Browser Tests workflow (showdownjs/showdown)

The Browser Tests workflow from showdownjs/showdown, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

CI health: C - fair

Point runs-on at Latchkey and get run de-duplication, job timeouts, self-healing for flaky steps, and up to 58% lower cost, applied automatically.

Grade your own workflow free or run it on Latchkey →

Source: showdownjs/showdown.github/workflows/browser.ymlLicense MITView source

What it does

This is the Browser Tests workflow from the showdownjs/showdown 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: Browser Tests

on:
  push:
    branches: [ master, develop ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ master, develop ]

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  browser:
    name: 'Browser tests (${{ matrix.browser }})'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        browser: [chromium, firefox, webkit]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@34e114876b0b11c390a56381ad16ebd13914f8d5 # v4.3.1
      - name: Use Node.js 20.x
        uses: actions/setup-node@49933ea5288caeca8642d1e84afbd3f7d6820020 # v4.4.0
        with:
          node-version: 20.x
          cache: 'npm'
      - run: npm ci
      - name: Install Playwright browser
        run: npx playwright install --with-deps ${{ matrix.browser }}
      - name: Run browser tests
        run: npm run test:browser -- --project ${{ matrix.browser }}

The same workflow, on Latchkey

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

name: Browser Tests
 
on:
  push:
    branches: [ master, develop ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ master, develop ]
 
permissions:
  contents: read
 
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  browser:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    name: 'Browser tests (${{ matrix.browser }})'
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        browser: [chromium, firefox, webkit]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@34e114876b0b11c390a56381ad16ebd13914f8d5 # v4.3.1
      - name: Use Node.js 20.x
        uses: actions/setup-node@49933ea5288caeca8642d1e84afbd3f7d6820020 # v4.4.0
        with:
          node-version: 20.x
          cache: 'npm'
      - run: npm ci
      - name: Install Playwright browser
        run: npx playwright install --with-deps ${{ matrix.browser }}
      - name: Run browser tests
        run: npm run test:browser -- --project ${{ matrix.browser }}

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.

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
End-to-end and browser tests

This workflow runs 1 job (3 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 actions/setup-node