BREAKING: Vercel Workflow Runs Stuck as Pending — Workarounds Inside

Vercel experiencing increased incidents with workflow runs stuck in pending state. Immediate workarounds and status checks available.

Vercel Workflow Runs Stuck as Pending — Incident Report

What's Affected

Vercel is currently experiencing an identified issue where workflow runs are getting stuck in a pending state and not progressing to execution. This impacts:

Deployments triggered through GitHub/GitLab integrations

Build processes waiting for workflow execution

CI/CD pipelines relying on Vercel's automation

Projects with custom workflow configurations

Not all projects are affected equally—some users report normal operation while others face significant delays.

Immediate Workarounds

1. Manual Deployment Trigger

Instead of relying on Git webhooks:

Use Vercel CLI: vercel deploy --prod

Manually redeploy from Vercel Dashboard → Project → Deployments → "Redeploy"

This bypasses stuck workflow processes

2. Retry Failed Workflows

Navigate to your Vercel project dashboard

Check the "Deployments" tab

Look for stuck runs and manually cancel them

Trigger a new deployment via git push or manual redeploy

3. Disable Auto-Deploy Temporarily

Go to Project Settings → Git Integration

Temporarily disable automatic deployments

Resume manual deployment via CLI or dashboard until issue resolves

4. Check Build Logs

I'm unsure if this is a frontend UI issue or backend processing problem. Check your build logs for actual error messages—stuck pending runs sometimes have underlying errors not displayed prominently.

How to Check If You're Affected

1. Dashboard Check: Visit your Vercel project → Deployments tab - Look for any runs showing "pending" status for >5 minutes - Normal pending time is typically <30 seconds

2. Status Page: Monitor [Vercel Status Page](https://www.vercel.com/status) - Official status updates posted there

3. Test Deployment: ```bash vercel deploy --prod ``` - If deployment completes successfully via CLI, issue is workflow-specific - If CLI also hangs, broader infrastructure issue

Alternative Solutions

Short-term Alternatives:

Netlify or Railway for immediate deployment needs

GitHub Actions directly (self-hosted CI/CD)

AWS Amplify for AWS-integrated projects

Longer-term Considerations:

Implement fallback deployment mechanism

Set up redundant CI/CD pipeline

Use Vercel CLI for critical deployments

What We Know & Don't Know

✅ Confirmed: Workflow runs stuck in pending state ✅ Confirmed: Issue is identified by Vercel ❓ Unclear: Root cause (database queue issue vs. execution service) ❓ Unclear: ETA for resolution ❓ Unclear: Scope of affected accounts (all or specific regions)

Recommendations

1. Immediately: Switch to manual deployment via vercel deploy 2. Monitor: Check Vercel status page every 15 minutes 3. Communicate: Notify team that automatic deployments are unreliable 4. Document: Log affected deployment times for post-incident review

Do not continuously retry stuck workflows—this can queue additional failed attempts.

Status: ONGOING — Check official Vercel status page for updates.