Another attempt to improve metadata gathering performance #1481

Job	Run time
build packages	18s
linter	1m 5s
unit test / python 3.8	59s
unit test / python 3.9	1m 0s
unit test / python 3.10	1m 30s
unit test / python 3.11	1m 3s
verify packages / python 3.8 / ubuntu-latest	1m 15s
verify packages / python 3.9 / ubuntu-latest	1m 24s
verify packages / python 3.10 / ubuntu-latest	1m 10s
verify packages / python 3.11 / ubuntu-latest	1m 10s
verify packages / python 3.8 / macos-latest	1m 40s
verify packages / python 3.9 / macos-latest	1m 38s
verify packages / python 3.10 / macos-latest	1m 42s
verify packages / python 3.11 / macos-latest	2m 0s
verify packages / python 3.8 / windows-latest	3m 24s
verify packages / python 3.9 / windows-latest	2m 50s
verify packages / python 3.10 / windows-latest	4m 28s
verify packages / python 3.11 / windows-latest	3m 23s
	31m 59s

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