CI Failure DoctorCI Failure Investigation - Daily Perf Improver Detection Job

[github-actions[bot]]

Summary

The Daily Perf Improver workflow (Run #23581863015) is failing consistently in the detection job at the "Setup threat detection" step. This is a persistent, recurring failure observed on every scheduled run since at least 2026-03-02.

Failure Details

• Run: 23581863015
• Commit: 3fa0e5d105b8ebfa8802002edc5fb117ebb237bf
• Trigger: schedule (daily)
• Failing Job: detection
• Failing Step: Setup threat detection (step 6 of 13)
• Duration of Failure: Instantaneous (fails within the same second it starts)

Root Cause Analysis

The detection job fails at the "Setup threat detection" step, which executes:

const { setupGlobals } = require('/opt/gh-aw/actions/setup_globals.cjs');
setupGlobals(core, github, context, exec, io);
const { main } = require('/opt/gh-aw/actions/setup_threat_detection.cjs');
await main();

These scripts are provided by github/gh-aw/actions/setup@1b847e3d0c6d8ebc44cb538c55198da42baa8a78 (v0.47.1). The step fails instantly, causing all subsequent detection steps to be skipped (token validation, Copilot CLI install, threat detection execution).

Key observations:

• The agent job succeeds — the Copilot CLI runs and produces a noop output (no performance improvements found)
• Artifacts are produced and downloadable (agent-artifacts, agent-output, safe-output)
• The failure is instantaneous, suggesting an exception thrown during script initialization or validation logic
• The safe_outputs and push_repo_memory jobs are skipped because needs.detection.outputs.success != 'true'
• There is a pending Dependabot PR (ci: bump github/gh-aw from 0.58.3 to 0.62.5 #161) to bump github/gh-aw from 0.58.3 to 0.62.5, while the lock file pins v0.47.1

Pattern: Recurrence History

Date	Run ID	Job Failed	Step Failed
2026-03-26	23581863015	detection	Setup threat detection
2026-03-25	23529112132	detection	Setup threat detection
2026-03-24	23477328723	detection	Setup threat detection
2026-03-16	23131958791	detection	Setup threat detection
2026-03-15	23105514522	detection	Setup threat detection
2026-03-02	22565153541	detection	Setup threat detection

This pattern is not new — the workflow has been failing at this exact step consistently.

Impact

• The detection job failing causes safe_outputs to be skipped, preventing agent outputs from being posted to GitHub
• push_repo_memory is also skipped, so memory from agent runs is not persisted
• The overall workflow reports failure even though the main agent task completed successfully

Recommended Actions

• Review the setup_threat_detection.cjs script in github/gh-aw@v0.47.1 to understand why it fails
• Merge or review PR ci: bump github/gh-aw from 0.58.3 to 0.62.5 #161 — the Dependabot update bumping github/gh-aw from 0.58.3 to 0.62.5 may contain a fix for this issue
• Check release notes for versions v0.47.1 → v0.62.5 of github/gh-aw for any relevant fixes to threat detection setup
• Regenerate the lock file by updating the github/gh-aw version to trigger a new compiled workflow that uses a patched version

AI Team Self-Improvement

Copy-paste these instructions into your instructions.md for AI coding agents:

When investigating CI failures in agentic workflows using github/gh-aw:

1. Check whether the failure is in a framework step (e.g., Setup threat detection, Setup Scripts) vs. user-authored code — framework failures often require updating the github/gh-aw package version rather than fixing repo code
2. When a detection or conclusion job fails at a gh-aw framework step, check if there's a pending Dependabot PR bumping github/gh-aw — merging it may resolve the issue
3. A failure in Setup threat detection that causes safe_outputs to be skipped means agent outputs are NOT being posted to GitHub, even if the main agent task succeeded

Historical Context

This is a recurring failure across 20+ scheduled runs. No existing open issue tracks this pattern. The [aw] No-Op Runs issue (#109) confirms the agent is successfully completing without finding work to do, which is separate from the detection framework failure.

AI generated by CI Failure Doctor · history

• expires on Apr 2, 2026, 7:22 AM UTC