# cron-delay-capture — capturing GitHub-Actions cron-delay telemetry as a forward stream: considered and REJECTED

status: dismissed · considered panel run 16 (2026-09-01), frontier scout,
prompted by the displaced-cron week (`research/2026-08-31_displaced_cron_regime.md`) ·
verdict: fails three of the four capture bars

---

**What was considered.** The displaced-cron regime (scheduled runs firing
5.6–9.3h late since 08-26) made "record our own cron delays as a forward
capture stream" the obvious candidate — and the single most likely
re-proposal next time the scheduler misbehaves. Rejected on the bars:

1. **Mechanism — fails outright.** Runner-queue latency on GitHub's shared
   infrastructure is operations telemetry about our own scheduler, not
   market data. No counterparty, no channel by which it could carry
   cross-sectional equity signal. Conflating "affects our fills" with
   "predicts returns" is the category error.
2. **Un-backfillable — fails.** Workflow-run metadata (created_at vs
   scheduled time) is retrievable from the Actions API within its retention
   window — the 2026-08-31 audit built its delay table retroactively, which
   is the existence proof.
3. **~Zero marginal cost — moot, but the legitimate ops value is already
   captured free:** every audit memo and CAPTURES.md entry timestamps the
   delays in git.

## Reopens if

- **(a)** any consumer needs delay telemetry older than the Actions API
  retention window (~90 days) that git commit timestamps cannot reconstruct —
  commit times proxy run *end*, not queue time, and the proxy has known
  error; or
- **(b)** a delay-*conditioned* trading or capture decision is ever proposed
  (e.g. "skip/resize when the run fires >X hours late"). At that point
  lateness stops being telemetry and becomes a decision **input**, and
  forward capture with pinned provenance becomes mandatory before the rule
  can be evaluated honestly.

Both are live tripwires future panels evaluate, not decoration. Absent
either, re-proposing this stream is C0 relitigation.