GitHub Actions runner capacity or queue timeout

April 30, 2026 · View on GitHub

Playbook ID: github-actions-runner-capacity Category: ci Severity: medium Tags: github-actions, runner, capacity, queue, timeout, hosted

What this failure means

The GitHub Actions job waited too long to be picked up by a runner, or the runner became unresponsive mid-job. The workflow was canceled due to the capacity or timeout condition.

Common log signals

All runners that can run this job are busy
Waiting for a runner to pick up this job
No runner matching the labels
runner was lost
The runner has received a shutdown signal
runner.*disconnected
Job was canceled because no runners matched
No available runner

Diagnosis

The GitHub Actions job waited too long to be picked up by a runner, or the runner became unresponsive mid-job. The workflow was canceled due to the capacity or timeout condition.

Fix steps

  1. Re-run the failed jobs: transient capacity issues resolve as runners free up.
  2. For self-hosted runners: verify the runner is registered and healthy in Settings → Actions → Runners.
  3. If jobs regularly queue: increase the runner count by adding more self-hosted runners or upgrading the GitHub plan for additional hosted runner seats.
  4. If the workflow timeout was reached: increase timeout-minutes at the job or step level, or split long jobs into shorter parallel steps.
  5. Check runner labels: ensure runs-on labels match a valid registered runner label exactly.

Validation

  • Re-run the local reproduction command after the fix.
  • Check GitHub Settings → Actions → Runners for registered runner health

Likely files to inspect

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

Run Faultline

faultline analyze build.log
faultline explain github-actions-runner-capacity
faultline workflow build.log --json --mode agent

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Generated from playbooks/bundled/log/ci/github-actions-runner-capacity.yaml. Do not edit directly — run make docs-generate.