Summarize and rank GitHub Actions matrix job failures across multiple runs to quickly identify unstable OS or runtime combinations.
Install & Download
1. ClawHub CLI
The fastest way to install a skill directly from the registry.
npx clawhub@latest install github-actions-failure-matrix
2. Manual Installation
Copy the skill folder to one of these locations
~/.openclaw/skills/ <project>/skills/ Priority: Workspace > Local > Bundled
3. Prompt Installation
Copy this prompt to OpenClaw to install it automatically.
Help me install github-actions-failure-matrix using Clawhub. If Clawhub is not installed, install it first (npm i -g clawhub).
Prefer to download?
Get the raw skill files in a ZIP archive.
What is GitHub Actions Failure Matrix?
GitHub Actions Failure Matrix is a specialized diagnostic tool designed to transform verbose and noisy GitHub Actions run data into actionable insights. By analyzing matrix-focused job failures across one or more runs, this utility helps developers pinpoint which specific environment axes—such as OS versions or language runtimes—are causing the most friction in their CI/CD pipelines.
As a part of the Openclaw Skills ecosystem, this tool parses common job-name patterns to extract matrix signatures and groups repeated failures. This allows engineering teams to move beyond individual log triaging and focus on systemic infrastructure or environment-specific bugs that affect development velocity.
GitHub Actions Failure Matrix Use Cases
- Identifying flaky tests that only occur on specific OS versions like Windows or macOS.
- Pinpointing breaking changes across multiple language runtimes (e.g., Python 3.12 vs 3.11) in a single view.
- Reducing CI noise by filtering out known experimental workflows or specific non-critical jobs.
- Analyzing setup and dependency installation failures separately from application-level test failures.
How GitHub Actions Failure Matrix Works
- Export GitHub Actions run data into JSON format using the GitHub CLI (
gh run view). - Configure the skill with a glob pattern to locate the exported JSON artifacts.
- The skill parses the job names to identify matrix axes (e.g., using patterns like
name (a, b)orname / a / b). - It filters the data based on user-defined regex for workflows, branches, jobs, or specific failure conclusions.
- Repeated failures are aggregated by their matrix signature and ranked by frequency.
- The final output is generated as a text-based report for human review or a JSON object for automated CI gating.
GitHub Actions Failure Matrix Setup
Ensure you have bash and python3 installed. First, collect your run data:
gh run view <run-id> --json databaseId,workflowName,headBranch,headSha,url,repository,jobs > artifacts/github-actions/run-<run-id>.json
Then, run the analysis script:
RUN_GLOB='artifacts/github-actions/*.json' \
TOP_N=15 \
bash skills/github-actions-failure-matrix/scripts/failure-matrix.sh
GitHub Actions Failure Matrix Data Schema & Taxonomy
The skill processes JSON exports containing the following taxonomy:
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
workflowName |
The name of the GHA workflow being analyzed. |
headBranch |
The branch associated with the run. |
jobs |
Array of job objects containing names and conclusions. |
matrix axes |
Extracted from job names like test (ubuntu-latest, node-20). |
conclusion |
The job result (e.g., failure, timed_out, cancelled). |
GitHub Actions Failure Matrix Advanced Features
- Multi-axis extraction supporting various naming conventions including parentheses, brackets, and slashes.
- Advanced regex filtering for workflows, branches, repositories, and even specific failed steps within a job.
- Support for
FAIL_ON_FAILURESto allow the script to exit with a non-zero code for automated gatekeeping. - Cross-repository aggregation for teams managing large microservice architectures with shared Openclaw Skills.
SKILL.md
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