npm run prod not actually running in github action despite showing successful - github

Question

I don't believe that nmp run prod is actually running(?) in my github action despite not throwing any kind of error. The reasons why I believe that are:
If I delete my public/js/app.js file locally and push the change, it doesn't get rebuilt and my production site breaks as there's no app.js file.
If I leave the file in place and push my code to production, it's not minified, and one of the keys I need to reference still contains the dev value.
If I replace the aforementioned key with a different value and run npm run prod locally, then app.js is minified and contains my updated value.
Why would the npm run prod command not work within a github action, and also indicate that it ran successfully?
Here's my entire workflow file:
name: Prod
on:
push:
branches: [ main ]
jobs:
laravel_tests:
runs-on: ubuntu-20.04
env:
DB_CONNECTION: mysql
DB_HOST: localhost
DB_PORT: 3306
DB_DATABASE: testdb
DB_USERNAME: root
DB_PASSWORD: root
steps:
- name: Set up MySQL
run: |
sudo systemctl start mysql
mysql -e 'CREATE DATABASE testdb;' -uroot -proot
mysql -e 'SHOW DATABASES;' -uroot -proot
- uses: actions/checkout#main
- name: Copy .env
run: php -r "file_exists('.env') || copy('.env.example', '.env');"
- name: Install Dependencies
run: composer install -q --no-ansi --no-interaction --no-scripts --no-progress
- name: Generate key
run: php artisan key:generate
- name: Directory Permissions
run: chmod -R 777 storage bootstrap/cache
- name: Clean Install
run: npm ci
- name: Compile assets
run: npm run prod
- name: Execute tests (Unit and Feature tests) via PHPUnit
run: vendor/bin/phpunit
forge_deploy:
runs-on: ubuntu-20.04
needs: laravel_tests
steps:
- name: Make Get Request
uses: satak/webrequest-action#master
with:
url: ${{ secrets.PROD_DEPLOY_URL }}
method: GET
UPDATE:
My suspicion is that running the build process in the action isn't actually updating the repo (actually I'm fairly certain it's probably not as that would likely not be the desired behavior). So then the deploy url that I'm using to push the code is likely just grabbing the repo as-is and deploying it.
I need a way to update only the public folder on the repo with the output of the npm run prod command. Not sure if this is possible, or advisable, but I'm nearly positive that's what's going on.