Actions storage quota remains full after deleting all visible artifacts and packages

[kyotothe]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Other

Discussion Details

Hello GitHub community,

I’m troubleshooting a GitHub Actions storage-quota block on the personal account kyotothe.

• All accessible repositories currently show 0 Actions artifacts.
• kyotothe/bangkok-our-way currently has 0 Actions caches.
• Accessible package inventories are empty.
• The billing UI still shows 0.5 GB used / 0.5 GB included more than 24 hours after the cleanup.
• Workflow run 30373682297 completed its build, tests, Playwright setup, quality gate, and artifact creation; only the artifact upload failed with: “Failed to CreateArtifact: Artifact storage quota has been hit. Unable to upload any new artifacts. Usage is recalculated every 6-12 hours.”

Could a hidden or stale shared Actions/Packages storage record cause this when visible artifacts and packages are empty? What is the correct way to reconcile or escalate the account-level quota?

Thank you.

[alexliluz]

The account-level diagnosis is plausible, but one distinction changes what is
worth inventorying: Actions artifacts and GitHub Packages share the
account's included storage pool, while Actions caches are a separate
per-repository allowance. An empty cache list is useful context, but deleting
more caches is not expected to clear this artifact-storage error.

GitHub documents a 6–12 hour update window after artifact deletion. Deleting an
artifact frees current storage but does not erase storage already accrued for
billing earlier in the cycle. In Settings → Billing & Licensing → Usage,
filter to GitHub Actions storage, group by repository, and distinguish current
storage from the historical accrued GB-hours.

The referenced repository/run is not publicly readable, so only an API call
authenticated as kyotothe (or GitHub Support) can verify the complete
inventory. Run this with a gh login that can read every repository owned by
the account:

gh api --paginate -X GET user/repos \
  -f affiliation=owner \
  -f per_page=100 \
  --jq '.[].full_name' |
while IFS= read -r repo; do
  count=$(gh api "repos/$repo/actions/artifacts?per_page=1" --jq .total_count)
  if [ "$count" -gt 0 ]; then
    printf '%s\t%s artifacts\n' "$repo" "$count"
  fi
done

That checks all repositories owned by the authenticated personal account,
including private repositories the public API cannot see. Review
account-owned package versions as the other half of the shared pool as well;
artifacts in a repository owned by somebody else are charged to that
repository's owner, not to a collaborator's personal allowance.

If the owner-scoped artifact result is empty, the package inventory is empty,
the billing view still reports 0.5 GB of current storage, and more than 12 hours
have elapsed since the last deletion, that is inconsistent with the documented
update window. At that point there is no client-side object left to delete.
Open a GitHub Support ticket and include:

• account login kyotothe;
• failed run ID 30373682297 and its URL;
• UTC time of the last artifact/package deletion;
• a screenshot showing the Actions storage SKU and current-versus-accrued
  value;
• the owner-scoped API inventory above (redact private repository names in the
  public discussion, but provide them privately to Support);
• the exact Failed to CreateArtifact message.

Adding a payment method or a non-zero Actions budget can temporarily unblock
uploads if that is acceptable, but it is not a reconciliation fix and should
not replace the support ticket for stale current usage.

Official references:

• GitHub Actions billing
• GitHub Packages billing and shared storage
• REST API: list repository artifacts
• Getting help from GitHub Support about Actions

[KhyFee]

Building on @alexliluz — inventory both Action artifacts and GitHub Packages when the personal storage meter stays full after “0 artifacts” on every repo.

Extra steps that often surface hidden usage:

1. Check other owners (orgs you belong to) if the meter is account-global in your plan UI.
2. Confirm no workflow still uploads multi‑GB reports on green (Playwright/Cypress) with long retention.
3. After deletes, wait 24–48h — if still full, Support with username + “0 visible artifacts, meter still maxed” is the right escalations.

Temp unblock: gate upload-artifact with if: failure() so new runs stop filling the tank.

[KhyFee]

Actions “storage quota full” after deleting artifacts

Quota UI lag is common; the error is about artifact + cache storage, not only the Artifacts list you see.

Clear what actually counts

1. Artifacts — Actions tab → Artifacts → delete; also expire retention in workflows:

   - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
     with:
       retention-days: 3

2. Caches — Settings → Actions → Caches (or API). Large Playwright browser / node caches add up fast. Delete unused keys.
3. Wait for recompute — Quota often takes minutes to a few hours after mass delete before uploads succeed again.
4. Fork vs upstream — Deleting artifacts only on a fork doesn’t free the account if another repo under the same user/org holds them.
5. CLI bulk wipe (account with gh):

   gh api repos/OWNER/REPO/actions/caches --paginate
   # delete by id when needed

If everything is empty for 24h and uploads still fail with 500 MB free-plan style caps, escalate to Support with screenshots of Billing → Plans and usage → Actions storage and empty artifacts/caches lists — that combo is the smoking gun for stale accounting.