checkGitHubCI blocks indefinitely on orphaned check suites stuck in QUEUED #1160

Problem

checkGitHubCI() in pr_checker.js blocks landing with ✘ GitHub CI is still running when any GitHub Actions check suite has status !== 'COMPLETED'. However, GitHub occasionally creates check suites that remain stuck in QUEUED status with 0 check runs indefinitely — they are never dispatched and will never complete.

This has blocked at least two recent PRs on nodejs/node:

• #64991 — Test macOS suite stuck 3+ days, landed manually
• #64830 — same Test macOS suite stuck, landed manually

In both cases, the orphaned suite:

• Has status: QUEUED, conclusion: null
• Has 0 check runs (never started executing)
• Has a valid workflowRun (Test macOS, workflow ID 858952)
• Was created at the same time as sibling suites that completed fine
• Never gets re-triggered by request-ci because GitHub sees it as already "queued"
• The only workaround is a collaborator manually running git node land --yes

The commit-queue.sh pre-check (gh pr checks | grep pending) passes fine because it evaluates individual check runs (all completed), not suite containers.

Data

PR #64991, SHA 94a47d6f15b2:

• 25 GitHub Actions suites total
• 24 completed (success/skipped)
• 1 orphaned: suite 84102428609, Test macOS, QUEUED, 0 check runs, created 2026-08-05T13:19:48Z

No newer run of Test macOS exists for this SHA — request-ci does not re-trigger a workflow GitHub considers already "queued."

Proposed fix

Consider a suite as orphaned and skip it if:

• status !== 'COMPLETED'
• checkRuns.nodes.length === 0 (nothing has ever executed inside it)
• Suite age exceeds a configurable threshold (suggesting 3 hours since createdAt — legitimate suites dispatch runs within seconds)

if (status !== 'COMPLETED') {
  const runCount = checkRuns?.nodes?.length ?? 0;
  const ageMs = Date.now() - new Date(createdAt).getTime();
  if (runCount === 0 && ageMs > ORPHANED_SUITE_TIMEOUT) {
    cli.warn(`Ignoring orphaned check suite with no runs (status: ${status}, age: ${Math.round(ageMs / 3600000)}h)`);
    continue;
  }
  pendingJobs.push({ app: app.slug, status, conclusion });
  continue;
}

GraphQL change: add createdAt to the checkSuites query in PRCommits.gql.

Trade-offs

What this fixes: Orphaned suites no longer block the commit queue forever.

Risk: If someone adds commit-queue before request-ci has finished triggering all workflows, a suite that should have run but hasn't started yet (0 runs, within the threshold) could age past the timeout and get skipped — landing the PR without that test suite's results.

However, the current workaround (git node land --yes) already bypasses ALL checks — including real failures. A targeted skip of empty aged-out suites is strictly safer than the current manual workaround.