GitHub Actions: Introducing faster GitHub-hosted x64 macOS runners

Today, GitHub is releasing a public beta for all new, more powerful hosted macOS runners for GitHub Actions. Teams who are looking to speed up their macOS jobs now have new options to meet their needs.

Faster GitHub-hosted macOS runners

When developers use GitHub-hosted runners for GitHub Actions, GitHub is always working to give teams performance and flexibility to quickly build for different platforms. The new GitHub-hosted macOS runners are based on the most current x64 Apple hardware and reduce the time it takes to run your jobs. This means less time waiting on your CI and more time building and rapidly testing code.

In addition to the existing 3-core macOS hosted runners, we are also introducing a new “XL” size, 12-core macOS runner to allow you to pay for that extra performance when you need it. Increasing your runner size is as simple as changing a single line in your workflow file, making it super easy to speed up lagging builds, and with on-demand availability when you want it, you only pay for what you use.

PyTorch, the open source machine learning framework, has used the new runner to improve build times from 1.5 hours to 30 minutes!

If you’re already using the 3-core macOS runners, simply request to join the beta, and we’ll give you access to the hardware to our new fleet. To try the new 12-core runner runner, update the runs-on: key in your GitHub Actions workflow YAML to target the macos-12-xl or macos-latest-xl runner images once you’re in the beta.

The new macOS XL runner is always billed in both private and public repositories and so does not consume any of the free included GitHub Action minutes. To learn more about runner per job minute pricing, check out the docs.

Learn more and join the beta

To learn more about using the new macOS runner, check out the hosted runner docs.

Apple silicon is on the way!

We’ve started racking up and testing out Apple silicon-based machines in the hosted runner data centers. Follow this roadmap item to track progress. We hope to be offering a limited beta in CY2023 depending on hardware availability, but keep your eyes on the GitHub blog for more information.

Written by

Stephen Glass

@Steve-Glass