Increase MCP gateway health check timeout from 120s to 240s

[Copilot]

Daily News workflow failing 50% of runs since Jan 9 with exit code 7 (timeout) during MCP gateway startup. Gateway initialization requires starting multiple Docker containers (GitHub MCP server, safe-outputs) with API authentication, which exceeds the hardcoded 120s timeout during peak times or network latency.

Changes

• actions/setup/sh/start_mcp_gateway.sh: Timeout 120s → 240s, configurable via MCP_GATEWAY_HEALTH_TIMEOUT_SECONDS
• actions/setup/sh/verify_mcp_gateway_health.sh: Same timeout increase and configurability

# Default: 240s
HEALTH_TIMEOUT_SECONDS="${MCP_GATEWAY_HEALTH_TIMEOUT_SECONDS:-240}"

# Override if needed:
env:
  MCP_GATEWAY_HEALTH_TIMEOUT_SECONDS: 300

Impact

• No recompilation needed (scripts are runtime-copied, not embedded)
• Backward compatible (all workflows benefit immediately)
• Workflow-level timeout remains 30 minutes (unchanged)

Original prompt

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This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>[P1] Daily News Workflow Timeout Failures - 50% Success Rate</issue_title>
<issue_description># 🚨 High Priority: Daily News Workflow Timeout Failures

Summary

The Daily News workflow has degraded to 50% success rate (10/20 runs) with consistent timeout failures starting January 9, 2026. Users are not receiving daily repository news updates reliably.

Error Details

• Error Pattern: Exit code 7 (timeout after 120 seconds)
• Success Rate: 50% (was 100% before 2026-01-09)
• Failure Pattern: Intermittent failures since Jan 9
• Last Failure: Run Implement goccy/go-yaml with line offset support for frontmatter error reporting #101 (2026-01-13)
• Impact: Inconsistent daily news delivery to users

Sample Failed Run

• Run: https://github.com/githubnext/gh-aw/actions/runs/20951135921
• Date: 2026-01-13
• Error: Process completed with exit code 7
• Logs: "Retrying up to 120 times with 1s delay (120s total timeout)"

Recent Run History

Run githubnext/gh-aw#101 (2026-01-13): failure
Run githubnext/gh-aw#100 (2026-01-12): failure
Run githubnext/gh-aw#99  (2026-01-09): failure
Run githubnext/gh-aw#98  (2026-01-08): success ✓
Run githubnext/gh-aw#97  (2026-01-07): success ✓
Run githubnext/gh-aw#96  (2026-01-06): success ✓
Run githubnext/gh-aw#95  (2026-01-05): success ✓

Suspected Root Causes

1. Network/API Latency: Increased response times from external services
2. Rate Limiting: GitHub API or external news sources throttling requests
3. Resource Contention: Runner experiencing performance issues
4. Timeout Configuration: 120s limit may be insufficient for peak times

Part of Systemic Pattern

• Similar timeout pattern seen in CI Doctor workflow (0% success)
• Both workflows started failing around same time (2026-01-09)
• Both showing exit code 7 timeout errors
• Suggests system-wide issue, not workflow-specific

Recommended Actions

Immediate (P1)

1. Analyze Slow Operations

   • Identify which operations exceed timeout
   • Profile workflow execution time
   • Check for external API dependencies

2. Review Timeout Configuration

   • Consider increasing timeout limit
   • Add timeout parameters to individual steps
   • Implement better retry logic

3. Optimize Performance

   • Cache frequently accessed data
   • Parallelize independent operations
   • Reduce API call frequency if possible

Follow-up

1. Add better logging/observability
2. Implement timeout monitoring/alerting
3. Create fallback mechanism for news aggregation
4. Document performance baselines

Impact Assessment

• User Impact: Inconsistent daily updates
• Frequency: Daily scheduled workflow
• Severity: High - affects user experience
• Pattern: Part of larger timeout epidemic

Related Issues

• CI Doctor workflow (P0) - same timeout pattern
• Systemic timeout investigation needed
• May affect other scheduled workflows

Detection

Identified by Workflow Health Manager on 2026-01-14
Health Score Impact: -5 points (75/100 overall)

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Labels: workflow-health, priority-p1, type-failure, timeout
Related: CI Doctor timeout issue, systemic performance investigation

AI generated by Workflow Health Manager - Meta-Orchestrator

Comments on the Issue (you are @copilot in this section)

• Fixes [P1] Daily News Workflow Timeout Failures - 50% Success Rate #9899

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