Playwright Tests workflow (tabulator-tables/tabulator)

The Playwright Tests workflow from tabulator-tables/tabulator, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

What it does

This is the Playwright Tests workflow from the tabulator-tables/tabulator 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: Playwright Tests
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main, master ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ main, master ]
jobs:
  test:
    timeout-minutes: 60
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix:
        node-version: [18, 20, 22]
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
      with:
        node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
    - name: Install dependencies
      run: npm ci
    - name: Install Playwright Browsers
      run: npx playwright install --with-deps
    - name: Build dist files
      run: npm run build
    - name: Run Playwright tests
      run: npx playwright test
    - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
      if: ${{ !cancelled() }}
      with:
        name: playwright-report-node-${{ matrix.node-version }}
        path: playwright-report/
        retention-days: 30

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: Playwright Tests
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main, master ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ main, master ]
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  test:
    timeout-minutes: 60
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    strategy:
      matrix:
        node-version: [18, 20, 22]
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
      with:
        cache: 'npm'
        node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
    - name: Install dependencies
      run: npm ci
    - name: Install Playwright Browsers
      run: npx playwright install --with-deps
    - name: Build dist files
      run: npm run build
    - name: Run Playwright tests
      run: npx playwright test
    - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
      if: ${{ !cancelled() }}
      with:
        name: playwright-report-node-${{ matrix.node-version }}
        path: playwright-report/
        retention-days: 30
 

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.

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