GitHub Actions job cancelled by concurrency policy

Playbook ID: github-actions-concurrency-cancel Category: ci Severity: medium Tags: github-actions, concurrency, cancel, cancelled, workflow

What this failure means

A GitHub Actions workflow run was automatically cancelled because a newer run for the same concurrency group started. All pending and in-progress steps were cut short. No action or fix is needed — this is expected behaviour from a concurrency: cancel-in-progress: true policy.

Common log signals

The operation was canceled
the operation was cancelled
This run was cancelled
Cancelling a currently running workflow
Job was canceled
##[error]A task was canceled

Diagnosis

GitHub Actions supports a concurrency block at the workflow or job level. When cancel-in-progress: true is set, any in-progress run for the same group is cancelled as soon as a newer run begins for that group (e.g., a new push to the same branch):

concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true

When cancellation fires:

• The runner receives a cancel signal.
• Any currently running step receives SIGTERM; pending steps are skipped.
• The log shows: The operation was canceled. or Cancelling a currently running workflow followed by all remaining steps marked as cancelled or skipped.

This is not a failure — it is the concurrency policy working as designed. If the cancellation is unexpected, check whether the branch or event grouping expression is too broad.

Fix steps

If the cancellation is expected (new push after old push): No action needed. The newer run will complete.

If the cancellation is too aggressive (unrelated runs cancelling each other):

1. Narrow the concurrency group expression to avoid false matches:

   # Too broad — all pulls cancel each other regardless of branch:
   concurrency:
     group: ${{ github.workflow }}
     cancel-in-progress: true
   
   # Better — only runs on the same branch cancel each other:
   concurrency:
     group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
     cancel-in-progress: true
   

2. Protect critical post-merge jobs from cancellation by setting cancel-in-progress: false on the deploy or release workflow:

   concurrency:
     group: deploy-${{ github.ref }}
     cancel-in-progress: false  # Never cancel an in-progress deploy
   

3. Use separate concurrency groups for PR checks (cancel-in-progress: true) and post-merge deployment (cancel-in-progress: false).

If the concurrency block is not intentional:

Remove or adjust the concurrency: block from the workflow YAML.

Validation

• Push a new commit and confirm only the newer run executes.
• Confirm no unrelated runs are cancelled under the new configuration.

Likely files to inspect

• .github/workflows/*.yml
• .github/workflows/*.yaml

Run Faultline

faultline analyze build.log
faultline explain github-actions-concurrency-cancel
faultline workflow build.log --json --mode agent

Search phrases this page answers

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• faultline explain github-actions-concurrency-cancel

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