GitHub Actions startup_failure with BuildFailed workflow and 0 jobs

[Mediina42]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Workflow Configuration

Discussion Details

Repository: Mediina42/problema-minero
Visibility: Private
Default branch: main

Every GitHub Actions event in this repository fails immediately before any job is created.

Symptoms:

• conclusion: startup_failure
• jobs: 0
• workflow name: empty
• workflow path: BuildFailed
• workflow state: deleted
• no logs
• no check runs
• Actions is enabled
• allowed_actions: all

A real pull request exists:
PR #1: implementacion-nivel2 -> main

I also tested a minimal independent workflow:

name: CI probe

on:
pull_request:
branches: [main]

jobs:
probe:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- run: echo "GitHub Actions works"

This workflow contains:

• no checkout
• no reusable workflow
• no third-party actions
• no secrets
• no Python/Node setup
• only ubuntu-latest + echo

It still fails exactly the same way:

• startup_failure
• jobs: 0
• path: BuildFailed

The workflow registry reports:

workflow id: 350836832
name: ""
path: BuildFailed
state: deleted

The normal workflow list returns zero registered workflows.

The workflow files were independently validated with actionlint v1.7.12 and show no syntax/schema errors.

Actions permissions:
enabled: true
allowed_actions: all

Example affected run IDs:

• 33960989343
• 33960986877
• 33960015466

This appears to be a stale/orphaned GitHub Actions backend registration or repository-level dispatch issue.

Could GitHub staff please check workflow ID 350836832 and re-index or purge the stale BuildFailed registration for this repository?

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[Sanchez5791]

Another confirmed case on a private repository, observed 2026-09-10 (MYT).

Symptoms match this report exactly:

• every new Actions run completes immediately with startup_failure
• jobs.total_count = 0
• synthetic workflow: name="", path="BuildFailed", state="deleted"
• ghost workflow id: 354443315
• repository Actions are enabled and allowed_actions=all
• the real Rule machine coverage gate workflow remains active (workflow_id=349789304)
• a manual workflow_dispatch against the exact candidate head also fails before job creation
• latest affected real-workflow run: 34416554190
• earlier affected exact-head runs: 34414428645, 34414164547, 34414162068
• a different branch in the same repository began showing the same startup_failure pattern, which supports a repository-level dispatch/registry fault rather than candidate code failure
• the real workflow Git blob is unchanged from the version that previously ran successfully on main
• no job logs or step annotations exist because no job is ever created

We are not posting the private repository name or source code publicly. GitHub staff can correlate the workflow/run IDs above from the account if needed.

This appears to require backend workflow-registry/dispatch re-indexing or removal of the orphaned BuildFailed registration; repo-side workflow edits would not address the observed failure mode.

[bascombridge]

We have the same GitHub Actions startup/dispatch failure in another private repository.

Repository:
bascombridge/edvio-ai-portal

Affected workflow:
Vercel Production Deploy
Workflow ID: 282056468
Path: .github/workflows/vercel-production.yml
State: active

Related reusable workflow:
Enterprise Quality Gate
Workflow ID: 303931271
Path: .github/workflows/ci-quality.yml
State: active

Observed behavior:

• Every recent Production workflow run ends with startup_failure.
• 0 jobs are created.
• 0 check runs are created.
• No workflow logs are available.
• Manual workflow_dispatch produces the same startup_failure.
• The normal workflow registry contains only the two legitimate active workflows.
• GitHub can read the Vercel Production workflow YAML from main.

Affected manual-dispatch run:
34472474225

Affected push run:
34469634668

Check suite:
93375273627

The check suite reports:
status = completed
conclusion = startup_failure
latest_check_runs_count = 0

The failed run references the legitimate reusable workflow at the exact main SHA:
5a19e9e83ec08516547585ea0be04fa3b214b269

Repository Actions are enabled and allowed_actions is "all".

The failure has been occurring since August 2026, including before our latest repository changes.

This looks very similar to the orphaned/synthetic BuildFailed workflow issue described in this discussion. We have not yet found a BuildFailed workflow in the normal workflow registry; the normal registry only returns our two active workflows.

Could someone advise how to determine whether a hidden/deleted BuildFailed workflow registration exists for our repository, or whether GitHub needs to re-index/repair the repository's Actions workflow dispatch state?

We are deliberately not changing the workflow YAML because the failure occurs before any job or check run is created.

Thank you.