Cannot delete workflow run

[irshadcc]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

ARC (Actions Runner Controller)

Discussion Details

After deleting the workflow in Actions, the new commit still triggers the deleted workflow

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[CarlosOliveira-23]

Hi @irshadcc!

That usually happens when the workflow .yml file still exists in another active branch or tag in your repository. GitHub Actions evaluates workflows across all branches depending on your trigger setup (like on: push).

Here are a few steps to fix and verify this:

Check Other Branches: Make sure the workflow file was deleted from all active branches (especially main/master or whatever branch you are pushing to). If it still exists on the default branch, pushing to a feature branch might still trigger it.

Check PR / Push Triggers: Look closely at the on: section of that deleted workflow. If it was set to trigger on pull_request against main, it will keep running as long as the base/target branch still contains the file.

Disable/Delete via UI: Go to the Actions tab in your repository, select the deleted workflow from the left sidebar, click the ... menu on the top right, and explicitly choose Disable workflow or Delete workflow.

ARC Runner Delay: Since you're using Actions Runner Controller (ARC), note that if a runner pod was already queued or spawned just before the deletion, it might complete its current execution context.

Double-check if the file is completely removed from your default branch and that should stop new runs!

[irshadcc]

I only have 1 branch and tag and none of them contain the .yml file corresponding to that workflow.

[AceBreaker-cell]

Since the file is gone from your only branch and tag, the next step is to find out where the runs are actually coming from. Could you check these?

1. Look at what the unwanted runs report. This returns the workflow ID, path, event, and commit SHA for your latest runs:

gh api "repos/OWNER/REPO/actions/runs?per_page=5" \
  --jq '.workflow_runs[] | {id, workflow_id, name, path, event, head_sha}'

2. Check the workflow's registered state using the workflow_id from step 1:

gh api repos/OWNER/REPO/actions/workflows/WORKFLOW_ID --jq '{id, name, path, state}'

3. Check that the file isn't in the commit that triggered the run. GitHub uses the workflow file from the commit that triggered the run, so run git ls-tree -r <head_sha> --name-only | grep .github/workflows on the head_sha from step 1. If the file shows up there, the commit you pushed still contains it, even though your branch head doesn't.

4. If the runs are on pull requests, check for an organization ruleset. Ruleset workflows can be configured at the organization or enterprise level to require workflows to pass before merging pull requests, and they run on the pull_request, pull_request_target and merge_group events. Those workflows come from another repo, so they keep running even though the file isn't in yours. Check Organization Settings > Rules > Rulesets, or ask an org owner.

5. If step 2 shows "state": "deleted" but runs still appear, that looks like a GitHub-side "ghost workflow" registration. Several recent discussions report it. In one, the workflow was in a deleted state but Actions kept evaluating it on every push. In another, disabling it through the API returned a 403 because the workflow was not active. Repo-side fixes reportedly don't clear it, so the next step is GitHub Support with your repo name, the workflow ID and path from steps 1 and 2, and a couple of example run URLs.

If you can share the output of steps 1 and 2 (redact the repo name if you like), we can narrow it down. Also, do the runs come from a push to a branch or from a pull request?

[irshadcc]

Step 1 output

{
  "id": 36884127470,
  "workflow_id": 168630917,
  "name": "Deploy Astro site to Pages",
  "path": ".github/workflows/astro.yml",
  "event": "push",
  "head_sha": "610f353ecff51e8becf96741a451c57f83acf5f9"
}
{
  "id": 36884126277,
  "workflow_id": 168628307,
  "name": "pages build and deployment",
  "path": "dynamic/pages/pages-build-deployment",
  "event": "dynamic",
  "head_sha": "610f353ecff51e8becf96741a451c57f83acf5f9"
}
{
  "id": 36649754568,
  "workflow_id": 168630917,
  "name": "Deploy Astro site to Pages",
  "path": ".github/workflows/astro.yml",
  "event": "push",
  "head_sha": "a70974a638562c83727794da3807cdd08269d6ff"
}
{
  "id": 36649753880,
  "workflow_id": 168628307,
  "name": "pages build and deployment",
  "path": "dynamic/pages/pages-build-deployment",
  "event": "dynamic",
  "head_sha": "a70974a638562c83727794da3807cdd08269d6ff"
}

Step 2 output

{
  "id": 168628307,
  "name": "pages-build-deployment",
  "path": "dynamic/pages/pages-build-deployment",
  "state": "active"
}