Standard GitHub-hosted runners are free on public repos, so all Actions
spend here is on the `*-8x-*` / `4x` larger runners. Measured over 30
days at current (post-Jan-2026) larger-runner rates, that is ~$1,400/mo,
and `npm-publish` is ~70% of it.
## Changes
**Fat LTO was forcing builds onto large runners.** `[profile.release]`
in `.cargo/config.toml` sets `lto = "fat"` with `codegen-units = 1`,
which is single-threaded and the peak-memory step. The macOS
`npm-publish` build was 111 of its 113 minutes in one `napi build` step,
making it the critical path of the whole publish pipeline. The ThinLTO
override already applied to Windows now covers macOS too, and both
Windows builds move from `windows-2025-8x-x64` to the free standard
`windows-2025`.
**The npm-publish cargo cache never existed.** There are zero caches
with its key prefix. The key was static, so `actions/cache` (which only
writes on a miss) could never refresh it, and a multi-GB release
`target/` per target could never fit the repo's 10 GB budget anyway. Now
caches only the crate registry, keyed on `Cargo.lock`. The docker builds
also mounted `.cargo/registry/*` while the cache saved `.cargo-cache`,
so containers re-downloaded the registry every run.
**Cache eviction thrash.** Repo cache usage is 10.4 GB against GitHub's
10 GB cap, so every PR run evicted main's warm entries. `rust.yml` and
`nodejs.yml` now restore everywhere but only save from `main`.
**npm-publish moves to nightly + tags** instead of every push to main
(~90/month). The cross-compiled targets do need watching, so
`report-failure` now fires on scheduled runs, and dedupes onto an
existing open issue rather than filing one per night.
**rust.yml aarch64-pc-windows-msvc** cross-compiled its tests and then
skipped them, paying full codegen and link cost for a compile check.
`windows-11-arm` is now GA and free on public repos, so it builds and
tests natively. Its test step also passes `--target` — without it cargo
used `target/ci/` rather than `target/<triple>/ci/` and rebuilt the
entire dependency graph a second time.
**pypi-publish.yml had no concurrency group**, so force-pushes left a
~74 minute Windows job running.
## What is cost vs. wall-clock
| Change | Cost | Wall-clock |
|---|---|---|
| Windows npm-publish → free runners | **−$570/mo** | slower per job
(8→4 cores) |
| npm-publish nightly | **−$125/mo** | — |
| pypi-publish concurrency | small | — |
| macOS ThinLTO | $0 (already free) | **−~50 min** per release |
| rust aarch64 Windows native | $0 (already free) | **−~25 min** |
| rust `--target` on test step | $0 | large, avoids a second full build
|
| rust-cache `save-if` | small | faster via real cache hits |
## Risks
- The two Windows builds now have 4 cores instead of 8 and ~14 GB of
free disk. If they fail, it is most likely disk rather than memory;
fallback is `windows-2025-4x-x64`, which still halves that line.
- `windows-11-arm` has a thinner toolset (choco/vcpkg/protoc under
emulation) and this enables a test step that has never run, so it may
surface real aarch64 failures. That is the point, but it is the change
most likely to need iteration.
- ThinLTO applies to published macOS and Windows binaries, typically
within a few percent of fat LTO. Linux release builds are untouched.
## Follow-ups
- `python.yml` `pydantic1x` (37 min) and `Doctest` (33 min) each rebuild
the extension from source via `pip install -e .` with no Rust cache;
they should consume the wheel the `linux` job already builds. Worth
~$235/mo and ~70 min of compute per run. Separate PR.
- The three `ubuntu-2404-8x-x64` npm-publish builds (~$420/mo at the old
cadence) are the remaining large-runner spend;
`aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu` could run natively on free
`ubuntu-24.04-arm`. Worth doing after this lands so the ThinLTO change
can be validated first.
- The wheel composite actions declare `python-minor-version` as required
but never use it, and every caller omits it (actionlint warns).
🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
## Summary
- Created custom GitHub Action that creates issues when workflow jobs
fail
- Added report-failure jobs to cargo-publish.yml, java-publish.yml,
npm-publish.yml, and pypi-publish.yml
- Issues are created automatically with workflow name, failed job names,
and run URL
## Test plan
- Workflows will only create issues on actual release or
workflow_dispatch events
- Can be tested by triggering workflow_dispatch on a publish workflow
Based on lancedb/lance#4873🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
Will Jones