Why preciseactions?
Compare GitHub's unreliable schedule trigger with preciseactions' external scheduler.
Why preciseactions?
GitHub Actions' built-in schedule: trigger is known to start jobs with delays of 20 minutes to 4 hours. preciseactions runs outside of GitHub's queue, so your workflows start when you expect them to.
The problem
GitHub's schedule: event relies on a shared internal queue. In practice, this means:
- Delays of 20 minutes to 4 hours are common.
- Workflows can miss the exact minute they were scheduled for.
- Time-sensitive pipelines (social media posts, reports, backups) land at the wrong time.
The solution
preciseactions evaluates cron expressions on a 1-second loop and calls GitHub's workflow_dispatch API directly at the right moment.
| Feature | GitHub schedule: | preciseactions |
|---|---|---|
| Precision | ±20 min to 4 hr | ±30 seconds |
| Trigger | schedule: event | workflow_dispatch API call |
| Auth | GitHub token | GitHub App installation token |
| Retries | No | Yes |
| Monitoring | Limited | Built-in execution history + alerts |
Who is it for?
- Solo developers with personal projects that need reliable timing.
- Small team leads managing CI/CD pipelines that must run on schedule.
- DevOps engineers who want scheduler reliability without operating their own cron server.