setup-go