Execute tests jobs in parallel to be approximately 42% faster

[dianjuar]

I have a proposition to make test action around 42% faster ⚡.

Currently, we have all the tests on an action. All tests are executed sequentially. The final time execution will be the sum of lint, test, and build execution. For this repository is 2:03min.

If we run the tests in parallel, the final execution time would be the slowest of the three. For this repository would be the linter with 52.51s.

---

I propose to create a reusable workflow to run all the tests in parallel. I am already implementing this approach on ngx-deploy-npm. Graphically it looks like this:

Besides the efficiency, we have the following benefits:

• It's easier to detect what has failed ❌ and what has passed ✅
• It's easier to detect what it's taking longer⏳
• More transparency on which are the tests ✨

[dianjuar]

I have a proposed workflow. I'm going to highlight the differences and features.

Proposed Workflow (raw version)

name: Essential Test

on: workflow_call

jobs:
  lint:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - uses: ./.github/actions/setup

      - name: Lint
        run: npx nx lint

  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - uses: ./.github/actions/setup

      - run: npx nx build

  unit-test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix:
        node-version: [14, 16, 18]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - uses: ./.github/actions/setup
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
      - run: npx nx test --code-coverage

  e2e-test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix:
        node-version: [14, 16, 18]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - uses: ./.github/actions/setup
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
      - run: npx nx e2e ngx-deploy-npm-e2e

Implementation

name: PR's
on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]

jobs:
  pr-test:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/basic-test.yml
  

Principal Differences

Parallel test

By executing jobs in parallel, we reduce the execution time to the one that takes longer to complete.

Node V14, 16, 18

Currently, those are the node versions receiving active maintenance. Those versions could be an input to the workflow with those values as default.

Execute Lint and Build once

Executing Lint tests in different node versions will result in the same output; nothing will change. The same thing happened with the build, running it in a separate node versions doesn't add too much value, especially if we have our node version specified (using .npmrc) for development.

[yjaaidi]

Thanks @dianjuar! This is in fact interesting.
We merged all the steps in one job because Node setup is what takes longer.
For most commits thanks to nx affected, there are few things to build/test/lint.

Anyway, it could be interesting to split back again, and then we could dive into optimizing the Node setup.

We'd be happy to merge your PR.

Thank you in advance.