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[aw-failures] [P0] Artifact upload fails: "The artifact name activation is not valid" — smoke-test fleet outage #54116

Description

@github-actions

Fix the artifact-name validation failure — it's killing the "activation" upload step across the entire smoke-test fleet.

Rename the artifact used in the activation job so it stops colliding with whatever GitHub Actions now considers an invalid name.

Problem statement

The activation job's "Upload activation artifact" step fails at the Create Artifact Container API call with:

##[error]Create Artifact Container failed: The artifact name activation is not valid.

This happens before the agent job starts (0 tokens spent), so it's a pure infra/naming failure, not an agent or content issue.

Affected workflows and run IDs

Confirmed (all failed at 2026-08-19 ~23:48 UTC, same step, same job):

Likely also affected (same run-ID/time cluster, not yet individually confirmed — verify before closing): 32314801400, 32314798663, 32314796269, 32314746588, 32314746662, 32314747000, 32314746697, 32314746781, 32314746796, 32314746805, 32314732816, 32314732184, 32314732334, 32314732431, 32314732660, 32314732376, 32314642769.

Probable root cause

GitHub's artifact API is rejecting the literal name activation for Create Artifact Container (likely a reserved-word/naming-policy change on the Actions platform side, or a collision with an internal artifact name). audit-diff between two of the failed runs showed zero firewall/network anomalies and identical zero-token-usage profiles — ruling out a network/proxy cause and confirming this is a single systemic naming-validation issue, not per-workflow drift.

Proposed remediation

  • Change the artifact name generated for the activation-upload step (e.g. activation-${{ github.run_id }} or activation-<job-name>) in the gh-aw workflow-generation code that emits the .lock.yml upload-artifact step.
  • Regenerate/recompile affected .lock.yml files and re-run one smoke workflow to confirm the upload succeeds.
  • Grep for other hardcoded single-word artifact names in the generator that could hit the same validation rule.

Success criteria / verification

  • A regenerated smoke workflow run completes the "Upload activation artifact" (renamed) step with conclusion: success.
  • No new Create Artifact Container failed: ... is not valid errors appear in subsequent 6h failure-investigator windows.

Generated by 🔍 [aw] Failure Investigator (6h) · agent · 83.4 AIC · ⌖ 8.84 AIC · ⊞ 5.9K ·

  • expires on Aug 26, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC-08:00

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