CI Watchdog — The Autonomous CI Minutes & Spend Sentinel with Open AI Failure Triage

A developer built CI Watchdog, an open-source GitHub App and SaaS platform that autonomously cancels redundant GitHub Actions runs and triages failed builds using open-weight AI models such as Gemma and Gemini 3.8 Flash. The tool pairs a pure, side-effect-free rule engine (SUPERSEDED, RUNAWAY_DURATION, MISSING_CONCURRENCY, STALE_ON_CLOSE) with an AI investigator that returns root cause, failed step, category, and remediation steps, plus a human approval queue and ROI calculator modeling runner costs from $0.008/min on Ubuntu to $0.160/min on Apple Silicon. The TypeScript monorepo uses Turborepo and pnpm, with a Node.js webhook service on Render and a Next.js 16 dashboard on Vercel.

An autonomous GitHub App and SaaS platform that stops wasted CI spend before it hits your invoice, and automatically diagnoses broken builds using open-weight AI. Every developer has that one friend or team lead who dreads the 20th of the month: the day GitHub sends the notification: "You have used 100% of your included GitHub Actions minutes." I built CI Watchdog for my friend and engineering teammate, who was constantly battling ballooning CI bills and jammed pipeline queues on open-source and startup projects. The problems: The solution: concurrency blocks and generates 1-click YAML fixes. | Route | Feature | Description | |---|---|---| | /app | Control Room Overview | Live and dry-run minutes-saved counters, real-time system status indicators, and weekly savings charts. | | /app/investigations | AI Investigations | Instant root-cause diagnostic cards generated by Gemma / Gemini 3.8 Flash, with failure hypotheses, log evidence snippets, and recommended next steps. | | /app/decisions | Decision Engine & CSV Export | Full searchable decision history with rule and status filters, plus 1-click CSV download for engineering management reports. | | /app/approvals | Human Approval Queue | First-N quota approval flow with 1-click Approve and Deny buttons. | | /app/digest | Interactive ROI Calculator | Real-time savings simulator modeling monthly minute volume and runner tiers see pricing below . | Runner pricing used in the ROI calculator: | Runner | Cost per minute | |---|---| | Ubuntu | $0.008 | | Windows | $0.016 | | macOS | $0.080 | | Apple Silicon M-series | $0.160 | The entire codebase is open-source and structured as a high-performance TypeScript monorepo using Turborepo and pnpm : | Path | Description | |---|---| | apps/watchdog | Event-driven Node.js background service deployed on Render. Connects to the GitHub App webhook stream, processes workflow states, runs the pure rule engine, and coordinates AI triage. | | apps/dashboard | Next.js 16 Turbopack dashboard deployed on Vercel with Shadcn UI, Auth.js OAuth with GitHub & Google , and real-time state synchronization. | | config/watchdog.yml | Declarative team policies with per-repository overrides. | The rule engine apps/watchdog/src/rules/ was designed to be 100% pure with zero side effects. Given the current run, sibling runs, historical durations, and workflow YAML, it evaluates four rules: | Rule | Behavior | |---|---| | SUPERSEDED | Cancels older runs queued on the same ref when a newer commit arrives. | | RUNAWAY DURATION | Compares running jobs against historical p95 execution times and alerts/cancels if a job hangs. | | MISSING CONCURRENCY | Scans workflow ASTs and alerts if jobs lack top-level concurrency cancellation blocks. | | STALE ON CLOSE | Immediately terminates active pipelines when a PR is merged or closed. | When a workflow concludes with a failure, CI Watchdog activates the AI investigator: | Field | Description | |---|---| | rootCause | Explicit technical diagnosis e.g., missing Docker service container, database port refusal . | | failedStep | Exact bash command or step name that exited non-zero. | | category | One of: Infrastructure, Configuration, Test, or Code. | | nextSteps | Concrete remediation actions. | Automated cancellation can be intimidating for developers, so I implemented strict safety rails: main , master , or release/ branches. Open innovation is what makes a tool like CI Watchdog possible without compromising developer trust: Built with ❤️ during Hacktoberfest. If your team is burning minutes on redundant CI runs, give CI Watchdog a spin