GitHub Actions Manual Trigger Audit

Audit manual GitHub Actions trigger dependence by workflow/event to flag automation gaps and intervention risk.

Use this skill to detect workflows that rely too heavily on manual triggers (workflow_dispatch / repository_dispatch) instead of automated CI events.

What this skill does

• Reads GitHub Actions run JSON exports
• Groups runs by repository + workflow (+ branch)
• Measures manual-trigger share vs total run volume
• Tracks recent manual-trigger streaks (latest N runs)
• Scores severity (ok, warn, critical) for operational risk gating
• Emits text or JSON output for automation

Inputs

Optional:

• RUN_GLOB (default: artifacts/github-actions/*.json)
• TOP_N (default: 20)
• OUTPUT_FORMAT (text or json, default: text)
• GROUP_BY (workflow or workflow-branch, default: workflow)
• MANUAL_EVENTS (comma-separated, default: workflow_dispatch,repository_dispatch)
• RECENT_WINDOW (latest runs inspected for streak, default: 5)
• MIN_RUNS (minimum runs required, default: 5)
• WARN_MANUAL_RATIO (0..1, default: 0.35)
• CRITICAL_MANUAL_RATIO (0..1, default: 0.65)
• WARN_MANUAL_RUNS (default: 5)
• CRITICAL_MANUAL_RUNS (default: 12)
• WARN_RECENT_MANUAL_STREAK (default: 3)
• CRITICAL_RECENT_MANUAL_STREAK (default: 5)
• WORKFLOW_MATCH / WORKFLOW_EXCLUDE (regex, optional)
• BRANCH_MATCH / BRANCH_EXCLUDE (regex, optional)
• EVENT_MATCH / EVENT_EXCLUDE (regex, optional)
• REPO_MATCH / REPO_EXCLUDE (regex, optional)
• FAIL_ON_CRITICAL (0 or 1, default: 0)

Collect run JSON

bash

gh run view <run-id> --json databaseId,workflowName,event,headBranch,conclusion,createdAt,updatedAt,url,repository \
  > artifacts/github-actions/run-<run-id>.json

Run

Text report:

bash

RUN_GLOB='artifacts/github-actions/*.json' \
bash skills/github-actions-manual-trigger-audit/scripts/manual-trigger-audit.sh

JSON output + fail gate:

bash

RUN_GLOB='artifacts/github-actions/*.json' \
OUTPUT_FORMAT=json \
FAIL_ON_CRITICAL=1 \
bash skills/github-actions-manual-trigger-audit/scripts/manual-trigger-audit.sh

Run against bundled fixtures:

bash

RUN_GLOB='skills/github-actions-manual-trigger-audit/fixtures/*.json' \
bash skills/github-actions-manual-trigger-audit/scripts/manual-trigger-audit.sh

Output contract

• Exit 0 in report mode (default)
• Exit 1 when FAIL_ON_CRITICAL=1 and one or more groups are critical
• Text mode prints summary + ranked workflow groups
• JSON mode prints summary + ranked groups + critical groups