CI/CD Status

Workflow runs and continuous integration status visualization

Overview

Better Hub provides comprehensive visibility into GitHub Actions workflows and CI/CD pipelines. Track builds, tests, deployments, and checks across branches with powerful filtering and comparison tools.

Key Features

Workflow Runs

View all workflow executions with status, duration, and actor

Status Filtering

Filter by success, failure, in progress, cancelled, or skipped

Branch Comparison

Compare workflow performance across different branches

Live Updates

In-progress runs update in real-time with live duration counters

Actions List View

The main Actions page shows all workflow runs for your repository:

Layout

[Search] [Filters] [Compare Branches]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

✅ CI · Run #1234
   main · @username · 2 minutes ago
   Duration: 1m 32s
   
⏳ Deploy · Run #1233  
   feat/new-feature · @username · 5 minutes ago
   Duration: Running for 3m 12s
   
❌ Tests · Run #1232
   main · @username · 1 hour ago  
   Duration: 45s · Failed

Status Icons

Icon	Status	Description
✅	Success	All jobs completed successfully
❌	Failure	One or more jobs failed
⏳	In Progress	Workflow is currently running
🚫	Cancelled	Workflow was manually cancelled
⊘	Skipped	Workflow was skipped (conditional)
⏸️	Queued	Waiting for runner availability

Filtering Workflow Runs

Use the Filters dropdown to narrow down results:

Status

Filter by workflow outcome:

• All statuses: Show everything
• Success: Only successful runs
• Failure: Only failed runs
• In progress: Currently running
• Cancelled: Manually stopped
• Skipped: Conditionally skipped

Use “Failure” filter to quickly identify broken builds and flaky tests.

Workflow

Filter by workflow name:

• Searchable dropdown
• Shows all workflows from .github/workflows/
• Select multiple (combined with OR logic)

Example workflows:

• CI
• Deploy
• Tests
• Lint

Branch

Filter by branch name:

• Searchable dropdown
• Shows branches with recent runs
• Useful for feature branch tracking

Common branches:

• main / master
• develop
• feat/*
• fix/*

Actor

Filter by who triggered the run:

• Shows users who’ve triggered workflows
• Includes bot accounts (dependabot, etc.)
• Searchable by username

Event

Filter by trigger type:

• push: Commits pushed
• pull_request: PR opened/updated
• schedule: Cron-triggered
• workflow_dispatch: Manual trigger
• release: Release published

Active Filters

When filters are applied:

• Badge count appears on the Filters button (e.g., “Filters (3)”)
• Active chips display below the toolbar
• Clear individual filters by clicking the chip’s X
• Clear all filters with the “Clear” button

Workflow Run Details

Click any run to see full details:

Overview Tab

• Run metadata: Workflow name, run number, branch, commit
• Trigger info: Event type and actor
• Timestamps: Queued, started, completed
• Duration: Total execution time
• Artifacts: Downloadable build outputs

Jobs Tab

View all jobs in the workflow:

📋 Build
   ✅ Completed in 1m 23s
   
📋 Test  
   ❌ Failed in 45s
   └─ Exit code 1
   
📋 Deploy
   🚫 Skipped (test failed)

Logs Tab

View job logs with:

• Expandable steps: Click to show/hide step output
• Search: Find text in logs
• Download: Save logs locally
• Timestamps: Optional timestamp column
• ANSI colors: Preserves terminal colors

Logs are syntax-highlighted and linkified. Click file paths to navigate to the code.

Live Progress Tracking

In-progress runs update in real-time:

Live Duration

The duration counter updates every second:

⏳ Running for 2m 34s
⏳ Running for 2m 35s  
⏳ Running for 2m 36s

Status Changes

When a job completes:

1. Status icon changes (⏳ → ✅ or ❌)
2. Final duration appears
3. List automatically re-sorts if sorted by status

Leave the Actions page open while waiting for builds. You’ll see results instantly without refreshing.

Branch Comparison

Compare workflow performance across branches:

Opening Comparison View

1. Click “Compare Branches” in the toolbar
2. Select Base branch (e.g., main)
3. Select Compare branch (e.g., feat/new-feature)
4. Choose Workflow to compare
5. View side-by-side results

Comparison Metrics

Success Rate

Percentage of successful runs in the last 30 days

Average Duration

Mean execution time for the workflow

Recent Runs

Last 10 executions with status indicators

Failure Analysis

Most common failure reasons and steps

Use Cases

• Pre-merge check: Compare feature branch CI against main before merging
• Performance regression: Identify if your changes slowed down the build
• Flakiness detection: See if failure rate increased on your branch
• Deployment comparison: Verify deploy workflow works on staging

PR Check Status

On pull request pages, Better Hub displays check status prominently:

Check Status Badge

At the top of the PR:

✅ All checks passed (5/5)

or

❌ Some checks failed (3/5)

Expandable Checks Panel

Click the badge to see details:

✅ CI / Build (main)  
✅ CI / Test (main)
✅ CI / Lint (main)  
❌ Deploy / Staging (main) - View logs
⏳ Security / CodeQL (main) - In progress

Click any check to:

• View logs
• Re-run the check (if you have permissions)
• Navigate to the Actions page

Required Checks

Required status checks are marked:

✅ CI / Build (main) · Required

The PR cannot be merged until required checks pass.

Workflow Status on Overview

The repository overview shows CI/CD health:

Status Summary

In the right panel:

CI/CD Status
━━━━━━━━━━━
✅ main · CI · 2m ago
❌ develop · Tests · 1h ago  
⏳ feat/new · Deploy · Running

Click any row to jump to the workflow run.

Filtering by Date Range

Narrow results to a specific time period:

1. Open the date picker (calendar icon)
2. Select:
   • Last 24 hours
   • Last 7 days
   • Last 30 days
   • Custom range
3. List updates to show only runs in that window

Use date filtering to analyze CI stability over time. Compare failure rates week-over-week.

Re-running Workflows

If you have write access:

1. Open a failed or cancelled workflow run
2. Click “Re-run jobs” in the top-right
3. Choose:
   • Re-run failed jobs: Only retry failures
   • Re-run all jobs: Start from scratch
4. Workflow queues immediately

Re-running a workflow uses the same commit SHA, so code changes won’t be picked up. Push a new commit to trigger a fresh run.

Artifacts & Logs

Downloading Artifacts

If the workflow produces artifacts (build outputs, test reports):

1. Open the workflow run
2. Scroll to “Artifacts” section
3. Click the artifact name to download

Common artifacts:

• Build binaries (.zip, .tar.gz)
• Coverage reports (coverage.xml)
• Test results (test-results.xml)
• Screenshots (for visual tests)

Viewing Logs

Logs are displayed with:

• Collapsible steps: Expand only the steps you care about
• Search: Ctrl+F to find text
• Download: Save full logs as .txt
• Permalinks: Share links to specific log lines

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
⌘K → “Actions”	Navigate to Actions page
F5	Refresh workflow list
↓ / ↑	Navigate between runs
Enter	Open selected run

Best Practices

Monitor main branch: Pin the Actions page or enable notifications for main branch failures. Fix breaking changes immediately.

Use comparison: Before merging, compare your branch’s CI against main to catch performance regressions.

Tag flaky tests: If you see intermittent failures, add a label or comment. Track flakiness over time.

Artifacts for debugging: Upload logs, screenshots, or core dumps as artifacts. Review them when tests fail in CI but pass locally.

Troubleshooting

Workflow runs not showing up

Check that:

1. The repository has a .github/workflows/ directory
2. Workflows have been triggered at least once
3. You have access to view Actions (repo permissions)

Live updates not working

Ensure:

1. Your browser allows WebSocket connections
2. You’re not on an extremely slow network
3. The page has been open for less than 1 hour (reconnect by refreshing)

Can't re-run workflows

Re-running requires write access to the repository. If you’re a collaborator with read-only access, ask a maintainer to re-run.

Related Features

• Pull Requests - View PR check status
• Repository Overview - CI/CD summary on overview
• Security Advisories - CodeQL scans shown in checks
• Command Center - Navigate to Actions with ⌘K