Now in public preview, Windows arm64 hosted runners are available for free in public repositories. This runner comes with a Windows 11 Desktop image, fully equipped with all the tooling you need to quickly get started running your workflows. Following the release of linux arm64 hosted runners in January, this now extends to Windows support for the open source-community. These four vCPU runners provide a power-efficient compute layer for your Windows workloads. Arm-native developers can now build, test, and deploy entirely within the arm64 architecture without the need for virtualization on your actions runs.
How to use the runners
To leverage the arm64 hosted runners, add the following labels in your public repository workflow runs:
Please note that this label will not work in private repositories—the workflow will fail if you add it. All runs in public repositories will adhere to our standard runners usage limits, with maximum concurrencies based on your plan type. While the arm64 runners are in public preview, you may experience longer queue times during peak usage hours.
Images for arm64 larger runners
In partnership with Arm, there is now a Windows 11 desktop arm64 image with preinstalled tools available for all GitHub runner sizes, including both the new free offering and our existing arm64 larger runners. To use the new image on larger runners, you can create a new runner and select the Microsoft Windows 11 Desktop by Arm Limited image in the Images console.
To view the list of installed software, give feedback on the image, or report issues, visit the partner-runner-images repository.
Get started today!
To get started building windows on arm64 for free, simply add the new label to the runs-on syntax in your public actions workflow file. For more information on arm64 runners and how to use them, see our documentation and join the conversation in the Community discussion.