feat(budget): schedule the Actions budget watchdog from a public runner - #43
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Standard runners are free in public repositories, so the watchdog never consumes the budget it watches. That matters more than usual here: a watchdog costing private minutes would be adding to the problem exactly when the problem is worst. The alert lands in this repo rather than in the offending one, because the budget is an org-level fact and, once it is exhausted, the private repos are precisely the ones that cannot run anything. Cadence is four times a day at an offset minute rather than on the hour. GitHub throttles schedules hard in this org -- four to seven runs per repo per day regardless of the declared cron -- and deprioritises the congested boundaries first; every schedule in this estate that fires reliably sits off them. For a budget check a handful of runs a day is ample, which is why this is scheduled at all where issue boarding could not be. All five alert labels were checked to exist in this repo before wiring them up; gh issue create fails outright on an unknown label, which would turn the alert into a silent no-op at the one moment it matters. Refs JorisJonkers-dev/github-workflows#126
This was referenced Aug 29, 2026
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Companion to JorisJonkers-dev/github-workflows#128 (merged), which added the reusable watchdog.
Why here
Standard runners are free in public repos, so the watchdog never consumes the budget it watches. That matters more than usual for this one — a watchdog costing private minutes would be adding to the problem exactly when the problem is worst.
The alert lands in this repo rather than the offending one: the budget is an org-level fact, and once it is exhausted the private repos are precisely the ones that cannot run anything.
What it will report on its first run
Verified against live billing data:
So it will go red immediately and file an alert — correctly. The org is past its included allowance for August, which is why a monetary budget was added.
Cadence
Four times a day at
41 */6 * * *— an offset minute, not on the hour. GitHub throttles schedules hard in this org (4–7 runs per repo per day regardless of declared cron, see #42) and deprioritises the congested boundaries first; every schedule in this estate that fires reliably sits off them.For a budget check a handful of runs a day is ample — which is why this is worth scheduling at all, where issue boarding was not. It cannot promise to warn within minutes of a crossing, and the workflow comment says so rather than implying otherwise.
Labels
All five alert labels were checked to exist in this repo before wiring them up.
gh issue createfails outright on an unknown label, which would turn the alert into a silent no-op at the one moment it matters.