GitHub Actions Failure Owner Audit

Audit failing GitHub Actions runs by actor ownership to expose who/workflow combinations generate the most CI noise and wasted minutes.

Use this skill to attribute GitHub Actions failures to owners (actors) so teams can route CI stabilization work by impact instead of guesswork.

What this skill does

• Reads one or more GitHub Actions run JSON exports (gh api output or per-run JSON files)
• Focuses on failure-like conclusions by default (failure, cancelled, timed_out, action_required, startup_failure)
• Groups by repository + actor (or repository + actor + workflow)
• Scores hotspots by failed run counts and total failed runtime minutes
• Supports text and JSON output for triage meetings and automation

Inputs

Optional:

• RUN_GLOB (default: artifacts/github-actions-runs/*.json)
• TOP_N (default: 20)
• OUTPUT_FORMAT (text or json, default: text)
• GROUP_BY (actor, actor-workflow, owner, or owner-workflow, default: actor)
• OWNER_MAP_FILE (optional JSON mapping file to map actor regex → owner/team)
• WARN_FAILURE_RUNS (default: 3)
• CRITICAL_FAILURE_RUNS (default: 6)
• WARN_FAILURE_MINUTES (default: 30)
• CRITICAL_FAILURE_MINUTES (default: 90)
• FAIL_ON_CRITICAL (0 or 1, default: 0)
• REPO_MATCH / REPO_EXCLUDE (regex, optional)
• WORKFLOW_MATCH / WORKFLOW_EXCLUDE (regex, optional)
• BRANCH_MATCH / BRANCH_EXCLUDE (regex, optional)
• ACTOR_MATCH / ACTOR_EXCLUDE (regex, optional)
• CONCLUSION_MATCH / CONCLUSION_EXCLUDE (regex, optional)

Collect run JSON

Single repository paginated export:

bash

gh api repos/<owner>/<repo>/actions/runs --paginate \
  > artifacts/github-actions-runs/<owner>-<repo>.json

Run

Default ownership triage:

bash

RUN_GLOB='artifacts/github-actions-runs/*.json' \
bash skills/github-actions-failure-owner-audit/scripts/failure-owner-audit.sh

Workflow-scoped ownership triage with stricter thresholds:

bash

RUN_GLOB='artifacts/github-actions-runs/*.json' \
GROUP_BY='actor-workflow' \
WARN_FAILURE_RUNS=2 \
CRITICAL_FAILURE_RUNS=4 \
WARN_FAILURE_MINUTES=20 \
CRITICAL_FAILURE_MINUTES=60 \
bash skills/github-actions-failure-owner-audit/scripts/failure-owner-audit.sh

JSON output for dashboards/alerts:

bash

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

Filter to a repo and release branches only:

bash

RUN_GLOB='artifacts/github-actions-runs/*.json' \
REPO_MATCH='^flowcreatebot/' \
BRANCH_MATCH='^(main|release/)' \
ACTOR_EXCLUDE='(dependabot|renovate)' \
bash skills/github-actions-failure-owner-audit/scripts/failure-owner-audit.sh

Run with bundled fixtures:

bash

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

Owner/team mapping (first matching regex wins):

json

{
  "^dependabot\\[bot]$": "automation",
  "^renovate\\[bot]$": "automation",
  "^alice$": "platform"
}

bash

RUN_GLOB='artifacts/github-actions-runs/*.json' \
GROUP_BY='owner-workflow' \
OWNER_MAP_FILE='skills/github-actions-failure-owner-audit/examples/owner-map.sample.json' \
bash skills/github-actions-failure-owner-audit/scripts/failure-owner-audit.sh

Output contract

• Exit 0 in reporting mode (default)
• Exit 1 if FAIL_ON_CRITICAL=1 and at least one ownership group is critical
• In text mode: prints summary and top ownership hotspots
• In json mode: prints summary, top groups, all groups, and critical groups