GitHub Actions schedule event never triggers, but push and manual runs work

[yangzhi-emo]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

ARC (Actions Runner Controller)

Discussion Details

Hello GitHub Community,

I'm having an issue with GitHub Actions scheduled workflows.

Repository: https://github.com/yangzhi-emo/test_demo

Workflow file: .github/workflows/test.yml

Default branch: main

Cron expression: 0 * * * * (I am also testing 17 * * * *).

Expected behavior:
The workflow should run automatically every hour.

Actual behavior:

• push events work successfully.
• workflow_dispatch (manual runs) works successfully.
• No workflow runs with the schedule event appear in the Actions tab, even after waiting several hours.

Troubleshooting already completed:

• Confirmed that the repository is public.
• Confirmed that the workflow is enabled.
• Confirmed that the workflow file exists on the default branch.
• Confirmed that GitHub Actions permissions allow all actions and reusable workflows.
• Checked the YAML syntax and tried changing the cron expression.

Could someone help determine why scheduled events are not triggering for this repository?

Thank you!

[github-actions[bot]]

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[deuxdoom]

I checked the public workflow and its recent commits. The file on main currently has 17 * * * *, and the workflow API reports it as active. The repository was created on October 14, so the 60-day inactivity rule doesn't explain this one.

One timing detail worth separating out: the commit changing it to minute 17 was made at 06:21:54 UTC on October 15. The first scheduled time for that revision is 07:17 UTC, not 06:17. That doesn't explain the earlier missed runs, but it gives you a clean starting point for testing the current configuration.

I'd leave this revision unchanged for a couple of scheduled times and check only scheduled runs:

gh run list --repo yangzhi-emo/test_demo --workflow test.yml --event schedule --limit 10

There's also an attribution detail I'd check: the commit API returns no linked GitHub author for the two latest cron edits. That alone doesn't prove the scheduler's actor is invalid. Still, making a cron edit through the web editor while signed in as the repository owner would remove that uncertainty from the test. GitHub documents actor/account status as relevant to scheduled workflows.

If scheduled runs are still absent after that, I'd keep the commit SHA and expected UTC times in this report. The current YAML doesn't show an obvious cron syntax problem, and successful manual runs don't establish that scheduled events are being delivered.

GitHub's schedule and actor documentation

Prepared with AI assistance (OpenAI Codex, GPT-6 family). The checks and limits are described above.