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How to diagnose GitHub Actions queue times
Jobs are queued for minutes before a runner picks them up.
5 min read
Jobs are queued for minutes before a runner picks them up.
Symptoms
- Run duration is fine but total time is long
- Queueing worsens at peak hours
Why it happens
You have hit a concurrency ceiling — your plan's, your runner group's, or a concurrency block in the workflow itself.
How to fix it
- Check the workflow's own concurrency group first — an over-broad key serialises unrelated jobs
- Compare queued jobs against your plan's concurrency limit
- Move to a provider with unlimited concurrency if you are consistently capped
- Stagger scheduled workflows so they do not all fire on the hour
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