[josephfusco]

The apt cache key pins the runner image and Playwright version, so when both roll over together, as on Oct 22, every leg downloads cold from a throttled mirror and hits the 5-minute step timeout; the fallback is safe because apt ignores a package that doesn't match its index.

Related: #870

Use of AI Tools

AI assistance: Yes
Tool(s): Claude Code
Model(s): Claude Opus 5.5
Used for: Assisting with tracing the e2e timeouts to the cache key.

[github-actions]

The following accounts have interacted with this PR and/or linked issues. I will continue to update these lists as activity occurs.

Core Committers: Use this line as a base for the props when committing in SVN:

Props joefusco.

To understand the WordPress project's expectations around crediting contributors, please review the Contributor Attribution page in the Core Handbook.

---

Props Bot commands

You can trigger Props Bot actions by commenting on this PR:

• @propsbot add <username> to give props to a GitHub user. Requires write access.
• @propsbot remove <username> to leave a user out of the props. Requires write access.
• @propsbot refresh to refresh this list. Adding the props-bot label works too.