🔍 Agentic Workflow Audit Report - October 21, 2025

[github-actions[bot]]

📊 Audit Summary

Audit Period: Last 24 hours (October 20-21, 2025)
Total Runs Analyzed: 46
Total Duration: 3.7 hours
Total Cost: $13.24
Total Tokens: 19,482,356
Total Turns: 1,092

Success Metrics

• Overall Success Rate: 63% (29 successful / 46 total)
• Total Errors: 663
• Total Warnings: 151
• Missing Tools: 0 ✅

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🚨 Critical Issues Found

Issue #1: Tidy Workflow - High Failure Rate (P0)

Severity: 🔴 High
Success Rate: 6.7% (1/15 runs)
Impact: Core automation workflow is effectively broken

Problem:
The Tidy workflow detection job is consistently failing with permission denied errors when attempting to check for existing pull requests.

Affected Runs:

• Run 18671887838, 18670633364, 18670417753, 18668883871, 18669157809
• Run 18668594417, 18669980853, 18669579511, 18667949379 (9 failures)
• Runs 18669532820, 18669493212 (2 cancelled)
• Only 1 successful run: 18668223049

Error Pattern:

Permission denied and could not request permission from user
Context: Check for existing tidy PRs with automation label

Root Cause:
The GitHub MCP tools used in the detection step don't have the required permissions to search for and list pull requests.

Recommendation:
✅ Review permission configuration for GitHub MCP tools
✅ Ensure search_pull_requests and list_pull_requests tools are whitelisted
✅ Consider updating tool approval flow for detection steps

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Issue #2: Dev Hawk Workflow - Authentication Failures (P0)

Severity: 🔴 High
Success Rate: 33.3% (1/3 runs)
Impact: Automated monitoring of dev runs is unreliable

Problem:
Dev Hawk workflow (Copilot agent) cannot access authentication credentials, causing immediate failures.

Affected Runs:

• Run 18667993243 - Failed in 38s
• Run 18667570059 - Failed in 44s
• Run 18668409331 - Succeeded (1.8m)

Error Pattern:

No authentication information found.

Root Cause:
The Copilot agent environment is not receiving proper authentication tokens for GitHub API access when triggered by workflow_run events.

Recommendation:
✅ Verify GITHUB_TOKEN is properly passed to Copilot agent environment
✅ Check if authentication configuration differs between manual and automatic triggers
✅ Consider adding authentication validation step before main agent execution

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Issue #3: Dev Workflow - Permission Errors (P1)

Severity: 🟡 Medium
Success Rate: 60% (3/5 runs)
Impact: Moderate - affects development workflow testing

Problem:
Some Dev workflow runs encounter permission denied errors when attempting to use certain tools.

Affected Runs:

• Run 18668075006 - Failed after 21.2 minutes with permission errors

Error Pattern:

Permission denied and could not request permission from user
Context: Get my user profile / Create test results log file

Recommendation:
✅ Document required tool permissions for Dev workflow
✅ Pre-approve commonly used tools in Dev workflow context

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✅ Positive Findings

High-Performing Workflows

1. Agentic Workflow Audit Agent 🌟

   • Success Rate: 100% (8/8 completed runs, 1 in progress)
   • Average Duration: 9.1 minutes
   • Average Cost: $0.89 per run
   • Status: ✅ Functioning perfectly

2. Changeset Generator 🌟

   • Success Rate: 91.7% (11/12 runs)
   • Average Duration: 2.8 minutes
   • Average Cost: $0.27 per run
   • Status: ✅ Highly reliable

3. Lockfile Statistics Analysis ✅

   • Success Rate: 100% (1/1 runs)
   • Duration: 9.6 minutes
   • Cost: $1.18
   • Status: ✅ Successful

4. Security Fix PR ✅

   • Success Rate: 100% (1/1 runs)
   • Duration: 7.0 minutes
   • Cost: $1.08
   • Status: ✅ Successful

5. Documentation Unbloat ✅

   • Success Rate: 100% (1/1 runs)
   • Duration: 8.1 minutes
   • Cost: $1.28
   • Status: ✅ Successful

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📊 Workflow Breakdown

Workflow	Runs	Success	Failed	Cancelled	Success Rate	Status
Tidy	15	1	11	2	6.7%	🔴 Critical
Audit Agent	9	8	0	0	100%	🟢 Excellent
Changeset Gen	12	11	1	0	91.7%	🟢 Great
Dev Hawk	3	1	2	0	33.3%	🔴 Poor
Dev	5	3	2	0	60%	🟡 Fair
Lockfile Stats	1	1	0	0	100%	🟢 Perfect
Security Fix PR	1	1	0	0	100%	🟢 Perfect
Doc Unbloat	1	1	0	0	100%	🟢 Perfect

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🔧 Missing Tools Analysis

Status: ✅ All Clear

Finding: Zero missing tool requests detected in the last 24 hours.

Analysis:
All workflows have access to the tools they need. The issues we're seeing are related to permissions rather than missing tools. This is excellent news as it means:

• Tool coverage is comprehensive
• MCP server integration is working correctly
• No new tool requirements emerged

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💰 Cost & Performance Metrics

Token Usage by Engine

• Claude: 17,516,751 tokens (89.9%)
• Copilot: 1,965,605 tokens (10.1%)
• Codex: 0 tokens (0%)

Most Expensive Workflows (per run)

1. Documentation Unbloat: $1.28 (2.5M tokens, 118 turns)
2. Lockfile Statistics: $1.18 (1.6M tokens, 109 turns)
3. Security Fix PR: $1.08 (2.0M tokens, 112 turns)
4. Audit Agent (avg): $0.89 (1.3M tokens, 73 turns)

Most Used Tools (Last 24h)

1. github - 147 calls across 13 runs
2. TodoWrite - 125 calls across 22 runs
3. Read - 93 calls across 24 runs
4. safe_outputs - 36 calls across 11 runs
5. Write - 31 calls across 21 runs

gh-aw MCP Server Usage

• audit command: 26 calls
• logs command: 13 calls
• status command: 7 calls

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🎯 Recommendations

Immediate Actions (P0)

1. Fix Tidy Workflow Permissions ⚡

   • Action: Update tool permission configuration for detection step
   • Rationale: 93% failure rate is blocking critical automation
   • Expected Impact: Restore automated code tidying functionality
   • Estimated Effort: 1-2 hours

2. Resolve Dev Hawk Authentication ⚡

   • Action: Fix authentication token passing to Copilot agent
   • Rationale: 67% failure rate prevents dev run monitoring
   • Expected Impact: Enable reliable automated monitoring
   • Estimated Effort: 2-4 hours

Short-term Actions (P1)

3. Document Permission Requirements 📝

   • Action: Create comprehensive permission documentation for all workflows
   • Rationale: Multiple workflows experiencing permission issues
   • Expected Impact: Prevent similar issues, easier troubleshooting
   • Estimated Effort: 4-6 hours

4. Implement Permission Pre-checks 🛡️

   • Action: Add validation step to verify required permissions before agent execution
   • Rationale: Catch permission issues early, provide better error messages
   • Expected Impact: Faster failure feedback, easier debugging
   • Estimated Effort: 4-8 hours

Medium-term Actions (P2)

5. Monitor Token Usage Trends 📊

   • Action: Set up automated cost tracking and alerts
   • Rationale: Some workflows using significant tokens (2.5M+ per run)
   • Expected Impact: Optimize costs, identify inefficiencies
   • Estimated Effort: 8-12 hours

6. Optimize High-Token Workflows ⚡

   • Action: Review and optimize Documentation Unbloat and similar workflows
   • Rationale: Reduce cost per run while maintaining quality
   • Expected Impact: 20-30% cost reduction potential
   • Estimated Effort: 12-16 hours

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📈 Historical Context

Comparison with Previous Audits

Reading previous audit data from cache memory shows similar patterns:

• Tidy workflow has been experiencing intermittent permission issues
• This audit shows the issue has become critical (6.7% vs previous ~40% success)
• Audit workflow itself continues to perform reliably
• No new systematic issues introduced

Trends

• ⚠️ Worsening: Tidy workflow reliability declining
• ✅ Stable: Core workflows (Audit, Changeset) maintaining high reliability
• ✅ Improving: No new missing tool requests (infrastructure is solid)

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🔍 Detailed Error Patterns

Pattern #1: Permission Denied

• Occurrences: 6 instances
• Affected Workflows: Tidy, Dev
• Context: Attempting to use GitHub MCP tools without proper permissions
• Solution: Update tool permission configuration

Pattern #2: Authentication Failure

• Occurrences: 2 instances
• Affected Workflows: Dev Hawk
• Context: Copilot agent unable to access authentication credentials
• Solution: Fix token passing in workflow_run trigger context

Pattern #3: Detection Job Failure

• Occurrences: 11 instances
• Affected Workflows: Tidy
• Context: Post-agent detection step failing to verify PR status
• Solution: Linked to Pattern rejig docs #1, will be resolved with permission fix

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📝 Action Items

For Repository Maintainers

• Priority 1: Investigate and fix Tidy workflow permission configuration
• Priority 1: Debug Dev Hawk authentication token passing
• Priority 2: Create permission requirements documentation
• Priority 2: Review and update tool approval workflows
• Priority 3: Set up cost monitoring and alerting
• Priority 3: Investigate high token usage in Documentation Unbloat

For Workflow Authors

• Review tool permission requirements in workflow definitions
• Consider adding authentication validation steps
• Document expected tool usage patterns
• Test workflows in both manual and automatic trigger scenarios

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🎉 Conclusion

The Good

• ✅ No missing tools - infrastructure is solid
• ✅ Most workflows performing well (63% overall success)
• ✅ Audit system itself is 100% reliable
• ✅ MCP server integration working correctly

The Bad

• ⚠️ Tidy workflow nearly non-functional (6.7% success)
• ⚠️ Dev Hawk experiencing authentication issues (33.3% success)
• ⚠️ Permission configuration needs attention across multiple workflows

The Action Plan

1. Immediate: Fix Tidy and Dev Hawk critical issues
2. Short-term: Improve permission documentation and validation
3. Medium-term: Optimize costs and monitor trends

Overall Assessment: The agentic workflow infrastructure is fundamentally sound, but requires immediate attention to permission configuration issues affecting key automation workflows.

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Audit performed by: Agentic Workflow Audit Agent
Next audit scheduled: October 22, 2025 00:00 UTC
Full audit data stored in: /tmp/gh-aw/cache-memory/audits/2025-10-21.json

AI generated by Agentic Workflow Audit Agent

[github-actions[bot]]

This discussion was automatically closed because it was created by an agentic workflow more than 1 month ago.