[audit] Critical: Audit Workflow Cannot Execute - Permissions Stripped During Compilation

[github-actions]

🔍 Agentic Workflow Audit Report - 2025-10-08

🚨 Critical Finding

The audit workflow cannot execute its intended function due to a critical compilation issue that strips permissions from the workflow definition.

Audit Summary

• Period: Unable to complete - blocked by permissions issue
• Run ID: 18329959236
• Workflows Analyzed: 0 (unable to collect data)
• Critical Issues Found: 1
• Status: ❌ BLOCKED

Critical Issue: Missing Permissions

Problem Description

The audit workflow is defined in .github/workflows/audit-workflows.md with the following permissions:

permissions:
  contents: read
  actions: read

However, after compilation by gh-aw compile, the resulting .github/workflows/audit-workflows.lock.yml file contains:

permissions: {}

Location in compiled file: Line 12 of audit-workflows.lock.yml

Impact

Without these permissions, the audit workflow:

• ❌ Cannot access GitHub Actions API
• ❌ Cannot download workflow run logs via gh CLI
• ❌ Cannot read workflow run data or artifacts
• ❌ Cannot perform any meaningful audit analysis

Errors Encountered

1. GitHub CLI Authentication Failure:

   ./gh-aw logs --start-date -1d -o ./audit-logs --verbose
   error: GitHub CLI authentication required. Run 'gh auth login' first
   

2. GitHub API 403 Forbidden:

   GET https://api.github.com/user: 403 Resource not accessible by integration
   

Both errors stem from the workflow having no GITHUB_TOKEN available due to empty permissions.

Root Cause Analysis

The gh-aw compile command appears to be stripping or not preserving the permissions field from the source .md file when generating the compiled .lock.yml file.

Source file (.github/workflows/audit-workflows.md):

• ✅ Contains permissions.contents: read
• ✅ Contains permissions.actions: read

Compiled file (.github/workflows/audit-workflows.lock.yml):

• ❌ Contains permissions: {} (empty)

Recommendations

1. CRITICAL - Fix Compilation Process (Priority: P0)

Investigate and fix the gh-aw compile command to:

• Preserve permissions fields from source .md files
• Copy them correctly to compiled .lock.yml files
• Add validation to ensure required permissions are not stripped

Files to investigate:

• Compilation logic in gh-aw CLI
• YAML processing/generation code
• Workflow template handling

2. HIGH - Test Other Workflows (Priority: P1)

Check if other compiled workflows are also affected:

• artifacts-summary.lock.yml
• brave.lock.yml
• changeset-generator.lock.yml
• ci-doctor.lock.yml
• cli-version-checker.lock.yml
• And others...

Run: grep -A2 "^permissions:" .github/workflows/*.lock.yml to audit all compiled workflows.

3. MEDIUM - Add Compilation Validation (Priority: P2)

Enhance the compilation process to:

• Validate that compiled workflows preserve critical fields
• Warn or error if permissions are missing when they were specified in source
• Add tests to prevent regression

4. MEDIUM - Temporary Workaround (Priority: P2)

Until the compilation issue is fixed, consider:

• Manually editing audit-workflows.lock.yml to add permissions
• OR running the audit agent manually with proper authentication
• OR using a different approach to collect workflow data

Historical Context

This is the first audit run (Run #1). The audit agent has been unable to complete its intended function due to this critical issue.

Cache Memory Updated:

• /tmp/cache-memory/audits/2025-10-08.json - Full audit findings
• /tmp/cache-memory/audits/index.json - Audit index
• /tmp/cache-memory/patterns/errors.json - Error patterns database

Next Steps

• Fix gh-aw compile to preserve permissions from source files
• Test fix with audit-workflows.md
• Audit all other compiled workflows for similar issues
• Add regression tests for permission preservation
• Re-run audit workflow after fix to verify it can collect logs
• Update cache memory tracking with successful audit data

Success Metrics

Once fixed, the audit workflow should be able to:

• ✅ Authenticate with GitHub API using workflow token
• ✅ Download workflow run logs from the past 24 hours
• ✅ Analyze logs for errors, missing tools, and patterns
• ✅ Generate actionable reports
• ✅ Track trends over time in cache memory

---

Audit Agent Status: ⚠️ Unable to perform full audit due to critical permissions issue
Next Audit: 2025-10-09 (after fix is applied)
Generated: 2025-10-08 via Run #18329959236

🤖 Generated with Claude Code by the Agentic Workflow Audit Agent

AI generated by Agentic Workflow Audit Agent

[pelikhan]

The claude does not have access to the github token.