CI/CD Pipeline Optimization

Caching, parallelization, and build speed optimization for GitHub Actions

Language / Topic

GitHub Actions

Rules

CI/CD Pipeline Optimization · balanced balanced

- Cache dependency installations: actions/cache for node_modules, pip cache, Go module cache

- Parallelize independent jobs: lint, type-check, unit test, and E2E test as separate concurrent jobs

- Use path filters to skip workflows when irrelevant files change: on.push.paths: ['src/**']

- Choose appropriate runner sizes: ubuntu-latest for most jobs, larger runners for memory-heavy builds

- Use artifacts to pass build output between jobs instead of rebuilding in each job

- Cache dependencies: actions/cache or setup-* action built-in caching; key on lockfile hash for invalidation

- Parallel job structure: lint | type-check | unit-test | e2e-test → build → deploy (independent jobs run concurrently)

- Path filters: on.push.paths to skip CI on docs-only or config-only changes; paths-ignore for exclusions

- Runner selection: ubuntu-latest (2-core) for most jobs; large runners (8-core) for heavy builds/tests

- Artifacts: actions/upload-artifact after build, actions/download-artifact in deploy job — build once, deploy anywhere

- Combine small steps: one npm ci + build step instead of separate install and build jobs (reduce overhead)

- Use setup-* actions with built-in caching: actions/setup-node with cache: 'npm' handles caching automatically

- Matrix strategy for multi-version testing; use fail-fast: true for PR feedback, false for release validation

- Conditional steps: if: github.event_name == 'push' && github.ref == 'refs/heads/main' to skip deploy on PRs

- Use concurrency with cancel-in-progress to stop superseded PR workflow runs

- Cache Docker layers: docker/build-push-action with cache-from/cache-to for container builds