Artifacts Usage Report — github/gh-aw (April 2026)

[github-actions[bot]]

Analysis of GitHub Actions artifact usage across the 241 workflows in this repository, based on data collected from recent runs (last 30 days, ending 2026-04-05).

---

Summary

Metric	Value
Total workflows	241 (all active)
Workflows generating artifacts	~90%+ (all agentic .lock.yml workflows)
Largest single artifact	github-pages – 234 MB per run (Doc Build)
Most artifacts per run	CI – 37 artifacts per run
Highest-frequency workflow	CI – 22,234 total runs
Most storage-intensive workflow	Doc Build - Deploy – ~234 MB per run, 1-day retention

---

Artifact Usage by Workflow

Workflow Name	Total Runs (all-time)	Artifacts/Run	Avg Size/Run	Latest Run	Retention
CI	22,234	37	~3.0 MB	2026-04-05	7–14 days
Doc Build - Deploy	7,060	1	~234 MB	2026-04-05	1 day
CI Failure Doctor	4,206	0*	—	2026-04-05	—
Issue Monster	3,708	3–5	~0.5 MB	2026-04-05	1–90 days
Dev	2,118	0*	—	2026-04-05	—
Smoke Copilot	2,787	6	~0.37 MB	2026-04-05	1–90 days
Smoke Claude	2,676	8	~0.64 MB	2026-04-05	1–90 days
Smoke Codex	2,659	3	~3.4 MB	2026-04-05	1–90 days
The Daily Repository Chronicle	151	3–5	~1.0 MB	2026-04-03	1–90 days
Daily News	176	3	~1.1 MB	2026-04-03	1–90 days
Copilot Agent PR Analysis	221	3–5	~0.5 MB	2026-04-04	1–90 days
Artifacts Summary	106	4	~0.98 MB	2026-03-29	1–90 days
Daily Fact About gh-aw	133	0**	—	2026-04-03	—

* Runs marked skipped or triggered conditionally — no artifacts generated.
** Run failed before producing artifacts.

Note: The remaining ~220 agentic lock.yml workflows each follow the standard artifact pattern described below. Each generates 3–8 artifacts per run with 1-day to 90-day retention.

---

Standard Agentic Workflow Artifact Pattern

All .lock.yml agentic workflows share a consistent artifact schema:

Artifact Name	Typical Size	Retention	Purpose
activation	4–13 KB	1 day	Trigger payload & sanitized inputs
agent	163 B – 970 KB	90 days	Full agent output & conversation log
detection	2–25 KB	90 days	Threat detection & safety audit
safe-output-items	0.3–0.5 KB	90 days	Structured safe outputs (issues, comments)
firewall-audit-logs	12–15 KB	90 days	Network firewall egress audit logs
repo-memory-default	~1.1 MB	1 day	Cache-memory (persisted repo context)
*.dockerbuild	~30 KB	90 days	Docker image build metadata
apm	3 KB	1 day	Performance metrics
code-scanning-sarif	0.6 KB	1 day	SARIF security scan output

---

CI Workflow Artifacts (37 per run)

The CI workflow is the most complex, generating test result artifacts for every job matrix combination:

View all 37 CI artifact types

Artifact Name	Size	Retention
test-result-unit	~1.3 MB	14 days
coverage-report	~1.5 MB	7 days
test-coverage-analysis	~85 KB	14 days
benchmark-results	~5 KB	14 days
fuzz-results-Workflow-Triggers	~5 KB	14 days
fuzz-results-Workflow-Core	~4 KB	14 days
fuzz-results-Workflow-Parsing	~4 KB	14 days
fuzz-results-Parser	~3 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-CLI MCP Connectivity	~2 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-CLI Docker Build	~1 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-CLI Progress Flag	~0.5 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-CLI HTTP MCP Connect	~0.7 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-CLI Completion & Other	~61 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-CLI MCP Other	~13 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-CLI Compile & Poutine	~4 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-Parser Remote Fetch & Cache	~1.4 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-Workflow Rendering & Bundling	~19 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-Workflow Compiler	~8 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-CLI Security Tools	~3 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-Workflow Misc Part 2	~48 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-CLI Compile Workflows	~5 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-Workflow Actions & Containers	~4 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-add-dispatch-workflow	~1.5 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-Workflow Tools & MCP	~8 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-CLI Add & List Commands	~4 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-CMD Tests	~7 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-Workflow Features	~32 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-CLI MCP Inspect GitHub	~7 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-unauthenticated	~1.2 KB	14 days
test-result-integration-Workflow Validation	~3.3 KB	14 days
(+7 more integration test artifacts)	—	14 days

Total per CI run: ~3.0 MB

---

Storage Estimates (30-Day Window)

Workflow	Est. Runs (30d)	Est. Artifacts (30d)	Est. Storage (30d, active)
CI	~1,800	~66,600	~5.4 GB
Doc Build - Deploy	~600	~600	~140 GB*
Smoke Copilot	~300	~1,800	~111 MB
Smoke Claude	~300	~2,400	~192 MB
Smoke Codex	~300	~900	~1.0 GB
Issue Monster	~900	~3,600	~450 MB
~220 other agentic workflows	~3,000	~12,000	~3.0 GB
Total (estimated)	~7,200	~87,900	~150 GB

* Doc Build generates 234 MB artifacts but expires them in 1 day, so at any moment only ~20 GB of doc artifacts are live.

---

Insights & Recommendations

🔴 High Priority

1. Doc Build artifact size — The github-pages artifact is 234 MB per run and the workflow has run 7,060+ times. The 1-day retention policy appropriately limits accumulation, but the per-run size warrants investigation — consider whether the build can be optimized (e.g., compression, incremental builds) to reduce from ~234 MB.

2. Smoke Codex agent artifact — At ~3.4 MB per run (vs ~0.35 MB for Smoke Copilot and ~0.57 MB for Smoke Claude), the Codex agent artifact is ~6-10× larger. This suggests verbose output or uncompressed logs — worth investigating.

🟡 Medium Priority

3. CI artifact volume — With 37 artifacts per run and ~1,800 runs/month, CI generates ~66,000+ artifacts/month. The 14-day retention is reasonable, but consolidating the many small test-result-integration-* artifacts into a single archive could reduce artifact count significantly.

4. repo-memory-default in Daily workflows — Daily workflows (e.g., Daily News, Daily Repository Chronicle) upload ~1.1 MB repo-memory-default artifacts each run but expire them after only 1 day. If these represent cache-memory state that should persist between daily runs, a longer retention (e.g., 7 days) might improve reliability.

5. Failed workflow artifacts — Several daily workflows (Daily Fact, Daily News) are failing before producing artifacts. This suggests runtime issues that prevent artifact upload, not just content failures. These should be investigated.

🟢 Already Optimized

• Short-lived activation artifacts (1-day retention) — Good practice for trigger payloads that don't need long retention.
• Uniform agentic artifact schema — Consistent naming across 200+ workflows makes tooling and analysis straightforward.
• Security artifacts (firewall-audit-logs, detection) with 90-day retention — Appropriate for security audit trails.

---

Methodology

Data collected via GitHub Actions API for all 241 workflows in github/gh-aw. Artifact statistics are based on the most recent completed (non-cancelled) run per workflow. Storage estimates use per-run sizes multiplied by estimated monthly run frequencies derived from total run counts and workflow creation dates.

References:

• §23995578661 — This workflow run
• §23994858362 — Latest successful CI run
• §23993824191 — Latest successful Doc Build run

Generated by Artifacts Summary · ● 4.1M · ◷

• expires on Apr 6, 2026, 6:16 AM UTC

[github-actions[bot]]

🤖 The smoke test agent was here! Beep boop — testing, testing, 1-2-3. All systems nominal! 🚀

📰 BREAKING: Report filed by Smoke Copilot · ● 1.1M · ◷

[github-actions[bot]]

💥 WHOOSH!

The smoke test agent has ARRIVED, blazing through the cosmos like a comet with a clipart flame! 🔥

⚡ POW! — Claude engine 23998581834 swooped in, ran its tests, and declared this repository MOSTLY NOMINAL!

🦸 With the power of 16 passing tests and only 1 rate-limited Tavily villain standing in the way, the smoke test hero lives to fight another day!

💫 WHAM! — Safe outputs? DEPLOYED! PR reviews? SUBMITTED! Slack messages? SENT! Code scanning alerts? FIRED!

To be continued... in the next workflow run! 🚀

💥 [THE END] — Illustrated by Smoke Claude · ● 174.5K · ◷

[github-actions[bot]]

This discussion was automatically closed because it expired on 2026-04-06T06:16:26.734Z.

Closed by Workflow