This skill retrieves GitHub Actions logs to identify root causes of build failures like panics and assertion errors.

Install

mkdir -p .claude/skills/debug-ci && curl -L -o skill.zip "https://agentskills.codes/api/skills/download/4305" && unzip -o skill.zip -d .claude/skills/debug-ci && rm skill.zip

Installs to .claude/skills/debug-ci

Activation

This is the description your AI agent reads to decide when to run this skill — the better it matches your request, the more reliably it fires.

Debug failed CI tests by fetching workflow logs from GitHub Actions and analyzing failures. Use when the user mentions CI failures, test failures, or wants to understand why their PR's CI is failing.
199 chars✓ has a “when” trigger
Beginner

Key capabilities

  • Fetch GitHub Actions workflow execution logs
  • Strip ANSI color codes from log outputs
  • Identify failure patterns like panic and assertion errors
  • Correlate workflow failures with PR diffs
  • Organize logs by branch or PR number

How it works

Orchestrates API calls through the GitHub CLI to download log blobs, pipes them through regex filters, and performs string analysis for common error markers.

Inputs & outputs

You give it
GitHub Actions URL or PR number
You get back
Categorized summary of test failures and file line references

When to use debug-ci

  • Analyze failed CI test logs
  • Extract error messages from GitHub Actions
  • Correlate PR code changes with test failures

About this skill

Debug CI

Debug failed CI tests by fetching workflow logs and analyzing failures.

Prerequisites

  • gh CLI installed and authenticated (gh auth login)

Instructions

Step 1: Identify Current PR

Get PR info for current branch:

gh pr view --json number,title --jq '"\(.number) \(.title)"' 2>/dev/null || echo "no-pr"

If no PR exists, use branch name for the log directory.

Step 2: Get Latest Workflow Run

Get latest "Rust" workflow run for current branch:

BRANCH=$(git branch --show-current)
gh run list --workflow=Rust --branch=$BRANCH --limit=1 --json databaseId,conclusion,headSha,createdAt

Step 3: Get Job Information

List all jobs from the run:

gh run view <run-id> --json jobs --jq '.jobs[] | {id: .databaseId, name: .name, conclusion: .conclusion}'

Step 4: Download Logs

Create directory and download all job logs, stripping ANSI color codes:

mkdir -p ci-logs/pr-<PR_NUMBER>/
# or: mkdir -p ci-logs/branch-<BRANCH_NAME>/

gh run view --job <job-id> --log | perl -pe 's/\e\[[0-9;]*m//g' > ci-logs/pr-<PR_NUMBER>/<job_name>_<job_id>.log

Sanitize job names for filenames (replace spaces/special chars with underscores).

Step 5: Analyze Failures

  1. Read downloaded log files
  2. Search for failure patterns: FAILED, error[E, panicked at, assertion failed
  3. Extract test names and error messages
  4. Read PR diff (gh pr diff) to correlate failures with changes
  5. Categorize failures:
    • Real failure: Error in code touched by PR
    • Flaky test: Known flaky or unrelated to changes
    • Infrastructure: Network/timeout issues

Step 6: Report

Provide summary:

  • PR number and title
  • Run status and commit SHA
  • List of downloaded log file paths
  • Categorized failures with file:line references
  • Recommendations for next steps

Notes

  • The ci-logs/ directory should be in .gitignore
  • Focus on relevant log sections; files can be large

When not to use it

  • When CI failures are related to local machine environment configuration
  • When the user has not authenticated with the GitHub CLI
  • For debugging local development server crashes

Prerequisites

GitHub CLI (gh)git

Limitations

  • Sensitive to changes in GitHub log formatting
  • Requires active internet connection and GitHub repo permissions
  • Parsing large files may consume significant local disk space

How it compares

It automates the tedious manual process of opening browser tabs and scrolling through massive log files to identify specific failure strings.

Compared to similar skills

debug-ci side by side with the closest alternatives in the catalog.

SkillInstallsUpdatedSafetyDifficulty
debug-ci (this skill)16moReviewBeginner
analyze-failures16moCautionIntermediate
moai-workflow-testing12moReviewIntermediate
triage-ci-flake12moReviewIntermediate

Try saying

Example prompts that trigger this skill in your AI assistant.

Search skills

Search the agent skills registry