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The synthetic BuildFailed workflow (conclusion: startup_failure, 0 jobs) occurs when GitHub Actions' orchestrator service encounters a terminal error during the ingress dispatch phase before a runner is provisioned.

In private repositories, this state is commonly triggered by one of three root causes:

1. Actions Spending Limit Reached on Private Repositories (Most Common)

Private repositories have an allowance of 2,000 free Actions minutes per month. If the account's Actions spending limit is set to $0 (the default) and the included minute quota has been exhausted, GitHub Actions intercepts all incoming push and pull_request webhooks at ingress and aborts them immediately with startup_failure under a tombstone BuildFailed workflow record.

• Fix: Check Account / Organization Settings > Billing and plans > Spending limits > Actions. If it shows $0 and you have hit the threshold, adjust the spending limit or wait for the monthly billing cycle reset.

2. Orphaned Status Checks in Branch Protection Rules / Rulesets

If branch protection or ruleset policies for your default branch (development) require a status check that was previously associated with the deleted workflow, GitHub's event router attempts to resolve and initialize the legacy check definition:

• Fix: Navigate to Settings > Rules > Rulesets (or Branches > Branch protection rules) for development. Remove any required status checks referencing the deleted workflow, save, and re-trigger.

3. Stale Workflow Registration State

When a workflow YAML file is deleted or renamed, GitHub marks the database record as state: deleted, but webhook events may still route to its cached workflow ID if the new workflow has not fully re-registered on the default branch:

• Fix:
  1. Temporarily disable and re-enable your active workflow using the GitHub CLI:

     gh workflow disable ci.yml --repo ahmedali5696/care-pulse
     gh workflow enable ci.yml --repo ahmedali5696/care-pulse

  2. Purge the lingering failed run records:

     gh run delete 34603821725 --repo ahmedali5696/care-pulse
     gh run delete 34603826401 --repo ahmedali5696/care-pulse

  3. Push an empty commit to development (git commit --allow-empty -m "chore: re-register actions dispatcher" && git push origin development) to force the event router to refresh the active workflow registry.

Update after controlled workflow re-registration test:

I verified the active workflow before and after a disable/enable cycle:

• Before: CI active 355801279
• Disabled: CI disabled_manually 355801279
• Re-enabled: CI active 355801279

Then I pushed a new empty commit to codex/wave-1:

HEAD:
456c98152d17bbe29b616352daf1f070790550f6

No workflow YAML or application files were changed.

A new Actions run was eventually created for this HEAD:

• Run ID: 34717878716
• conclusion: startup_failure
• workflow ID: 355378151
• jobs: 0

So even after explicitly disabling and re-enabling the active CI workflow (355801279), the new event was still routed to the deleted BuildFailed workflow (355378151) and failed before any job graph was created.

Additional confirmed exclusions:

• Billing / Actions quota is not the cause:
  • Metered usage shows No usage found
  • No payment method configured
• No branch protection rules or rulesets exist
• actionlint passes
• The active workflow is registered correctly on the default branch

This now strongly points to stale repository-side Actions workflow dispatch state tied to deleted workflow ID 355378151.

Is there any supported way for repository owners to force GitHub Actions to purge/re-index the stale workflow routing state, or does this require GitHub staff intervention?

I am seeing an extremely similar failure mode on a second private repository.

Repository: jorikallio6/clarvox-sites

Affected commit:
f0d37bffcc0fafbfbd592dedbd6104d59f0f7a60

Parent commit:
97deff181adbf7bcebc9255eaae426afdfcf1f26

Affected push time:
2026-09-13T03:25:22Z

The push did not enqueue any of the four registered active workflows. Instead GitHub created only:

• Run ID: 34735441742
• Event: push
• Conclusion: startup_failure
• Workflow ID: 356881048
• Workflow name: empty
• Workflow path: BuildFailed
• Workflow state: deleted
• Jobs: 0
• Check runs: 0

The four expected workflows remain registered and active:

• ci — workflow ID 354948770
• hosted-local-authority — workflow ID 354948771
• recovery-and-release — workflow ID 354948772
• core-runtime — workflow ID 354948774

The affected commit did not modify any workflow files. The workflow files are byte-identical to the parent commit.

The parent commit produced normal push-triggered runs for all four workflows:

• 34702984241
• 34702984245
• 34702984258
• 34702984271

The affected commit has no recognized CI-skip marker. Repository Actions are enabled and allowed_actions is all.

GitHub Support ticket 4753442 was closed because technical support is not included with my current support entitlement, so no backend diagnosis was provided.

I have deliberately not tried deleting runs, disabling/re-enabling workflows, force-pushing, or creating an empty commit because I need to preserve the affected commit as the exact authority under investigation.

This looks very close to the behavior reported here. If anyone finds a documented GitHub-side recovery method for the stale/deleted BuildFailed routing state, especially one that does not require generating a different commit SHA, I would be very interested in the result.

Thanks — this is very useful corroboration.

My repository now shows the same failure pattern even after a controlled workflow re-registration cycle.

Repository:
ahmedali5696/care-pulse

Active workflow:

• name: CI
• workflow ID: 355801279
• state: active
• path: .github/workflows/ci.yml

I explicitly:

1. disabled the active workflow,
2. verified it became disabled_manually,
3. re-enabled the same workflow,
4. verified it returned to active,
5. pushed a new empty commit without modifying workflow or application files.

New HEAD:
456c98152d17bbe29b616352daf1f070790550f6

Resulting run:

• Run ID: 34717878716
• conclusion: startup_failure
• workflow ID: 355378151
• jobs: 0

The event was still routed to the deleted synthetic BuildFailed workflow rather than the active CI workflow.

I have also ruled out:

• Actions usage/quota exhaustion (Metered usage: No usage found)
• branch protection rules
• repository rulesets
• workflow YAML syntax errors (actionlint clean)

There now appear to be multiple unrelated private repositories exhibiting the same deleted BuildFailed / startup_failure / zero-jobs signature.

Related reports also appear to include:

• GitHub Actions startup_failure with synthetic BuildFailed workflow and zero jobs on private repository #207492
• GitHub Actions synthetic BuildFailed startup_failure with zero jobs on all PRs #206626
• Persistent deleted BuildFailed workflow intercepts all Actions runs with startup_failure and zero jobs #206684
• Private-repo Actions runs become deleted BuildFailed workflows with zero jobs #205770
• Synthetic BuildFailed workflow intercepts Actions runs with startup_failure and zero jobs #206997

At this point I am preserving the repository state and avoiding further destructive or state-changing diagnostics.

If anyone identifies a GitHub-side recovery method, backend re-index procedure, or staff-confirmed incident reference, please share it here.