GitHub Actions workflows resolve to BuildFailed and fail before job creation

[Emiko8628]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Workflow Configuration

Discussion Details

Hello,

I’m seeing an unusual GitHub Actions issue in a private repository.

The repository has an existing active workflow under:

.github/workflows/

The workflow file is present and valid, and GitHub Actions is enabled for the repository.

However, when a workflow should run, GitHub does not associate the run with the active workflow.

Instead, the run appears with:

• workflow name: empty
• workflow path: BuildFailed
• workflow state: deleted
• conclusion: startup_failure
• jobs: 0
• check runs: 0
• no runner assigned

The failure happens before any job is created.

To rule out a problem with the existing workflow configuration, I also created a completely separate temporary branch with a brand-new minimal workflow.

The workflow contained only:

• a push trigger
• one ubuntu-latest job
• one step that echoes a simple message

Example:

name: Actions health probe

on:
  push:

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

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[kittimzhe]

This is GitHub's synthetic "BuildFailed" fallback, not your configuration. The signature you're seeing — workflow name empty, path BuildFailed, state deleted, conclusion startup_failure, jobs: 0, no runner — is the marker GitHub stamps on a run it failed to bind to a real workflow definition. Since even a brand-new 3-line workflow (push → one ubuntu-latest job → echo) fails identically, your YAML / runner / secrets / runs-on are all ruled out: the failure happens at the run-association step, before any job exists — which is exactly why there are no logs to debug.

There's no user-side fix, because the run never reaches your code. What to do:

1. Capture the exact tuple from the API — workflow name empty, path: BuildFailed, state: deleted, conclusion: startup_failure, jobs: 0 — and paste that into this thread / a support ticket, since it's the fingerprint staff need.
2. Check https://www.githubstatus.com/ for an ongoing Actions incident; this synthetic BuildFailed entry is the kind of signal that appears during a backend incident.
3. You're not alone: GitHub Actions startup_failure with synthetic BuildFailed workflow in private repository #208368 reports the same signature, which points to a shared GitHub-side cause rather than either repo.

Bottom line: stop re-probing in your repo — you've already proven it's not your workflow. This needs GitHub staff.

[Emiko8628]

Thank you, this is very helpful.

I agree with your assessment. I already tested a brand-new minimal workflow on a temporary diagnostic branch, and it failed with the same BuildFailed signature before job creation:

• workflow name: empty
• workflow path: BuildFailed
• workflow state: deleted
• conclusion: startup_failure
• jobs: 0
• no runner assigned

So this does appear to happen before any workflow job exists, and does not look specific to my YAML, runner, secrets, or runs-on configuration.

I will stop re-probing the repository and wait for GitHub staff / platform-side investigation.

For reference, the affected run IDs I captured are:

• 35495626434
• 35496487249
• 35496729404
• 35498320571

All of them show the same BuildFailed / startup_failure / jobs: 0 pattern.

Thanks again.

[kittimzhe]

Perfect — those four run IDs plus the signature tuple are exactly what staff will need, so you're set up well for the investigation.

One more thing worth adding to your ticket: cross-reference #208368 — a second repo showing the identical BuildFailed / startup_failure / jobs: 0 pattern. Two independent repos with the same fingerprint makes the platform-side case much stronger than a single report.

Good luck — hope it clears soon. 👍

[brentc22]

That shape — name: empty, path: BuildFailed, state: deleted, 0 jobs, no logs — is what a
run looks like when it gets blocked before the execution plan is built. The run never gets
associated with your real workflow, which is exactly why it looks like a phantom workflow
intercepted everything repo-wide.

I hit this today and spent a while chasing a corrupted workflow registration. It wasn't that. A
card on file had been blocked, an invoice failed, and that blocks Actions account-wide.

Worth ruling out before you go further: open one of the failed runs and check whether it carries
an annotation like "The job was not started because recent account payments have failed or your
spending limit needs to be increased." If it does, it's billing — Settings → Billing → Payment
information is where it hides. The spending-limit view looks perfectly healthy the whole time,
which is what makes it so confusing.

If there's no annotation like that, then it's something else and you can ignore me.