GitHub Actions deployment stuck waiting for runner

[aido-coder]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

ARC (Actions Runner Controller)

Discussion Details

Apologies if this is a dumb question. I have checked everything I can think of with GH and I've hit a wall so hoping someone more experienced might be able to advise me.

My repository aido-coder/abacus-campers has a GitHub Actions deployment workflow using runs-on: ubuntu-latest. The workflow is accepted and queued, but repeatedly remains at “Waiting for a runner to pick up this job” with zero execution time. Actions are enabled, billing usage is within limits, and other workflow checks have passed.

Any idea why GitHub-hosted runners are not being assigned to this deployment job.

[WST2002]

Not a dumb question, the cause is a one-letter typo. In .github/workflows/deploy.yml:

runs-on: unbuntu-latest

It should be ubuntu-latest. GitHub looks for a runner with the label unbuntu-latest, none exists, so the job waits forever. Your astro-build.yml spells it correctly, which is why that workflow runs fine.

After fixing it:

1. Cancel the stuck run first (Actions → the pending "Deploy Astro to GitHub Pages" run → Cancel). The workflow uses concurrency: group: pages with cancel-in-progress: false, so a new deploy will queue behind the stuck one.

2. Uncomment the environment block. actions/deploy-pages needs the job to deploy to the github-pages environment, otherwise the last step fails:

   jobs:
     deploy:
       runs-on: ubuntu-latest
       environment:
         name: github-pages
         url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}

3. Check Settings → Pages → Build and deployment → Source is set to GitHub Actions.

Then push again, or run it from the Actions tab with "Run workflow".

[aido-coder]

Thank you Wageesha much appreciated dyslexic nutter here :)