GitHub Actions · triggers · Checked November 5, 2026

GitHub Actions workflow not running on push or pull_request: the checks in order, and "Actions has been disabled for this repository"

When a push or a pull request starts no run, nothing fails, so there is no log and no message. Almost always one of GitHub's documented rules decided that the event does not run the workflow, and the checks below find it in a few minutes. Less often GitHub has blocked Actions for the repository or the account, which no setting can undo. Two such threads came up between October 31 and November 3, 2026, and GitHub listed three incidents affecting Actions on November 4.

First, see whether a run was made

gh run list --workflow FILE.yml --limit 10
gh run list --event push --branch BRANCH --limit 10

A run that exists but failed at once with no jobs is a different problem: the workflow file did not parse ("Invalid workflow file"). On a pull request, a workflow that was skipped by a filter or a skip instruction leaves its checks "Pending", and a branch rule that requires those checks blocks the merge.

The file

• It must be in .github/workflows at the root of the repository, with a .yml or .yaml extension. GitHub looks in that folder in the commit of the event.
• For push, that is the pushed commit. For pull_request, it is the pull request's merge commit, so a workflow added in the pull request itself does run. A pull request with a merge conflict has no merge commit to read, and the documentation says pull_request workflows do not run on it until the conflict is resolved (pull_request_target still runs).
• Events such as issues, issue_comment, schedule and workflow_dispatch read the default branch, so the file must be there.
• A workflow can be turned off: gh workflow list --all shows its state, and gh workflow enable FILE.yml turns it on again.

The filters

• If on.push has only tags, pushes to branches never run it, and with only branches, pushed tags never run it. With neither, both run it.
• With both branches and paths, both must match.
• With paths-ignore, the workflow does not run when every changed file matches it. With any path filter, a push that changes no files does not run it either.
• The documentation lists three limits on path filters: a push of more than 1,000 commits always runs; a diff that times out always runs; and a diff of more than 3,000 files does not run when the files the filter matches are not among the first 3,000.
• By default, pull_request runs only for opened, synchronize and reopened. Adding a label, editing the description or marking a draft ready for review starts nothing unless you list it in types, such as types: [opened, synchronize, reopened, ready_for_review].
• For push and pull_request, these strings in the commit message of a push, or in the head commit of a pull request, skip the run: [skip ci], [ci skip], [no ci], [skip actions], [actions skip], or a last trailer skip-checks: true. A squash merge commit whose message still contains [skip ci] from one of the pull request's commits skips the run on the default branch too.

Who made the event

• Events made with the repository's GITHUB_TOKEN do not create runs, so a workflow that pushes, tags or labels with it starts nothing. The exceptions are workflow_dispatch and repository_dispatch, and a pull request that such a workflow opens or updates: its pull_request runs wait for someone with write access to select "Approve workflows to run" in the pull request. A GitHub App installation token or a personal access token starts runs as usual.
• Pushing more than three tags at once creates no event for the tags, and pushing more than 5,000 branches at once creates no event at all. Push the tags one at a time, or start the release workflow with workflow_dispatch.
• Workflows do not run in a fork until you enable Actions in the fork's Actions tab. A pull request from a first-time contributor to a public repository may wait for a maintainer to approve its runs, a pull request from a fork to a private repository runs only if that is enabled in the repository settings, and Dependabot pull requests are treated like pull requests from a fork.

When GitHub has blocked Actions

• The repository settings report enabled: true and allowed_actions: all, yet gh workflow run answers HTTP 422 "Actions has been disabled for this repository." In community discussion #211946 (November 3), runs were succeeding again later that day.
• For a whole account, the banner reads "GitHub Actions is currently disabled for your account. Please reach out to GitHub Support for assistance." and runs fail with "owner invocation blocked" (#211750, October 31). Nothing in the settings changes it. Open a ticket with GitHub Support in the Actions category, with the repository URL and the exact message.
• To tell this from a lost event (#212051): push an empty commit with git commit --allow-empty -m "retrigger" and git push, which only helps for workflows without path filters. If no run appears, put a one-job workflow with workflow_dispatch on the default branch and run gh workflow run FILE.yml. If gh run list still shows nothing, Actions is blocked.
• Events during a GitHub incident may never become runs. On November 4, 2026, GitHub Status listed "Incident with Pull Requests, Git Operations and Issues" (09:49 to 11:50 UTC, with Actions among the affected components), "Incident with Actions and Pages" (16:05 to 17:01 UTC) and "Incident with Actions" (17:40 to 18:16 UTC). Push a new commit after the incident ends to create a new event.

Telling it apart

• A run appeared and failed at once with no jobs: "Invalid workflow file".
• Pushes run, but scheduled runs come hours late or not at all: scheduled workflows running late.
• Starting it by hand answers "Workflow does not have 'workflow_dispatch' trigger": no workflow_dispatch trigger.
• The run was made, but its jobs wait with "Waiting for a runner to pick up this job": waiting for a runner.

See your runs from IntelliJ IDEA

Pipeline Inbox for GitHub Actions Workflows, a plugin by Lesstep for JetBrains IDEs 2024.1 or later, lists the runs of all your repositories in an IDE tool window, with their event, branch, jobs and steps, so you can see right after a push whether it started a run, and your current branch's runs are in the status bar. Reading is free; re-running failed jobs, cancelling, running workflows and reviewing deployments are Pro (US$1.50 a month, with a 30-day trial).

Get it on JetBrains Marketplace

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