Scheduled workflow never triggers despite correct config (private repo)

[hunterwhithst]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

ARC (Actions Runner Controller)

Discussion Details

Describe the issue
My scheduled workflow (.github/workflows/run.yml) never triggers. Manual workflow_dispatch works perfectly and sends WeChat notifications. The repository is private.

Configuration details

• File on default branch main
• Read & write permissions enabled (Settings → Actions → General)
• Recent commits made within 24 hours
• No organization-level restrictions
• Billing shows plenty of Actions minutes remaining

Workflow content

name: ST Hunter Daily

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '25 1 * * 1-5'
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  run-hunter:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v5
      - name: Setup Python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v6
        with:
          python-version: '3.10'
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: pip install akshare pandas loguru requests
      - name: Run ST Hunter
        env:
          SENDKEY: ${{ secrets.SENDKEY }}
          GITHUB_ACTIONS: true
        run: python st_hunter.py

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[P-r-e-m-i-u-m]

Your YAML looks structurally fine, and workflow_dispatch working is a good sign that the workflow file itself is being recognized.

A few schedule-specific things to check:

1. GitHub cron uses UTC.

- cron: '25 1 * * 1-5'

That means 01:25 UTC, Monday-Friday. Depending on your local timezone, the run may appear on a different local date/time than expected.

2. Scheduled workflows are best-effort, not exact-time jobs.

GitHub documents that schedule can be delayed during high load, especially near the start of an hour, and in high-load cases queued jobs may be dropped. Your :25 minute is better than :00, but it can still be delayed.

Docs: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/workflows-and-actions/events-that-trigger-workflows#schedule

3. schedule only runs from the default branch.

You said the file is on main, so also confirm main is still the repository default branch:

gh repo view --json defaultBranchRef --jq .defaultBranchRef.name

4. Check whether GitHub has registered the schedule.

This helps separate "the workflow exists" from "GitHub indexed the schedule trigger":

gh api repos/OWNER/REPO/actions/workflows --jq '.workflows[] | {name,path,state}'

If the workflow name/path looks wrong, or if the Actions UI only shows manual trigger forever, make a tiny commit touching the workflow file on main to force re-indexing.

5. For a quick test, temporarily change it to a short interval:

schedule:
  - cron: '*/10 * * * *'

Wait 20-30 minutes. If that triggers, your original daily schedule is probably fine and the issue was timing/expectation. If it still never triggers while manual dispatch works, I would open a Support ticket with the workflow file path, repo visibility, default branch, and the exact UTC windows when runs should have appeared.