Docs › GitHub Actions scheduled workflow monitoring with RunVouch

GitHub Actions scheduled workflow monitoring with RunVouch

GitHub Actions scheduled workflow monitoring for the workflow that quietly stopped: on: schedule runs on the default branch, only while the repository is active, and only when GitHub's queue has room. A green check on a run that wrote nothing is still a green check.

How it runs on GitHub Actions schedule

One step in the job, before or around your command: runvouch/vouch-action@v1 (a composite action that installs rv and wraps the command), or pip install runvouch and rv run by hand. Source: github.com/runvouch/vouch-action.

Store the key

Repository secret RUNVOUCH_KEY (Settings, Secrets and variables, Actions). Pass it as key: ${{ secrets.RUNVOUCH_KEY }}; for a reusable workflow, add secrets: inherit.

Wrap the job

# .github/workflows/nightly-report.yml
name: nightly-report
on:
  schedule: [{ cron: "17 3 * * *" }]   # UTC; avoid :00, GitHub queues are busiest there
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  report:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: runvouch/vouch-action@v1
        with:
          agent: nightly-report
          key: ${{ secrets.RUNVOUCH_KEY }}
          cadence: 24h                       # registers the agent: MISSED after 24h + grace
          evidence-file: out/report.html     # must exist, be non-empty and be modified by the run
          cap-run-cost: 2
          run: python report.py --out out/report.html

# without the action
      - run: pip install runvouch && rv run nightly-report --evidence-file out/report.html -- python report.py
        env: { RUNVOUCH_KEY: ${{ secrets.RUNVOUCH_KEY }} }

rv fails open: if RunVouch is unreachable the job still runs and you get one warning line.

Register the cadence and caps

rv agent nightly-report --cadence 24h --grace 30m --max-runtime 1h --evidence --cap-run-cost 2

Register the agent once, from anywhere with the key. Cadence is what turns a schedule that stopped into an alert; --evidence makes a run without evidence a failure; the caps pause the agent when it overspends.

What goes silent on GitHub Actions schedule

• In a public repository, scheduled workflows are automatically disabled when no repository activity has occurred in 60 days. The workflow page shows a banner; no e-mail is sent. MISSED fires the first night.
• The schedule event can be delayed during periods of high load, and the docs say a run may not start at the scheduled minute or at all. Set grace to an hour.
• Schedules run on the default branch only; a workflow edited on a feature branch does not change what runs tonight.
• A job that passes with an empty out/report.html is a green run to GitHub and NO_EVIDENCE to RunVouch.

What GitHub Actions schedule does not tell you

GitHub notifies on failed workflow runs, by e-mail or in the notifications inbox, and only for runs that happened. A schedule that was disabled after 60 days of inactivity, a schedule that GitHub dropped under load, or a workflow file that lost its schedule: block in a merge, produces no run and no notification. The last run's timestamp on the Actions tab is the only record that the job used to exist.

What RunVouch detects

Set up in two minutes

1. Get a free key (3 agents, no card) and store it where this page says.
2. wrap the job: copy the snippet above into the scheduled job.
3. Register the cadence once: rv agent nightly-report --cadence 24h --grace 30m --evidence, or let the first run create the agent and set the cadence on the dashboard.
4. Send one test alert: curl -X POST https://api.runvouch.com/v1/settings/test-alert -H "X-API-Key: $RUNVOUCH_KEY". The next missed, failed or empty run reaches the same channels.

Also running schedulers?

Kubernetes CronJob. systemd timers. GitLab CI scheduled pipelines. Jenkins. The full list of runtimes is on integrations, and the same agent can report from several of them: one job, one cadence, wherever it happens to run.

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