Question

A teammate asks you to retrieve the build artifact named 'app-bundle' from a workflow run that completed 95 days ago. Your organization uses the default artifact retention setting. When you open the run in the GitHub UI, the Summary page no longer lists any artifacts under the 'Artifacts' section, and the API call to list artifacts for that run returns an empty array. The workflow logs, however, clearly show the 'Upload artifact' step succeeded at the time. What is the most accurate explanation and next step?

Accepted Answer

The artifact expired under the default 90-day retention period and was permanently deleted; re-run the workflow to regenerate and re-upload the artifact.

Answer

The artifact is still stored but hidden after 90 days; call the download endpoint directly with the original artifact ID to retrieve it.

Answer

Deleting the run's logs also deleted the artifact metadata; restore the logs from the run history to make the artifact reappear.

Answer

The artifact was moved to the Actions cache after 90 days; restore it using the cache restore-keys fallback.