GitHub Actions Optimization: Cut CI Time by 50% (Real Examples)
· 8 min read
A 14-minute CI pipeline isn't just 14 minutes of waiting. GitHub Octoverse 2024 reported that the median enterprise repository now runs a pull request through CI 4.2 times before merge: retries, pushes after review, fixing flaky tests. That's nearly an hour of compute per PR. On a team shipping 200 PRs a week, the CI bill buys you nothing and the context-switch tax costs you a senior developer's Thursday.
This is a how-to. Six steps that consistently cut GitHub Actions CI time by 50%+ on real repos we've helped optimize. No theory; each step has a patch you can adapt.