Daily News Workflow Failing: Missing TAVILY_API_KEY Secret

[github-actions]

Summary

The Daily News workflow has failed 10 consecutive runs (100% failure rate) due to a missing repository secret.

Status: 🚨 CRITICAL - Fix available and actionable
Last Success: Run #98 (2026-01-08)
Failure Duration: 10+ days
Affected Workflows: 6 total (daily-news, mcp-inspector, research, scout, smoke-claude, smoke-codex)

Root Cause

Missing TAVILY_API_KEY repository secret

The Daily News workflow includes the shared MCP server configuration shared/mcp/tavily.md, which requires:

mcp-servers:
  tavily:
    type: http
    url: "https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp/"
    headers:
      Authorization: "Bearer ${{ secrets.TAVILY_API_KEY }}"
    allowed: ["*"]

Error Evidence:

• Step 31 "Start MCP gateway" consistently fails
• Previous logs (Run MCP Network Permissions Test Results - Domain Restrictions Validation #107) showed: "undefined environment variable referenced: TAVILY_API_KEY"
• Workflow run fails before agent execution begins

Impact

Primary Impact: Daily News workflow cannot generate daily repository digests

Secondary Impact: 5 additional workflows potentially affected:

1. mcp-inspector.md
2. research.md
3. scout.md
4. smoke-claude.md
5. smoke-codex.md

All 6 workflows include shared/mcp/tavily.md and require the same secret.

Solution (RECOMMENDED): Add Repository Secret

Timeline: 5-10 minutes
Complexity: Low

Steps:

1. Navigate to Repository Settings → Secrets → Actions
2. Click "New repository secret"
3. Name: TAVILY_API_KEY
4. Value: [Valid Tavily API key]
5. Click "Add secret"

Expected Outcome:

• Next scheduled Daily News run (tomorrow 9am UTC) should succeed
• All 6 Tavily-dependent workflows should auto-recover

Alternative Solutions

Option 2: Remove Tavily Dependency (15-20 minutes)

If Tavily API access is not available:

1. Edit .github/workflows/daily-news.md and remove the Tavily import line
2. Update the workflow prompt to remove Tavily-specific instructions
3. Recompile workflow: make recompile
4. Apply same changes to other 5 affected workflows

Trade-off: Loses Tavily search capabilities, but workflow becomes operational

Option 3: Deprecate Workflow (5 minutes)

If Daily News is no longer needed:

1. Disable the workflow in GitHub Actions settings
2. Remove from scheduled runs
3. Document deprecation decision

Trade-off: User-facing daily digest feature lost

Verification Plan

After adding the secret:

1. Immediate: Trigger manual run via workflow_dispatch

   • Go to Actions → Daily News
   • Click "Run workflow" button
   • Verify Step 31 "Start MCP gateway" succeeds

2. Next Day: Monitor scheduled run (9am UTC)

   • Check run completes successfully
   • Verify discussion is created in daily-news category

3. Follow-up: Check status of other 5 Tavily-dependent workflows

   • Query recent runs for mcp-inspector, research, scout, smoke-claude, smoke-codex
   • Verify they're not experiencing the same failure

Recent Run History

Run #	Date	Status	Duration
#109	2026-01-21	❌ Failure	1m 33s
#108	2026-01-20	❌ Failure	1m 32s
#107	2026-01-19	❌ Failure	1m 35s
#106	2026-01-16	❌ Failure	1m 34s
#105	2026-01-16	❌ Failure	1m 33s
#104	2026-01-16	❌ Failure	1m 32s
#103	2026-01-15	❌ Failure	1m 31s
#102	2026-01-14	❌ Failure	1m 34s
#101	2026-01-13	❌ Failure	1m 33s
#100	2026-01-12	❌ Failure	1m 32s

Pattern: Consistent failure at MCP gateway initialization (Step 31), rapid failure (~90s), no agent execution.

Context

• Detected By: Workflow Health Manager meta-orchestrator
• Analysis Run: §21234278799
• Overall Workflow Health: 90/100 (this is the only critical issue)
• Related Recovery: Meta-orchestrators (Agent Performance Analyzer, Metrics Collector) recently recovered from separate MCP Gateway schema issue

Priority

P0 (Critical) - This is the only critical workflow health issue currently. However, it's actionable and has a clear fix path.

Recommendation: Add the secret to restore functionality. If Tavily API key is unavailable, choose Option 2 (remove dependency) to unblock the workflow.

---

References:

• Latest Daily News run (failure)
• Workflow Health Dashboard (shared memory)
• Daily News workflow source

AI generated by Workflow Health Manager - Meta-Orchestrator

• expires on Jan 23, 2026, 3:02 AM UTC

[github-actions]

🍪 Issue Monster has assigned this to Copilot!

I've identified this issue as a good candidate for automated resolution and assigned it to the Copilot agent.

The Copilot agent will analyze the issue and create a pull request with the fix.

Om nom nom! 🍪

AI generated by Issue Monster

[pelikhan]

@copilot investigate if the TAVILY key was properly passed to the gateway container.