Workflow Skill Extractor Report — 2026-04-16

[github-actions[bot]]

🎯 Executive Summary

The Workflow Skill Extractor analyzed all 191 agentic workflows in .github/workflows/ and the 73 existing shared components in .github/workflows/shared/. The analysis identified 5 skill categories with varying degrees of duplication and extracted the top 3 high-impact recommendations into actionable GitHub issues.

The standout finding is that 74% of all workflows (142/191) copy-paste an identical 6-line "noop reminder" prompt block — the single largest deduplication opportunity in the repository. Two additional high-impact configuration bundles were also identified.

Key Statistics:

• Total workflows analyzed: 191
• Existing shared components: 73
• Skills/patterns identified: 8
• High-priority recommendations: 3
• Estimated total lines saved (top 3): ~924+ lines

---

📊 Analysis Overview

Workflows Analyzed (Representative Sample)

A representative sample of ~50 workflows was analyzed in depth across categories: daily audit reports, security scans, Go code analysis, PR-creating workflows, issue triage, smoke tests, and weekly reports.

Existing Shared Components (Most Used)

Component	Usage	Purpose
shared/reporting.md	104 workflows	Report formatting guidelines
shared/observability-otlp.md	53 workflows	OTLP telemetry endpoint config
shared/daily-audit-discussion.md	41 workflows	Daily GitHub Discussion creation
shared/github-guard-policy.md	19 workflows	MCP approval-label policy
shared/jqschema.md	18 workflows	JQ schema validation
shared/mcp/serena-go.md	15 workflows	Go LSP analysis server
shared/go-source-analysis.md	8 workflows	Go source navigation bundle
shared/security-analysis-base.md	5 workflows	Security scan base config
shared/trending-charts-simple.md	7 workflows	Python trending charts

---

🔍 Identified Skills

High Priority Skills

1. Noop Reminder Prompt

• Frequency: 142/191 workflows (74%)
• Size: ~852 lines duplicated total
• Priority: 🔴 High
• Description: A 6-line prompt block reminding agents they must always call the noop safe-output tool. Virtually word-for-word identical across all 142 workflows.
• Recommendation: Extract to shared/noop-reminder.md

2. Reporting + OTLP Dual Import Bundle

• Frequency: 21 workflows (distinct from the 10 triple-import workflows below)
• Size: ~42 lines saved
• Priority: 🔴 High
• Description: 21 workflows that import both shared/reporting.md and shared/observability-otlp.md but NOT the daily-audit-discussion stack. These form a natural pairing for any workflow publishing results with telemetry.
• Recommendation: Extract to shared/reporting-otlp.md

3. Daily Audit Triple Import Stack

• Frequency: 10 workflows confirmed; up to 41 could migrate
• Size: 30–82 lines saved depending on adoption
• Priority: 🟡 Medium-High
• Description: 10 workflows import all three of: daily-audit-discussion.md + reporting.md + observability-otlp.md. These are the "daily audit" reporting workflows. 31 more workflows use the first two without OTLP.
• Recommendation: Extract to shared/daily-audit-base.md

Medium Priority Skills

4. Go Daily Code Analysis Pattern

• Frequency: 8 workflows use shared/go-source-analysis.md; 2 also add daily-audit-discussion + OTLP
• Priority: 🟡 Medium
• Description: Multiple daily analysis workflows targeting Go source code share go-source-analysis.md + cache-memory + incremental git history analysis. A shared/daily-go-analysis.md could bundle these for the 8 users.

5. Inline Create-Discussion (Reports Category)

• Frequency: 3 workflows (deep-report.md, org-health-report.md, workflow-skill-extractor.md)
• Priority: 🟡 Medium
• Description: These 3 workflows define create-discussion: {category: "reports"} inline. A shared/reports-category-discussion.md parallel to shared/daily-audit-discussion.md would standardize the "reports" category pattern.

Low Priority Skills

6. Current Context Prompt Block

• Frequency: 76 workflows
• Description: Many workflows include a ## Current Context section with $\{\{ github.repository }} and $\{\{ github.run_id }}. Not easily extracted (workflow-specific content mixed in), but worth noting.

7. Tracker-ID Without OTLP

• Frequency: ~13 workflows have tracker-id but lack observability-otlp
• Description: Tracker-ID is a frontmatter field (not extractable as shared), but these workflows are missing OTLP coverage.

8. Cache-Memory Incremental Analysis

• Frequency: 78 workflows
• Description: Many workflows use filesystem-safe timestamps and incremental cache patterns. A prompt skill documenting this pattern (cache dir setup, timestamp format, scan rotation) appears in security workflows and could be formalized.

---

💡 Detailed Recommendations

Recommendation 1: shared/noop-reminder.md

Full Details

Current State (copy-pasted in 142 workflows):

**Important**: If no action is needed after completing your analysis, you **MUST** call the `noop` safe-output tool with a brief explanation. Failing to call any safe-output tool is the most common cause of safe-output workflow failures.

\`\`\`json
{"noop": {"message": "No action needed: [brief explanation of what was analyzed and why]"}}
\`\`\`

Proposed Shared Component:

---
# Noop Reminder prompt skill
---

**Important**: If no action is needed after completing your analysis, you **MUST** call the `noop` safe-output tool with a brief explanation. Failing to call any safe-output tool is the most common cause of safe-output workflow failures.

\`\`\`json
{"noop": {"message": "No action needed: [brief explanation of what was analyzed and why]"}}
\`\`\`

Migration Path:

1. Create shared/noop-reminder.md
2. Replace the inline block with - shared/noop-reminder.md in imports
3. Apply to all 142 workflows in batches by category

Impact: 142 × 6 lines = ~852 lines eliminated

Recommendation 2: shared/reporting-otlp.md

Full Details

Current State (21 workflows each have):

imports:
  - shared/reporting.md
  - shared/observability-otlp.md

Proposed Shared Component:

---
imports:
  - shared/reporting.md
  - shared/observability-otlp.md
---

Migration Path:

1. Create shared/reporting-otlp.md
2. Replace dual import with single - shared/reporting-otlp.md
3. Low risk — purely additive bundle, no behavioral change

Impact: 21 × 2 lines = 42 import lines eliminated

Recommendation 3: shared/daily-audit-base.md

Full Details

Current State (10 workflows each have):

imports:
  - uses: shared/daily-audit-discussion.md
    with:
      title-prefix: "[workflow-name] "
  - shared/reporting.md
  - shared/observability-otlp.md

Proposed Shared Component:

---
import-schema:
  title-prefix:
    type: string
    required: true
  expires:
    type: string
    default: "3d"

imports:
  - uses: shared/daily-audit-discussion.md
    with:
      title-prefix: $\{\{ github.aw.import-inputs.title-prefix }}
      expires: $\{\{ github.aw.import-inputs.expires }}
  - shared/reporting.md
  - shared/observability-otlp.md
---

Migration Path:

1. Create shared/daily-audit-base.md
2. Replace 3 imports with single parameterized import
3. Optionally migrate 31 more workflows (currently using audit-discussion + reporting without OTLP) to gain automatic OTLP coverage

Impact: 10 × 3 = 30 lines immediately; up to 41 workflows × 2 = 82 additional lines with full migration

---

📈 Impact Analysis

By Category

Category	Skills	Lines Saved
Prompt Skills	1 (noop-reminder)	~852
Tool Configurations	2 (bundles)	~72
Setup Steps	0 (well-covered)	—
Data Processing	1 (cache-memory pattern)	TBD

By Priority

Priority	Skills	Lines Saved	Workflows Affected
High	2	~894	163
Medium-High	1	~30–82	10–41
Medium	2	~30	11
Low	3	~20	varies

---

✅ Created Issues

This analysis created the following actionable issues:

1. [refactoring] Extract noop-reminder prompt into shared/noop-reminder.md — 142 workflows, 852 lines saved
2. [refactoring] Extract reporting + OTLP dual import into shared/reporting-otlp.md — 21 workflows, 42 lines saved
3. [refactoring] Extract daily-audit-base triple import stack into shared/daily-audit-base.md — 10 workflows immediate, up to 41 with full migration

---

🎯 Next Steps

1. Implement shared/noop-reminder.md first (highest impact, lowest risk)
2. Implement shared/reporting-otlp.md (simple bundle, quick win)
3. Implement shared/daily-audit-base.md (medium complexity due to parameterization)
4. Consider shared/reports-category-discussion.md for the "reports" category pattern (3 workflows)
5. Schedule next extractor run in ~1 month after these changes land

---

📚 Methodology

• Analyzed all 191 workflow files in .github/workflows/
• Reviewed all 73 existing shared components
• Cross-referenced import patterns using shell analysis
• Applied skill recognition across: tool configurations, prompt skills, data processing, setup steps
• Prioritized by frequency × size × implementation complexity

Analysis Date: 2026-04-16
Analyzer: Workflow Skill Extractor v1.0
Run: §24507930245

References:

• Workflow run §24507930245

Generated by Workflow Skill Extractor · ● 5M · ◷

• expires on Apr 23, 2026, 11:48 AM UTC

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This discussion has been marked as outdated by Workflow Skill Extractor.

A newer discussion is available at Discussion #28042.