Release Drafter workflow (vanvalenlab/deepcell-tf)

The Release Drafter workflow from vanvalenlab/deepcell-tf, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

CI health: C - fair

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

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Source: vanvalenlab/deepcell-tf.github/workflows/release-drafter.yamlLicense Apache-2.0View source

What it does

This is the Release Drafter workflow from the vanvalenlab/deepcell-tf 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: Release Drafter

on:
  push:
    # branches to consider in the event; optional, defaults to all
    branches:
      - master
  # pull_request event is required only for autolabeler
  pull_request:
    # Only following types are handled by the action, but one can default to all as well
    types: [opened, reopened, synchronize]

jobs:
  update_release_draft:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:

      # Drafts your next Release notes as Pull Requests are merged into "master"
      - uses: release-drafter/release-drafter@v5
        # (Optional) specify config name to use, relative to .github/. Default: release-drafter.yml
        # with:
        #   config-name: my-config.yml
        #   disable-autolabeler: true
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

The same workflow, on Latchkey

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

name: Release Drafter
 
on:
  push:
    # branches to consider in the event; optional, defaults to all
    branches:
      - master
  # pull_request event is required only for autolabeler
  pull_request:
    # Only following types are handled by the action, but one can default to all as well
    types: [opened, reopened, synchronize]
 
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  update_release_draft:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    steps:
 
      # Drafts your next Release notes as Pull Requests are merged into "master"
      - uses: release-drafter/release-drafter@v5
        # (Optional) specify config name to use, relative to .github/. Default: release-drafter.yml
        # with:
        #   config-name: my-config.yml
        #   disable-autolabeler: true
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

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.

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.

This workflow runs 1 job per trigger. On Latchkey the same minutes cost up to 58% less than GitHub-hosted, with zero queue time.