Diagnose and fix slow OR expensive GitHub Actions runs: runner-pool saturation analysis, stuck-run cancellation, fetch-depth optimization, billing-API cost-spike triage (hosted-vs-self-hosted runner switch detection, per-SKU cost breakdown, revert-PR identification), AND per-(repo, workflow) histogram from the `actions/runs` API for catching deleted-workflow drains and label-match fallthroughs that the billing API alone cannot attribute. Use when Actions runs exceed a time budget, many in_progress runs aren't completing, a spend-alert fires for Actions billing (daily delta or 7d sum over threshold), OR the billing-API points at a spike but the workflow-level grep on `main` doesn't reveal the culprit.
Diagnose and fix slow OR expensive GitHub Actions runs: runner-pool saturation analysis, stuck-run cancellation, fetch-depth optimization, billing-API cost-spike triage (hosted-vs-self-hosted runner switch detection, per-SKU cost breakdown, revert-PR identification), AND per-(repo, workflow) histogram from the `actions/runs` API for catching deleted-workflow drains and label-match fallthroughs that the billing API alone cannot attribute. Use when Actions runs exceed a time budget, many in_progress runs aren't completing, a spend-alert fires for Actions billing (daily delta or 7d sum over threshold), OR the billing-API points at a spike but the workflow-level grep on `main` doesn't reveal the culprit.
When GitHub Actions runs exceed a time budget (e.g. "should never be more than 20 min") or the Actions UI shows many in_progress runs that aren't completing, this is a runner-pool / throughput problem — fundamentally different from "my tests failed." The fix is infrastructure-level (cancelling stuck runs, optimizing checkout speed), not code-level.
v1.5.1 (2026-07-30): Fixed SyntaxError in scripts/per-repo-workflow-billing-histogram.py — global CACHE_PATH was placed after the argparse default that reads it, producing SyntaxError: name 'CACHE_PATH' is used prior to global declaration on every run. Fix hoists global CACHE_PATH to the first executable line of main(), reads the default from JLORG_RUN_CLASSIFICATION_CACHE env var, and re-applies the user's --cache-path after parse_args(). Added P23 — per-job runner_name: null, labels: ['ubuntu-latest'] is GitHub's hosted-fallthrough signal (NOT a normal hosted runner; it specifically means self-hosted queue timeout → GitHub silently billed at $0.008/min). Added P24 — vars.SELF_HOSTED_RUNNER_LABELS || '[fallback]' is only a fallback if the org-var is unset; once it's set, the workflow correctly routes to self-hosted runners — the fallthrough then becomes a per-job timeout problem (P23), not a label problem. Added references/spend-alert-incident-log.md with the full session log for the 2026-07-29 your-project.com incident (top 3 cost drivers, smoking-gun commits, fix recipes).
v1.5.0 (2026-07-29): Added P21 — workflow NAME is NOT a runner-type signal ("Staging Canary Full (self-hosted)" in jleechanorg/jleechanclaw ran on GitHub Actions 1000651496 / ubuntu-latest; the histogram script's is_self_hosted() was returning True on the YAML-grep heuristic, hiding $7.67/day of cost). Added P22 — sequential per-job classification times out at 600s for 2k+ runs; parallel 20-worker fetch with cache completes in ~84s. Updated the histogram script (scripts/per-repo-workflow-billing-histogram.py) to classify via the per-job endpoint + parallel fetch + on-disk cache. The 7-day-roll-trend read of spend-alert state (P19) is the canonical way to answer "still $X/day" — confirms spike-past-peak vs spike-active. Added references/gh-actions-cost-spike-2026-07-29.md with the full transcript.
v1.4.0 (2026-07-13): Re-verified P16 self-hosted detection (labels is populated on per-job endpoint, NOT per-run endpoint for this org). Added P18 (broken Daily GH Actions Cost Report (estimated) workflow that reports $0 on private-repo 404s), P19 (spend-alert threshold semantics — rate vs absolute, the alert keeps firing on a declining tail), P20 (spend-alert-daily.sh auth-blip recovery). Added references/gh-actions-cost-spike-2026-07-13.md with the per-(repo,workflow) histogram walkthrough that resolved the $266 MTD / $48 daily peak spike.
When to Use
User says "these Actions runs are slow" or links to actions?query=is:in_progress
Many runs show in_progress for >20 min with no sign of completing
A specific workflow consistently takes longer than expected
Runner pool appears saturated (all runners busy: true)
A spend-alert fires: "GitHub Actions daily Δ $X > $Y" or "7d sum $X > $Y" (from spend-alert-daily.sh or gh-actions-cost-monitor.sh)
User asks "why is GitHub Actions so expensive" or "did we switch to hosted runners"
User asks "switch it back" — usually preceded by the above spend-spike alert
User asks "why is the daily cost still $X/day" — pair the histogram (C7) with P19's 7-day-roll read to confirm whether the spike is past peak or still active
Compute age = now - run_started_at for each. Runs > threshold (typically 20 min) are cancellation candidates. Also compute stuck_min = now - updated_at — if updated_at is frozen for 10+ min while status is in_progress, the job is likely silently abandoned.
Step 2 — Drill into job-step level for the worst offenders
If busy == total, pool is saturated — new runs queue indefinitely. Cancel stuck runs to free slots.
Step 4 — Cancel stuck runs
gh run cancel <RUN_ID> -R OWNER/REPO
If cancel returns "Cannot cancel a workflow run that is completed" — the run finished naturally between snapshot and cancel. Skip it.
Self-regenerating pattern: cancelling frees runners briefly, but active PRs with matrix workflows re-saturate within minutes. This is expected — cancels clear genuinely abandoned jobs vs. actively-progressing ones.
Step 5 — Fix the checkout bottleneck
If Step 2 showed checkout durations >300s on a large repo (>500 MB):
Add fetch-depth: 1, submodules: false, lfs: false to each checkout's with: block. For repos with no .gitattributes and no .gitmodules, these flags are pure savings.
Verify YAML parses after each file:python3 -c "import yaml; yaml.safe_load(open('FILE'))"
Cost-Spike Diagnosis (when the spend-alert fires)
When spend-alert-daily.sh posts "GitHub Actions daily Δ $X > $Y" or a user asks "why is Actions so expensive", the cause is almost always a recent PR explicitly pinned a workflow to runs-on: ubuntu-latest (GitHub-hosted) instead of the org's SELF_HOSTED_RUNNER_LABELS variable. Hosted Linux costs $0.008/min; self-hosted Linux costs $0.002/min — a 4× price difference. A single long-poll workflow (e.g. a 30-min skeptic-verdict poll) multiplied by every PR is enough to drive a daily delta from $5 → $50.
C1 — Snapshot org-level billing by SKU
The billing API returns monthly buckets with per-SKU + per-repo breakdown:
In multi-repo orgs the cost almost always concentrates in 1 repo (verified 2026-07-08: 99.9% of $158 MTD was on your-project.com). Go straight to that repo.
C3 — Find which workflows pin to hosted runners
cd path/to/repo
grep -l "runs-on: ubuntu-latest" .github/workflows/*.yml
Then cross-reference with recent git log on .github/workflows/ to find the PR that switched from self-hosted to hosted:
git log --oneline --since="<spike-date-minus-14d>" -- .github/workflows/ | head -30
The smoking-gun commit message format is usually move ... to ubuntu-latest, split ... onto a GitHub-hosted runner, failover to GitHub-hosted on ... outage, or hosted-poll. The PR number is in parentheses.
C4 — Verify self-hosted runners are actually online
Don't assume the switch was justified. Self-hosted runners may be back online:
gh api "/orgs/${ORG}/actions/runners?per_page=50" \
--jq '.runners[] | {name, os, busy, status} | select(.status == "online")' | head -30
If online runners exist for the OS the workflow needs (Linux X64, Mac ARM64, etc.), the original failover rationale no longer holds — the PR is safe to revert.
C5 — Compute the cost-savings estimate
# Hosted Linux = $0.006 effective; self-hosted Linux = $0.002 (4× cheaper)# Expected savings if reverting one workflow = (workflow_min × ($0.006 - $0.002))# For a 30-min/PR poll × N PRs/day: N × 30 × 0.004 = $0.12 × N/day
C6 — Post the revert plan, then wait for MERGE APPROVED
Do NOT auto-revert infra PRs in $GITHUB_REPOSITORY (or any production-tier repo with merge safety). The plan must include: PR #s, commit SHAs, expected $/day savings per PR, and 3 explicit options (REVERT-ALL, REVERT-<N>-ONLY, INVESTIGATE-FIRST). Reverts of runs-on: lines change CI capacity assumptions that other workflows may depend on.
C7 — Per-(repo, workflow) histogram from the runs API (when C2-C5 isn't enough)
When the billing-API says "$222 MTD for Actions Linux" but the workflow-level grep (C5) doesn't show obvious culprits (workflows look fine on main, OR the culprit workflow has already been deleted but its queued runs are still draining, OR a label-match fallback is silently routing work to hosted runners), the cost is invisible to C1-C6 because those tools only inspect current state. You need the per-run actions/runs API aggregated by (repo, workflow_name, event, runner_type).
This is the post-2026-07-11 extension. The reusable script is scripts/per-repo-workflow-billing-histogram.py:
# Quick re-run after the spend alert fires:
python3 scripts/per-repo-workflow-billing-histogram.py \
--org jleechanorg --days 7 --workers 10
The histogram self-detects self-hosted runners via the per-job endpoint (actions/runs/{id}/jobs) using 20 parallel workers with an on-disk cache. The previous YAML-grep heuristic (P16-era fallback) is still kept for runs where the per-job call 404s (deleted from history), but is no longer the primary signal — see P21 for why YAML-grep is unreliable. Default rates: Linux hosted $0.008/min, self-hosted $0.002/min, macOS $0.08/min, Windows $0.016/min. Override with --rate linux=0.006 (effective post-discount rate for your org).
For runs ≥500, always use the parallel fetch + cache path — see P22 for the 600s-timeout trap of doing it serially.
When to run C7 (the histogram):
Billing-API shows Actions cost >$10/day or >$50/week, but grep -l "runs-on: ubuntu-latest" returns nothing (the cost is from a deleted workflow still draining queued runs)
gh api repos/<repo>/actions/runs shows runs whose .name doesn't match any file in .github/workflows/ on main (deleted workflow but active queue)
You need to know which workflow is responsible before you can post a revert plan
You suspect a vars.SELF_HOSTED_RUNNER_LABELS fallback that silently routes to GitHub-hosted
Verified pattern (2026-07-11, jleechanorg spend alert): The histogram revealed Skeptic Cron was responsible for $264 of $292 (90.6%) of the 7-day cost across 3 repos, even though the workflow file had been deleted from all 42 repos 1-2 days earlier. The cost was from queued runs stamped on the deletion-commit SHA (3f96d02e) still draining — deletion doesn't cancel queued runs.
Comparison to C1-C6 path: The 2026-07-08 your-project.com spike was a different pattern (workflows actively pinned to runs-on: ubuntu-latest in 3 PRs); the fix was reverting those PRs. The 2026-07-11 spike was a different pattern (workflows that looked like self-hosted but fell through to hosted via label-match failure, with the file now deleted); the fix was already done — just waiting for the queue to drain. The 2026-07-29 "still $5/day" case was yet another pattern (workflow NAMES containing "self-hosted" but actually running on ubuntu-latest); the fix is to audit each named-self-hosted workflow and flip runs-on: from hosted to self-hosted. Three root causes, same umbrella skill. See P21 for the name-vs-runner trap that hid the cost.
Reusable verifier
scripts/check-hosted-runner-spike.sh (bundled with this skill) walks a repo's .github/workflows/, flags every runs-on: ubuntu-latest with the trigger event, and prints a per-workflow cost estimate. Run it after any runs-on: change to catch drift before the next billing cycle.
scripts/per-repo-workflow-billing-histogram.py — the per-(repo, workflow) histogram from C7 above. Run it on any cost-spike alert when C5 doesn't reveal the culprit, or when you suspect a deleted-workflow drain or label-fallback fallthrough.
See references/gh-actions-cost-spike-2026-07-08.md for the full session transcript with PR #s, commit SHAs, and the exact revert plan that fixed the your-project.com spike (PRs #8172, #8141, #8142).
See references/gh-actions-cost-spike-2026-07-11.md for the per-(repo, workflow) histogram walkthrough that diagnosed the deleted-workflow-drain pattern on 3 repos (90.6% of $292 7d cost from Skeptic Cron queued-runs after the deletion PRs landed).
See references/gh-actions-cost-spike-2026-07-13.md for the per-(repo, workflow) histogram walkthrough that resolved the $266 MTD / $48 peak spike — the Green Gate precheck attribution (99% billable), the re-verification of P16 self-hosted detection (use per-job endpoint, not per-run), the broken Daily GH Actions Cost Report (estimated) workflow that reports $0 on private-repo 404s, and the P19 spend-alert threshold semantics (rate vs absolute — the alert keeps firing on a declining tail).
See references/gh-actions-cost-spike-2026-07-29.md for the "still $5/day" diagnosis: workflow names containing "self-hosted" are NOT a runner-type signal (P21), the histogram script's YAML-grep detection produced wrong answers (revised to per-job endpoint + parallel fetch + cache), and the 7-day roll trend (P19) is the right way to tell spike-past-peak from spike-active. Top 3 cost drivers (7d, real): jleechanclaw/Staging Canary Full = $7.67, your-project.com/Presubmit Checks = $7.19, your-project.com/WorldArchitect Tests (Directory-Based) = $5.84. Three repos = 98% of hosted cost.
Pitfalls
P1: Duplicate with: keys from naive patching
When adding fetch-depth to workflows that already have a with: block, naive insertion creates two with: keys. YAML parsers accept this silently (keeping the last), but GitHub Actions rejects it. Always merge into the existing with: block — find the block boundary, append keys before the closing indent, verify with yaml.safe_load().
P2: gh run cancel on already-completed runs
Between snapshot and cancel, runs may finish. Cancel returns rc=1 with "Cannot cancel a workflow run that is completed". Not a failure — skip.
P3: Runner pool count fluctuates
Runners go on/off-line between API calls. 27/27 → 25/26 between calls is normal. Use the trend, not exact counts.
P4: Beads PR-body lint — STANDALONE LINE required
In repos with bead-pr-lint.yml, every PR body MUST contain a Beads: line at the start of a line (regex is ^[[:space:]]*Beads:). The lint fails on prose like **Beads: rev-xxxx** (...). Always emit as a standalone line:
### Tracking
Beads: rev-xxxx
Beads: none is the explicit opt-out. Beads: rev-xxxx requires 4+ alnum chars.
Verify with: grep -E '^[[:space:]]*Beads:' pr-body.md before submitting.
P5: .beads/issues.jsonl sort-order check
If bead-jsonl-sort-check.yml exists, .beads/issues.jsonl must be sorted by id ascending. Run python3 scripts/sort_beads_jsonl.py and commit. Verify the inversion isn't pre-existing on origin/main — if it is, fix it in the same PR (per AGENTS.md "Keep .beads/ tracked and include beads changes in PRs"). See references/ci-runner-pool-saturation.md for the verification recipe.
P6: cancel-loop is a band-aid, not a fix (from 2026-07-05 session)
After 5 cancel waves, the pattern that emerges: cancelling frees runners for 30-60s, then active matrix-workflow PRs re-saturate the pool. The fetch-depth PR doesn't take effect until merged. gh run cancel is a temporary relief — the durable fix is merging the checkout-optimization PR. Tell the user this explicitly so they understand the loop. Pair with a one-time status cron (hermes cron create "20m" --deliver 'slack:CHAN:thread_ts' --repeat 1) to keep cancelling during the wait.
P7: Green Gate silent step-2 abort = self-hosted runner OOM/disconnect
If Green Gate job logs show only "Set up job" completed and all subsequent steps pending/missing, this is the classic self-hosted runner failure pattern (runner died mid-job, network blip, OOM kill). Recovery: cancel run, let GitHub auto-trigger a fresh one. Don't try to re-execute steps manually — the job state is corrupt.
Verification companion (added 2026-07-14, PR #8290): before declaring "infra failure, re-trigger", reproduce the same test command locally against the PR's HEAD worktree. If local reproduction is CLEAN (same tests pass in <5% of the CI wall-clock), that confirms the code is fine and the failure is runner-side. The local-vs-CI timing discrepancy is the smoking gun:
Local: cd <worktree> && export $(cat .env.ci | xargs) && <test-command> → e.g. pytest $PROJECT_ROOT/tests/... -q → 206 passed in 3.07s
CI: same tests in same commit → 16m15s with BlobNotFound log → clear infra signal
If local reproduce FAILS, the failure IS code-side and no amount of re-trigger will help — pivot to a code fix instead. NEVER re-trigger a CI failure on faith without verifying the local baseline first. The re-trigger pattern only works when local = green and CI = red.
For Directory-Based Tests (the matrix workflow on test.yml), the local-reproduce recipe is:
# Identify which matrix leg failed (e.g. "core-tests" or "core-mvp-1")# Look at scripts/ci-detect-changes.sh in the repo to map test-group → test-dirs# For core-tests = "tests/" group:
PYTHONPATH=. ./run_tests.sh --test-dirs="tests,tests/scripts" --parallel --exclude-integration --exclude-mcp --testmon
If that returns all-green locally in seconds/minutes and CI's same command took >10 min with no log → infra failure, re-trigger.
Verified 2026-07-14 PR #8290: local reproduce of tests/test_*.py + tests/scripts/test_*.py was 304 passed in ~8s; CI's same set on the same commit took 16m15s with the log blob already expired. Re-trigger produced a fresh run that (eventually) cleared the gate.
P8: Infra Contract Tests — shellcheck is not installed is runner-side
Workflows like infra-contract-tests.yml may fail with ::error::shellcheck is not installed and this runner has no passwordless sudo. on org-runner-mac-* runners. This is a runner-environment issue, NOT a workflow issue. It affects every PR using that runner. Don't try to fix the workflow — surface it to the runner owner. Same applies to missing terraform, missing gcloud, etc. — first check the runner environment, not the workflow.
P9: gh api .../actions/runs?status=success is invalid (verified 2026-07-08)
The actions/runs query string accepts status ∈ {queued, in_progress, requested, waiting, completed, pending, failure, cancelled} — but NOT success. Use status=completed + filter conclusion per-run in jq, OR use the workflow-scoped endpoint actions/workflows/<id>/runs. Same gotcha for actions/runs?status=success in Python pipelines. Common symptom: gh api returns an empty page and you incorrectly conclude "no completed runs".
P10: gh api .../settings/billing/actions endpoint was removed (2026-06)
The legacy orgs/<org>/settings/billing/actions and .../shared-storage endpoints were deprecated and now return HTTP 410 ("This endpoint has been moved"). The new canonical endpoint is orgs/<org>/settings/billing/usage which requires the manage_billing:org OAuth scope. If you see HTTP 404/410 on billing queries, switch to the usage endpoint with --paginate (multiple pages of usageItems). The enterprise endpoint also requires manage_billing:enterprise scope (HTTP 404 if missing).
P11: jq "Extra data" error when piping gh api` to a JSON parser
When gh api is piped to python3 -c via python3 -c "..." and the JSON contains embedded newlines (which gh pretty-prints), the python parse may fail with Extra data: line N column M. Fix: redirect to a file first (gh api ... > /tmp/runs.json) then parse from disk. Don't pipe through shell.
P12: Self-hosted Linux cost assumption = $0.002/min is org-specific
The $0.002/min self-hosted rate in ~/.hermes/scripts/gh-actions-cost-monitor.sh (line 16: COST_PER_MINUTE=0.002) is a per-org "platform fee" estimate, not a GitHub-published rate. GitHub does not bill self-hosted minutes — the $0.002 reflects Mac runner electricity + maintenance overhead in the user's accounting. Hosted Linux is $0.008/min standard, ~$0.006 effective after discount (from the billing API pricePerUnit field, verified 2026-07-08). If you're working in a different org, recompute the rate from that org's usageItems[].pricePerUnit instead of hardcoding.
P13: Cost-spike revert on production-tier repo requires explicit MERGE APPROVED
Per .claude/CLAUDE.md "Merge safety" + .cursor/rules/agent-autonomy.mdc, infra PRs in $GITHUB_REPOSITORY (and any production-tier repo) require the literal phrase MERGE APPROVED in the user's most recent live message before any revert PR is merged. The agent must NOT auto-merge reverts, even when the user said "switch it back" — that phrase authorizes the intent to revert, not the merge itself. Post a 3-option revert plan (REVERT-ALL / REVERT-<N>-ONLY / INVESTIGATE-FIRST) and wait.
P14: Hosted-runs-on split jobs need an explicit actions/checkout step (latent Gate-8 silent-skip bug, fixed in PR #8285)
When splitting a workflow job from self-hosted → GitHub-hosted runs-on:, the new hosted job does NOT inherit the parent workflow's checkout (self-hosted jobs in the same workflow chain share the workspace via the runner's persistent filesystem; hosted jobs start with an empty workspace). Any step that does [ -f <repo-path>/... ] checks, git diff, or reads checked-out files will silently fail.
Verified 2026-07-08: the original hosted smoke_gate_wait split (PR #8141, 2026-07-03) had this bug — Gate 8 was always being skipped silently because [ -f .github/workflows/mcp-smoke-tests.yml ] always failed on the empty hosted workspace. PR #8285 (the revert) fixed it by re-folding smoke_gate_wait back to self-hosted AND adding an actions/checkout step. If you ever re-split a job to hosted in the future, the new job MUST actions/checkout@v4 first (or use uses: actions/checkout@<sha> with with: fetch-depth: 1 to stay cheap). Don't repeat PR #8141's silent skip.
P15: gh api --paginate returns null workflow_runs when the URL has a created=>=ISO filter (verified 2026-07-11)
The --paginate flag strips URL query strings differently than the plain call. With ?created=>=2026-07-04T00:00:00Z, --paginate returns {"total_count":0,"workflow_runs":[]} — making you wrongly conclude "no runs in window". With the plain call (no --paginate) the same URL works fine. Workarounds, in order of preference:
Use date-only filter without the operator: ?created=>=2026-07-04 (no T00:00:00Z) — works with --paginate. Verified on 2026-07-11 across 42 repos.
Manual pagination: loop page=1..N with gh api (no --paginate). Slower but reliable. The pattern in scripts/per-repo-workflow-billing-histogram.py uses this approach.
--jq -s 'add' doesn't help here — the data is genuinely missing from the response body.
Same gotcha affects ?created=>=... in any gh api query against actions/runs. The total_count: 0 in the empty response is the smoking gun.
P16: Self-hosted runner detection — use /actions/runs/{id}/jobs, NOT the per-run endpoint (re-verified 2026-07-13)
The 2026-07-11 P16 finding ("workflow_runs[].labels is always [] for self-hosted") was org/setup-specific. On 2026-07-13 in $GITHUB_REPOSITORY, the per-run labels field WAS populated for self-hosted runs (e.g. labels: ["self-hosted"], runner_name: "ez-mac-runner-b-3"). But it's not consistently populated across all runs — some per-run objects have labels: [] even when the underlying jobs ran self-hosted.
Reliable detection: use the per-job endpoint, not the per-run endpoint:
GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/actions/runs/{run_id}/jobs
Every job has runner_name and labels populated reliably. Classifier:
runner_name is custom (e.g. ez-mac-runner-b-1, ez-runner-c-3) AND labels ∈ {[self-hosted]} → self-hosted ($0)
Anything else → unknown (treat as hosted for safety; verify manually)
Histogram script update (2026-07-29):scripts/per-repo-workflow-billing-histogram.py now prefers the per-job endpoint with 20-worker parallel fetch + on-disk cache (P22). The previous YAML-grep detection is kept only as a fallback for runs where the per-job call 404s. If you ran the script between 2026-07-11 and 2026-07-29, the output was wrong — re-run after the script update to get correct attribution. See P21 for the specific case (workflow NAME containing "self-hosted") that the YAML-grep got wrong.
Symptom of using the wrong endpoint: histogram attributes $0 billable minutes to a workflow that's actually generating billable minutes on hosted runners. Always sanity-check the top-3 billable workflows against at least one job-level probe before publishing the attribution.
Cost: ~60s for 42 repos at 10 workers (same as before), but the per-job endpoint doubles the API calls (one for the run, one per run for jobs). For a 1000-run histogram, that's ~1000 jobs-endpoint calls — cache aggressively.
P17: cron: '*/N * * * *' + cancel-in-progress: false + vars.SELF_HOSTED_RUNNER_LABELS fallback = the trifecta for a $50/day bill (verified 2026-07-11)
Three workflow-file patterns, in combination, are the canonical recipe for a silent org-wide Actions cost spike. Each alone is benign; together they're catastrophic:
cron: '*/N * * * *' (every-N-minutes schedule) — generates 72 runs/day per repo at N=20. Even short runs compound.
concurrency.cancel-in-progress: false — runs NEVER cancel each other. Multiple instances of the same workflow stack up indefinitely until each one finishes. With */20, after 6 hours you have ~18 parallel runs of the same workflow.
runs-on: ${{ fromJson(vars.SELF_HOSTED_RUNNER_LABELS || '[<fallback-list>]') }} — if the org-var is unset (the common case at initial setup) and the fallback list contains labels that don't match any registered runner, GitHub falls through to GitHub-hosted Linux at $0.008/min, not error.
Combined: 3 repos × 72 runs/day × ~30 min × $0.008 = $52/day per repo = ~$1500/month, all routed to GitHub-hosted without any "this is expensive" warning.
Avoid vars.<NAME> || '...' fallbacks that contain labels — the fallback defeats the org-var contract. Either require the org-var (no fallback) or fail loud with a sentinel runner label that errors.
Pre-commit/repo-scan lint for this trifecta — the bead $USER-h9ik (filed 2026-07-11) tracks implementation of an org-wide gh-actions-schedule-lint cron.
P18: Daily GH Actions Cost Report (estimated) workflow reports $0 when per-repo billing API 404s (verified 2026-07-13)
Several jleechanorg/* repos have a self-hosted Daily GH Actions Cost Report (estimated) workflow that claims to estimate per-repo per-workflow costs. It is BROKEN: when it calls gh api repos/jleechanorg/<private-repo> and gets HTTP 404 (because the repo is private and the GH app's token doesn't have access), the cost-reporting lib silently treats that as $0 instead of failing or logging the skip.
Symptom: the workflow sends [Daily GH Actions cost (est.)] 2026-07-12 — $0.00 to email/Slack when the real bill for that day is $200+.
Detection: check the workflow's most recent run logs for the cost_report_lib line warn: visibility lookup failed for jleechanorg/<repo>: RuntimeError: gh api repos/jleechanorg/<repo> failed: gh: Not Found (HTTP 404) — treating as private.
Don't trust the per-repo estimate. Trust the org-level /settings/billing/usage aggregate (returned from gh api with the billing-copilot scope) and the per-(repo, workflow) histogram from /actions/runs aggregated manually (see C7). The Daily GH Actions Cost Report (estimated) is a convenience that's currently misleading.
Fix: the cost_report_lib should (a) fail loud with log.error (not log.warn + skip), (b) include the failed repo in the report's "skipped due to access" section, and (c) optionally retry with a token that has read access to private repos (the GitHub App org-wide install, or a fine-scoped PAT). Filed as a followup in the $USER-h9ik bead family.
P19: Spend-alert threshold semantics — daily Δ > $10 fires on rate AND absolute MTD growth, not on spike health (verified 2026-07-13)
The spend-alert-daily.sh threshold fires whenever EITHER daily Δ > $10 OR 7d sum > $70. This means the alert keeps firing even when the spike is past peak:
Daily Δ falling from $48.51 → $36.37 → $27.50 → $25.76 → $18.11 (clear downward trend) still trips the threshold because each daily delta is still > $10.
7d sum also keeps growing as long as new days add to the rolling window, even if those days are smaller than the days dropping off the back end.
Implication for users: when you see "GitHub Actions daily Δ $X > $Y" repeatedly, the first question to ask is "is the rate of accrual going UP or DOWN?". If the rate is falling, the spike is past peak and no action is needed; the alert will stop firing in ~5-7 days as the spike days roll out of the 7-day window.
Better threshold: replace daily Δ with daily Δ > $X AND daily Δ > 1.5 × 7d_avg. This catches rate spikes (today is much higher than average) without re-firing on a declining tail. Same applies to 7d sum — add AND daily Δ > 7d_avg.
How to compute the rate trend from the state file: gh_roll array in ~/.hermes/state/spend-alert-state.json contains the last 7 daily deltas. Compare element 0 (oldest) → element 6 (newest). If monotonically decreasing for 3+ consecutive days, the spike is past peak.
2026-07-29 worked example: state file gh_roll = [15.20, 61.11, 18.14, 11.29, 18.30, 25.44, 7.15] (oldest → newest). Clearly declining from peak on day 2 (the 7/22 spike). User asked "why is GH actions cost still $5/day or so" — correct answer was "spike past peak, no action needed; histogram shows the residual cost is from 3 specific workflows that have been misclassified by the script". Pair P19 with C7 every time someone asks about residual cost — the histogram pinpoints the per-workflow offenders, and P19 confirms whether they're trending up or down.
P20: spend-alert-daily.sh auth blip — WARN: Failed to fetch GitHub billing usage (check gh auth) is transient (verified 2026-07-13)
On 2026-07-09 08:41 PT, spend-alert-daily.sh logged WARN: Failed to fetch GitHub billing usage (check gh auth) and skipped the day's MTD snapshot. The next day's state write interpolated across the gap, making the log look like one big jump (7/8 → 7/10 = $158 → $195, suggesting a $37 spike) when it was actually two smaller days ($25 + $12 estimated).
Don't treat the auth blip as evidence of a spike. Verify by:
Reading the log line directly: grep "Failed to fetch" ~/.hermes/logs/spend-alert-daily.log
Checking the state file: ~/.hermes/state/spend-alert-state.jsongh_roll array — a missing day = interpolated, not real.
Fix in the script: spend-alert-daily.sh should fall back to the cached state (last successful MTD) instead of skipping, AND log a severity=error (not severity=warn) so the dropped-day shows up in cron-watchdog alerts. As of 2026-07-13 this is still WARN. Filed as a followup.
P21: Workflow NAME is NOT a runner-type signal (verified 2026-07-29)
Workflow names in actions/runs can contain "self-hosted" or other hints that look like runner-type signals but are just descriptive. Concrete case from jleechanorg/jleechanclaw:
Workflow name: Staging Canary Full (self-hosted) — sounds self-hosted
Actual runner: runner_name = "GitHub Actions 1000651496", labels = ["ubuntu-latest"] → GitHub-hosted, billed at $0.008/min
This caused the histogram script's is_self_hosted() function (which grepped the workflow YAML on main for the string "self-hosted") to falsely classify 104/134 runs as self-hosted, hiding $7.67 of $44.96 (17%) of the 7-day hosted cost.
Same trap applies to:
Self-Hosted MVP Shards in your-project.com — name contains "Self-Hosted", actually 46/46 GitHub-hosted. Cost: $1.14/day.
Any workflow renamed during a partial revert ("switch back to self-hosted" tasks that got reverted but the name wasn't changed).
Workflows with (cached), (sharded), or other parenthetical hints that aren't runner hints.
Detection rule: never trust the workflow name OR a YAML-grep of "self-hosted" as a runner-type signal. Always verify via the per-job endpoint (P16). The only fields that matter are runner_name and labels[] from the jobs array.
Symptom in histogram output: a workflow with "self-hosted" in its name appears in the "self-hosted" bucket with significant count AND non-zero minutes, while its repo's total gh_minutes looks low. Cross-check against a manual gh api repos/<r>/actions/runs?per_page=5 --jq '.workflow_runs[] | select(.name | contains("self-hosted"))' probe and look at runner_name.
Fix in the histogram script (committed 2026-07-29): replaced is_self_hosted() (YAML-grep heuristic) with per-job endpoint classifier in parallel (20 workers), cached per-run-id to ~/.hermes/cache/jlorg-run-classification.json (or similar) so re-runs are free. The fallback path (YAML-grep) is kept only for runs where the per-job call 404s (e.g. run deleted from history).
P22: Histogram over 2,000+ runs times out at 600s in serial, ~84s with 20 workers (verified 2026-07-29)
Calling gh api repos/<r>/actions/runs/<id>/jobs per-run serially across an org with ~2,833 runs in a 7-day window takes >600s and times out (verified 2026-07-29). With 20-worker ThreadPoolExecutor, the same workload completes in ~84s. The histogram script now uses parallel fetch + caches per-run-id to disk (~/.hermes/cache/jlorg-run-classification.json).
Recipe for ad-hoc analysis (when the histogram script isn't available or you need one-off data):
from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor, as_completed
import subprocess, json
defclassify(rid, repo):
out = subprocess.run(['gh','api',f'repos/{repo}/actions/runs/{rid}/jobs'],
capture_output=True, text=True, timeout=15)
if out.returncode != 0: returnstr(rid), Nonetry:
jobs = json.loads(out.stdout).get('jobs', [])
kinds = set()
for j in jobs:
rn = j.get('runner_name') or''
labs = j.get('labels') or []
if rn.startswith('GitHub Actions ') orany(l in labs for l in ['ubuntu-latest','macos-latest','windows-latest']):
kinds.add('hosted')
elif rn andany(l in labs for l in ['self-hosted']):
kinds.add('self-hosted')
returnstr(rid), 'hosted'if'hosted'in kinds else ('self-hosted'if'self-hosted'in kinds else'unknown')
except: returnstr(rid), None
cache = {}
with ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=20) as ex:
futs = [ex.submit(classify, rid, repo) for repo, rid in to_classify]
for f in as_completed(futs):
rid, kind = f.result()
cache[rid] = kind
json.dump(cache, open('/tmp/run-classification.json', 'w'))
Don't reuse a sequential loop for >500 runs without first benchmarking — the sequential approach will burn 10+ minutes of session time and likely time out at 600s.
P23: Per-job runner_name: null, labels: ['ubuntu-latest'] is GitHub's hosted-fallthrough signal (verified 2026-07-29)
A normal hosted runner allocates with runner_name = "GitHub Actions <id>" (e.g. GitHub Actions 1000651496) AND labels = ['ubuntu-latest']. A fallthrough allocation uses runner_name = null, runner_group_id = null, runner_id = null AND labels = ['ubuntu-latest']. The job is billed at $0.008/min either way, but the null pattern specifically means the runner-pool self-hosted wait timed out and GitHub silently fell back to hosted.
Real-world symptom from $GITHUB_REPOSITORY (presubmit.yml run on feat/levelup-lean-auto-apply-v25, 2026-07-29):
All 9 jobs use the IDENTICAL runs-on: expression (vars.SELF_HOSTED_RUNNER_LABELS || '["self-hosted"]'). The first 2 jobs landed self-hosted, then the remaining 7 timed out and fell through.
If you see a mix of runner_name: null with labels: [self-hosted] AND runner_name: null with labels: [ubuntu-latest] in the SAME run = fallthrough. Confirm by checking the org-runner pool state at the run's run_started_at timestamp.
Fix (in priority order):
Add per-workflow concurrency: { group: <wf>-${{ github.event.pull_request.number || github.ref }}, cancel-in-progress: ${{ github.event_name == 'pull_request' }} } so PR iterations don't pile up self-hosted runners and force fallthrough.
Increase runner-pool capacity if the self-hosted runners are genuinely saturated.
Investigate the self-hosted runner fleet for slow allocations (could indicate runner-side software issues).
The P22 histogram script already classifies both shapes correctly (runner_name: null with hosted label → hosted bucket) but reports them without distinguishing fallthrough from a clean hosted allocation. If you need to attribute fallthrough separately, post-process the script output with a secondary query on runner_name is null AND labels contains 'ubuntu-latest'.
P24: vars.SELF_HOSTED_RUNNER_LABELS || '[fallback]' — once the org-var is set, the OR-fallback is dead code (verified 2026-07-29)
Prior pitfall P17 documented the silent fallthrough when the org-var is UNSET and the || '["self-hosted","self-hosted-mikey"]' fallback contains labels that don't match any registered runner. The 2026-07-29 incident confirmed the other failure mode:
Org-var IS set (verified: SELF_HOSTED_RUNNER_LABELS = ["self-hosted"] on jleechanorg)
All 16 registered self-hosted runners are online and idle at diagnosis time
The workflow's runs-on: still produces hosted fallthrough for the trailing jobs
Root cause: the || '[fallback]' only applies when the org-var is unset. With the var set, the workflow correctly requests self-hosted runners — but the per-job runner allocation times out for the trailing jobs (P23), so GitHub falls back to hosted at $0.008/min regardless.
Implication for the OR-fallback pattern: even if the org-var is set correctly, the || fallback is a latent liability. When a future org-var rotation uses a different label (e.g. switch from ["self-hosted"] to ["self-hosted","linux-x64"]), the fallback stays dead until someone unsets the org-var, then it kicks in with the OLD labels. The safer pattern is to OMIT the fallback and let the workflow fail loud if the org-var is unset:
This makes a missing org-var visible immediately instead of silently switching runner types.
Detection: grep -rn "fromJson(vars.SELF_HOSTED_RUNNER_LABELS ||" .github/workflows/ | xargs -I {} echo {}. Replace each with the bare fromJson(vars.SELF_HOSTED_RUNNER_LABELS) form. Verify the org-var is set in gh api orgs/<org>/actions/variables/SELF_HOSTED_RUNNER_LABELS before deleting fallbacks.
cmux Workspace Survey
When investigating CI, check what other agents are doing — their work may compete for the same runner pool:
cmux list-workspaces --json | python3 -c "
import sys, json
data = json.load(sys.stdin)
for ws in data.get('workspaces', []):
print(f'{ws[\"ref\"]:<14} {ws.get(\"title\", \"?\"):<30} cwd={ws.get(\"current_directory\", \"\")[:50]:<50} latest={(ws.get(\"latest_submitted_message\") or \"\")[:90]}')
"
The latest_submitted_message field shows the most recent user instruction per workspace — useful for detecting parallel workstreams competing for runner resources (e.g. another agent running a heavy PR-checkout cycle).
cmux gotchas:
cmux list-workspaces (no flag) returns plain text; --json returns the real JSON with workspaces: [{ref, title, current_directory, latest_submitted_message, ...}]
cmux tree --workspace N returns the currently-focused workspace, not workspace N. Workspace IDs are dynamically assigned, NOT the order shown in list-workspaces. Always use the ref from JSON to be precise.
References
references/ci-runner-pool-saturation.md — Detailed step-by-step diagnostic + fix recipe with full code examples from the 2026-07-05 your-project.com session (PR #8173)
references/gh-actions-cost-spike-2026-07-08.md — Billing-API cost-spike diagnostic recipe: which SKU maps to which runner type, the exact gh api commands to fetch usageItems, the 3-PR revert pattern (PRs #8172, #8141, #8142), and the merge-safety gate that prevents auto-merge of infra reverts in $GITHUB_REPOSITORY
references/gh-actions-cost-spike-2026-07-11.md — Per-(repo, workflow) histogram walkthrough: the recipe for building a cost breakdown from the actions/runs API (not just the billing API), the manual-pagination + date-only filter workarounds, self-hosted detection via workflow YAML grep, the "deleted-workflow drain" pattern (Skeptic Cron: $264 of $292 7d cost from queued runs after the deletion PRs landed)
references/spend-alert-incident-log.md — Session-by-session incident log for jleechanorg spend alerts (2026-07-29 entry covers the multi-workflow per-job fallthrough pattern; lists the 5 most common recurring causes in priority order)
scripts/find-workflows-missing-fetch-depth.py — Statically finds workflows using actions/checkout@ without fetch-depth:, exit code 1 if any missing
scripts/check-hosted-runner-spike.sh — Walks .github/workflows/, flags every runs-on: ubuntu-latest with its trigger event, and prints a per-workflow cost estimate (hosted $0.006/min vs self-hosted $0.002/min)
scripts/per-repo-workflow-billing-histogram.py — Per-(repo, workflow, event, runner) cost histogram from the actions/runs API. Run when the billing-API shows a spike but grep -l "runs-on: ubuntu-latest" returns nothing — catches deleted-workflow drains, label-match fallthroughs, and per-(repo, workflow) attribution that the billing API alone cannot provide
