Actions jobs blocked before step start despite available budget

[seasunny007]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Product Feedback

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Workflow Deployment

Discussion Details

Title: Actions jobs blocked before step start despite available budget

Hello GitHub Support,

Issue summary:

• GitHub Actions jobs are blocked before real step execution.
• Jobs fail in 2-10 seconds with annotation:
  "The job was not started because recent account payments have failed or your spending limit needs to be increased."

Evidence from repeated probes:

• run 35681060213 (failed in ~2s, same annotation)
• run 35681054591 (failed in ~3s, same annotation)
• run 35681078701 (failed in ~2s, same annotation)
• run 35681149531 (failed in ~2s, same annotation)

Cross-checks already verified:

• Repository Actions permissions: enabled (allowed_actions=all)
• Branch protection/ruleset: active and consistent
• Diagnostic verdict: BLOCKED at execution plane (not normal test failure)

Billing context observed on account UI:

• Account:
• SKU: All AI Credit SKUs
  • Stop usage: Yes
  • Spent: $190 / Budget: $300
• Product: Copilot
  • Stop usage: No
  • Spent: $190 / Budget: $400

Interpretation:

• Budget appears available for Copilot/AI credit.
• However, Actions execution plane still blocks job start with billing/spending annotation.
• This suggests a backend billing gate propagation/synchronization mismatch.

Why this is likely a false block (3-line rationale):

• Copilot/AI credit budget remaining does not govern GitHub Actions runner start gates.
• Minimal Actions workflows fail before any step executes, which indicates pre-execution platform blocking.
• Repository Actions permissions and branch/ruleset checks are valid, reducing likelihood of config-caused failure.

Request:
Please investigate and clear the Actions execution-plane billing/spending block for this account/repository, or provide the exact billing control that is currently enforcing this block.

[github-actions[bot]]

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[brentc22]

Had exactly this today, same annotation, same confusion — my budget had plenty of headroom too.

Turned out it had nothing to do with the spending limit. Read that message as an or: "recent
account payments have failed or your spending limit needs to be increased." The billing UI
only really shows you the spending-limit half, so that's where everyone looks, and it looks fine.

In my case a card on file had been blocked. GitHub couldn't charge an earlier invoice, and that
blocks Actions account-wide no matter how much budget is left. Nothing in the budget view hints
at it.

Where to look:

• Settings → Billing → Payment information — is the card still valid, and is there a failed or
  outstanding payment?
• Your inbox. GitHub sends a payment-failed notice and it's very easy to miss.

Once the payment goes through, runs start working again without touching anything in the repo.

That also explains the weird part: the run isn't associated with your real workflow at all
(name empty, path BuildFailed, state deleted, 0 jobs). It never gets that far — it's
blocked before the execution plan is built, so there's nothing to attach the run to.