cache-playwright-dependencies-across-workflows.md

Cache Playwright Dependencies Across Workflows

With the help of actions/cache@v3, I can cache the dependency install and setup involved with using Playwright in GitHub Actions. That setup, in my experience, typically takes ~45s. When it is already cached, it is able to skip that step entirely greatly reducing the overall run time of the script.

First, I need to define a cache (playwright-cache). Second, I need to only install the Playwright dependencies when that cache isn't available (cache-hit != 'true').

Here is a striped down workflow demonstrating that.

name: Playwright Script
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  Cached-Playwright-Script:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Check out repository code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/cache@v3
        id: playwright-cache
        with:
          path: |
            ~/.cache/ms-playwright
          key: ${{ runner.os }}-playwright-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci
      - name: Install playwright deps
        run: npx playwright install --with-deps chromium
        if: steps.playwright-cache.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
      - run: node playwright-script.js

If I add the caching step and the cache-conditional playwright install steps to another workflow in this project, the cache will be available to both of them. That means they both benefit from the savings of that work having already been cached.

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