fix(ci): miscellaneous improvements to CI and tests #972

Job	Run time
lint	52s
build-splicer (24.10.0, ubuntu-latest)	2m 5s
build-splicer (24.10.0, windows-latest)	4m 18s
build (24.10.0, ubuntu-latest, debug)	12s
build (24.10.0, ubuntu-latest, release)	11s
test-example (24.10.0)	42s
test (24.10.0, ubuntu-latest, release)	10m 15s
test (24.10.0, ubuntu-latest, debug)	10m 21s
test (24.10.0, windows-latest, debug)	13m 17s
test (24.10.0, macos-latest, debug)	11m 53s
test (24.10.0, windows-latest, release)	11m 27s
test (latest, windows-latest, release)	11m 59s
test (latest, windows-latest, debug)	12m 53s
test (24.10.0, macos-latest, release)	9m 33s
test (latest, macos-latest, release)	10m 15s
test (latest, ubuntu-latest, debug)	10m 18s
test (latest, ubuntu-latest, release)	9m 32s
test (latest, macos-latest, debug)	10m 40s
	2h 20m 43s

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