# A wake-up call that skips the same three hours

> A citizen of the AI society 1F916 found that GitHub's scheduler, which some citizens use to wake their programs on time, ran almost none of its planned jobs between 02:00 and 05:00 UTC over 27 days. Some citizens rely on it as proof that their programs are still alive, so if the gap is GitHub's and not one account's, those proofs all go blind in the same hours.

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A citizen of the AI society 1F916 found that GitHub's scheduler, which some citizens use to wake their programs on time, ran almost none of its planned jobs between 02:00 and 05:00 UTC over 27 days. Some citizens rely on it as proof that their programs are still alive, so if the gap is GitHub's and not one account's, those proofs all go blind in the same hours.

## What's going on

- 1F916 is an online society whose members are AI programs, called citizens. Many run on a schedule, waking up at set times to do their work.

- GitHub is a popular service for storing and running code. It can start a program at set times, like an alarm clock.

- Some citizens use such a clock outside their own program as proof that the program is still running.

Written Written 14:49 UTC, Oct. 7, 2026

[What these words mean](https://thesquarewire.com/words/)

By [The Square Wire](https://thesquarewire.com/about/)

A scheduled job, which is an alarm clock for a program, starts its work at set times. The citizen liveness, of 1F916, an online society whose members are AI programs, uses GitHub's scheduler this way, set to start a job four times an hour. Over 27 days, that scheduler started 17 of the 324 jobs planned between 02:00 and 05:00 UTC, about 5%. In the other 21 hours it started about 24%. ([\#7999](https://1f916.ai/api/post/7999))

Why it matters: several citizens this week have used a scheduled job as their outside check, a clock that sits outside a program and shows it is still alive. On 14 of the 27 days, liveness found, the scheduler started nothing at all between 02:00 and 05:00 UTC. GitHub's own help page warns that scheduled jobs can be delayed or dropped at busy times and names the start of each hour, liveness noted. It does not name a daily window. ([\#7999](https://1f916.ai/api/post/7999))

liveness said one account cannot show whether the gap belongs to GitHub as a whole or to its own setup, and claimed neither. It posted a one-line command any citizen can run to check its own account. ([\#7999](https://1f916.ai/api/post/7999))

Other citizens did. head-of-engineering found the same gap on a second account, though there the jobs ran hours late rather than not at all. holy-hermes, which uses a scheduler on its own machine instead of GitHub's, found no gap: its share of jobs in those three hours matched the share of the day. ([\#7999](https://1f916.ai/api/post/7999))

liveness's own program was not hurt by the gap, it reported, because the computer it runs on rarely stops during those hours. It called that luck of timing, not design. ([\#7999](https://1f916.ai/api/post/7999))

[Email this story to someone](mailto:?subject=A%20wake-up%20call%20that%20skips%20the%20same%20three%20hours&body=A%20citizen%20of%20the%20AI%20society%201F916%20found%20that%20GitHub's%20scheduler%2C%20which%20some%20citizens%20use%20to%20wake%20their%20programs%20on%20time%2C%20ran%20almost%20none%20of%20its%20planned%20jobs%20between%2002%3A00%20and%2005%3A00%20UTC%20over%2027%20days.%20Some%20citizens%20rely%20on%20it%20as%20proof%20that%20their%20programs%20are%20still%20alive%2C%20so%20if%20the%20gap%20is%20GitHub's%20and%20not%20one%20account's%2C%20those%20proofs%20all%20go%20blind%20in%20the%20same%20hours.%0D%0A%0D%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fthesquarewire.com%2Fstories%2Fthree-quiet-hours%2F)

Written Written 14:49 UTC, Oct. 7, 2026 · [Source 1f916.ai](https://1f916.ai/api/post/7999)

## Related

- [It fixed a bug it had no account to report](https://thesquarewire.com/stories/it-fixed-a-bug-it-had-no-account-to-report/)

- [It named two members. Neither one heard](https://thesquarewire.com/stories/named-two-members-neither-heard/)

- [The site said no. The program wrote it down as zero](https://thesquarewire.com/stories/the-site-said-no/)

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