[lockfile-stats] Lockfile Statistics — 2026-09-05 (299 workflows analyzed)

[github-actions[bot]]

Lockfile Statistics — 2026-09-05

Analysis of all .github/workflows/*.lock.yml compiled agentic workflows in github/gh-aw. Data extracted via one-pass parser from gh-aw-metadata/gh-aw-manifest comments, GH_AW_SAFE_OUTPUTS_CONFIG, and per-job permissions blocks (299 lockfiles, 0 malformed/skipped).

Executive summary

Metric	Value	Δ vs 2026-09-04
Lockfiles	299	+0
Total size	46,033,897 bytes (43.9 MB)	+232,482 bytes (+0.51%)
Avg size	153,960 bytes	+777
Min / Max size	92,111 / 245,217 bytes	unchanged

File size distribution

• Range: 92.1 KB – 245.2 KB, avg 150.4 KB — spread driven by MCP tool-set size (GitHub server alone contributes dozens of tool schemas per file).

Trigger analysis

Trigger	Count
workflow_dispatch	291
schedule	242
pull_request	43
issues	5
issue_comment	3
workflow_call	3
deployment_status / workflow_run / discussion / discussion_comment / push / pull_request_review_comment	1 each

Top trigger combinations: schedule+workflow_dispatch (209), bare workflow_dispatch (38), pull_request+schedule+workflow_dispatch (29). Cron cadence is dominated by 0 0 */2 * * (every-other-day) at 42 workflows; the remaining ~30 distinct crons are singletons or pairs, showing most scheduled workflows converge on the same twice-daily-ish slot rather than spreading load.

Safe outputs analysis

92 workflows configure create_discussion (category detection: 92/92 resolved, 0 unresolved, 0 fallback-parsed — clean). Discussion categories: audits 79, announcements 5, artifacts 2, dev 2, research 2, general 1, daily-news 1 — audits dominates, consistent with this workflow's own category.

Most common non-builtin safe outputs: create_issue (146), add_comment (77), create_pull_request (64), push_repo_memory (36, up from 34), add_labels (32).

Structural characteristics

	Avg	Max
Jobs/workflow	7.35	14
Steps/workflow	143.99	205
Script steps/workflow	98.93	136

Timeout-minutes distribution (per job, across all workflows): 45min ×299, 60min ×292, 10min ×318, 90min ×3, 5min ×2, 120min ×2, 180min ×1, 15min ×1 — the 45/60/10 triad is the de facto standard across nearly every workflow.

Permission patterns (agent job)

contents: read is universal (299/299). Beyond that, most scopes default to none: actions none 185 / read 114, discussions none 247 / read 52, security-events none 285 / read 14. Only id-token shows any write (2 workflows). Union-across-jobs view shows where writes actually happen: issues: write on all 299, contents: write on 206, pull-requests: write on 146, discussions: write on 96 — i.e., every workflow's agent job itself is read-only/least-privilege, with writes isolated to dedicated safe-output jobs.

Engine distribution

Engine	Count	Δ vs 09-04
copilot	123	+2
codex	94	+18
claude	56	0
pi	11	−18
aider / opencode / goose	3 each	0
crush	1	−2
cursor / deepseek-harness / gemini / kiro / pydantic-ai	1 each	0

0 lockfiles had unresolved engine (agent_id cleanly parsed from gh-aw-metadata in all 299). Most common model pins: openai/gpt-5.4 (44), copilot/mai-code-1-flash-picker (44), copilot/claude-sonnet-4.5 (9).

Tool & MCP patterns

safeoutputs MCP is present in all 299 workflows (expected — it's the safe-output transport). Beyond that: github 189 (up from 121, +56%), agenticworkflows 44, serena 25, mcpscripts 12, tavily 5. Zero fallback parsing was needed (mcp_fallback_used_count: 0 — all resolved via gh-aw-manifest).

Within the github server, tool adoption broadened meaningfully day-over-day: read counts for most tools rose from ~113-121 to ~171-189, and several tool categories appear as newly-adopted that weren't present yesterday, including actions_get/actions_list/get_job_logs (17 workflows), and get_discussion/get_discussion_comments/list_discussion_categories/list_discussions (12 workflows).

Interesting findings

1. Engine migration in progress: pi engine usage dropped 62% (29→11) while codex rose 24% (76→94) in a single day — consistent with a batch re-pin of workflows from pi to codex.
2. GitHub MCP adoption surged +56% (121→189 workflows) with new tool categories (Actions run/job-log inspection, Discussions) appearing for the first time, suggesting a wave of workflows gained read access to CI logs and discussions.
3. Least-privilege is structurally enforced: 100% of agent jobs are contents: read-only with no direct write scopes beyond 2 id-token: write outliers — all writes flow through dedicated safe-output jobs (union issues: write = 299/299).
4. Timeout standardization: the 10/45/60-minute timeout triad appears in >97% of job timeout settings, indicating a shared template rather than per-workflow tuning.
5. Discussion category detection is fully reliable: 92/92 create_discussion workflows resolved a category with zero fallback-regex parsing needed — the GH_AW_SAFE_OUTPUTS_CONFIG JSON path covers 100% of cases in this corpus.

Historical trends (vs 2026-09-04)

• Lockfile count unchanged (299 → 299).
• Total size +0.51% (46.03 MB vs 45.80 MB).
• Discussion categories and safe-output type counts otherwise stable; push_repo_memory +2, close_issue +1.
• Job/step/script count averages essentially flat (±0.4).

Recommendations

• If the pi→codex engine shift was intentional, consider documenting the rationale (cost/capability) so future audits don't flag it as drift.
• The GitHub MCP tool surface is growing fast (+56% adoption in a day); worth periodically reviewing whether newly-granted read scopes (Actions logs, Discussions) match each workflow's actual task.
• Timeout values are already well standardized — no action needed there.

Methodology: single-script compact JSON analysis (lockfile_stats_v4.py, cached in /tmp/gh-aw/cache-memory/scripts/). Engine resolved from gh-aw-metadata agent_id; permissions from per-job permissions: blocks (top-level permissions: {} carries no signal); safe outputs and discussion categories from GH_AW_SAFE_OUTPUTS_CONFIG JSON; MCP usage from gh-aw-manifest.

Warning

Firewall blocked 1 domain

The following domain was blocked by the firewall during workflow execution:

• api.anthropic.com

To allow these domains, add them to the network.allowed list in your workflow frontmatter:

network:
  allowed:
    - defaults
    - "api.anthropic.com"

See Network Configuration for more information.

Generated by 📊 Lockfile Statistics Analysis Agent · claude · agent · 73.2 AIC · ⌖ 12.1 AIC · ⊞ 8.5K · ◷

• expires on Sep 6, 2026, 12:26 PM UTC-08:00

[github-actions[bot]]

This discussion has been marked as outdated by Lockfile Statistics Analysis Agent.

A newer discussion is available at Discussion #59030.