CI: add timeout and retry to apt-get install steps

[mmcky]

Bare sudo apt-get install -y with no timeout-minutes and no retry lets a stalled Ubuntu mirror hang CI for hours: two 358-minute hangs on 2026-08-18 across two edition repos ten minutes apart (a mirror outage), four more hangs on 2026-08-19 (Install latex dependencies 77/15/16 min, Graphics Support 21 min) each cleared only by cancel-and-rerun, and a 59-minute slow-but-green install on 2026-08-20.

This PR hardens every apt-installing step in the workflows that carry one (ci.yml, cache.yml, publish.yml where present):

• a step-level timeout-minutes (10 for graphviz, 30 for the texlive set), so a hang can no longer take the six-hour job limit;
• up to three attempts with a per-attempt timeout (3m / 9m) and a 30-second pause, so a transient mirror outage is ridden out rather than failing the build — a timeout alone would only turn a six-hour hang into a fast red build.

Package lists are unchanged. The apt steps are edition-local (the shared QuantEcon/actions/templates carry none), so this lands per repo. Part of the five-repo sweep tracked in QuantEcon/project-translation#43.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR hardens GitHub Actions workflows against Ubuntu mirror stalls by adding step-level timeouts and retry logic around the LaTeX dependency installation steps, reducing the chance of multi-hour CI hangs in this Jupyter Book-based lecture build/publish pipeline.

Changes:

• Add timeout-minutes to the “Install latex dependencies” steps.
• Wrap apt-get update + apt-get install in a 3-attempt retry loop with per-attempt timeouts and a short backoff.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

File	Description
.github/workflows/ci.yml	Adds step timeout and retry/timeout loop around LaTeX apt installs in PR CI.
.github/workflows/publish.yml	Adds step timeout and retry/timeout loop around LaTeX apt installs in publish workflow.

Suppressed comments (2)

.github/workflows/ci.yml:46

• The retry loop uses a single timeout 9m covering both apt-get update and apt-get install, but the PR description says the per-attempt timeouts are split (3m / 9m). As written, a slow update consumes install budget and also doesn’t match the stated behavior; splitting the timeouts makes the step’s intent clearer and more predictable.

          for attempt in 1 2 3; do
            timeout 9m sudo bash -c "apt-get -qq update && apt-get install -y $pkgs" && break
            if [ "$attempt" = 3 ]; then echo "apt-get failed after 3 attempts"; exit 1; fi

.github/workflows/publish.yml:62

• The retry loop uses a single timeout 9m covering both apt-get update and apt-get install, but the PR description says the per-attempt timeouts are split (3m / 9m). As written, a slow update consumes install budget and also doesn’t match the stated behavior; splitting the timeouts makes the step’s intent clearer and more predictable.

          for attempt in 1 2 3; do
            timeout 9m sudo bash -c "apt-get -qq update && apt-get install -y $pkgs" && break
            if [ "$attempt" = 3 ]; then echo "apt-get failed after 3 attempts"; exit 1; fi

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[github-actions]

🚀 Deployed on https://6a87930b41398627e427e87d--epic-agnesi-957267.netlify.app

[mmcky]

Closing unmerged (@mmcky, 2026-08-21): the apt hangs are accepted as a known flake for now rather than investing further here — the QuantEcon/actions container templates remove the apt step entirely, and that deployment is the medium-term fix. Branch left in place for reference; tracked in QuantEcon/project-translation#43.