Scan Secrets workflow (vinta/hal-9000)

The Scan Secrets workflow from vinta/hal-9000, explained and optimized by Latchkey.

What it does

This is the Scan Secrets workflow from the vinta/hal-9000 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: Scan Secrets

on:
  push:
  pull_request:

permissions:
  contents: read

concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.head_ref || github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true

jobs:
  gitleaks:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
          persist-credentials: false

      - name: Run gitleaks
        uses: gitleaks/gitleaks-action@v2
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

  detect-secrets:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          persist-credentials: false

      - name: Setup Python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: "3.x"

      - name: Install detect-secrets
        run: pip install detect-secrets

      - name: Run detect-secrets
        run: |
          git ls-files -z | xargs -0 detect-secrets-hook --baseline .secrets.baseline

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: Scan Secrets
 
on:
  push:
  pull_request:
 
permissions:
  contents: read
 
concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.head_ref || github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true
 
jobs:
  gitleaks:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
          persist-credentials: false
 
      - name: Run gitleaks
        uses: gitleaks/gitleaks-action@v2
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
 
  detect-secrets:
    timeout-minutes: 30
    runs-on: latchkey-small
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          persist-credentials: false
 
      - name: Setup Python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          cache: 'pip'
          python-version: "3.x"
 
      - name: Install detect-secrets
        run: pip install detect-secrets
 
      - name: Run detect-secrets
        run: |
          git ls-files -z | xargs -0 detect-secrets-hook --baseline .secrets.baseline
 

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.
• Cache dependency installs on the setup step so they are served from cache.
• 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.

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