GitHub Actions startup_failure caused by deleted BuildFailed workflow

[sherkhonturk-hub]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Workflow Configuration

Discussion Details

Repository: sherkhonturk-hub/verno_bot
PR: #72

Our active GitHub Actions CI workflow is not being triggered.

Canonical active workflow:

• Workflow ID: 341553268
• Path: .github/workflows/ci.yml
• State: active
• Triggers: push and pull_request
• Previous successful runs exist.

However, events for candidate SHA:

56628757a7607258b681764422383b6bd508fc90

are being assigned to a deleted workflow object:

• Workflow ID: 353968193
• Path/name: BuildFailed
• State: deleted

Affected runs:

Push:
34345322283

Pull request:
34345395128

Both runs show:

• conclusion: startup_failure
• 0 jobs
• no downloadable logs
• no check runs
• combined status remains pending

The active CI workflow never starts for this SHA.

Last successful real CI run:
34116710977

Actions are enabled in the repository and the canonical workflow YAML parses successfully. The candidate branch and PR diff are valid, and the remote SHA exactly matches the reviewed local candidate.

It appears that an orphaned deleted workflow registration (BuildFailed) may be intercepting Actions dispatches.

Has anyone seen this issue, and is there a way to remove or repair the stale workflow registration so the active CI workflow can run normally?

[github-actions[bot]]

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[sherkhonturk-hub]

Additional reproduction evidence:

We reproduced the same GitHub Actions failure in a separate clean private repository:

sherkhonturk-hub/-verno-ci-mirror

The exact approved source candidate was mirrored without changes:

Source HEAD:
56628757a7607258b681764422383b6bd508fc90

Source tree:
baebffb918d27ef876219a278b5ae38dcf92e54a

Mirror HEAD:
56628757a7607258b681764422383b6bd508fc90

Mirror tree:
baebffb918d27ef876219a278b5ae38dcf92e54a

Tree match: PASS

The .github/workflows/ci.yml file is identical.

In the mirror repository:

Active CI workflow:

• workflow ID: 354102851
• path: .github/workflows/ci.yml

Created run:

• run ID: 34363168048

However, the run was associated with another workflow:

• workflow ID: 354102884
• path: BuildFailed
• state: deleted

Result:

• conclusion: startup_failure
• jobs: 0
• logs: 404 Not Found

This reproduces the same failure in a second clean repository using the exact same candidate tree and exact same workflow.

This strongly suggests the problem is not repository-specific and may be an account/org/platform-level GitHub Actions workflow-registry/dispatcher issue affecting owner:

sherkhonturk-hub

Similar reports:
#206902
#206684
#206103
#206023

Could GitHub staff please investigate the Actions registry/dispatcher state for this account/owner?

[ali-dev-uae]

This looks like a known edge case with GitHub Actions workflow dispatch caching when a workflow file is deleted or renamed while active runs or webhooks are queued.

Here are a few troubleshooting steps that usually resolve this state:

1. Re-register the Workflow File:
   Try re-creating a dummy workflow at .github/workflows/buildfailed.yml (or whatever path the deleted workflow was at) with a minimal trigger like workflow_dispatch. Commit and push it. This forces GitHub's Actions engine to re-index the workflow ID mapping. Afterwards, disable or delete it through the GitHub Web UI under the Actions tab.

2. Trigger a fresh workflow_dispatch run on the active workflow:
   Manually trigger .github/workflows/ci.yml via the Actions UI tab (or gh workflow run ci.yml). This forces the dispatcher to update the active HEAD pointer for that workflow definition.

3. Push an empty commit:
   Running git commit --allow-empty -m "trigger ci re-index" && git push forces GitHub to process a clean commit hash without existing cached run associations.

If none of these clear the orphan workflow ID from your repository's Actions index, opening a ticket via GitHub Support under Actions configuration will allow staff to run an internal index sync on your repository dispatches.

[gracejudy]

@/private/tmp/claude-501/-Users-judy/1cbd4c03-65c4-4582-8f02-6d3c9432716b/scratchpad/gh-discussion-comment.md