Skip to content

runners

Subscribe to all “runners” posts via RSS or follow GitHub Changelog on Twitter to stay updated on everything we ship.

~ cd github-changelog
~/github-changelog|main git log main
showing all changes successfully

Today we are announcing exciting updates for GitHub Actions hosted runners, the cloud-based service that provides powerful virtual machines to developers and teams to integrate their automation and CI/CD workflows within GitHub. These updates mark a significant leap towards enhancing enterprise readiness for GitHub Actions and a testament to our commitment to simplifying the adoption of GitHub Actions hosted runners across all project sizes and complexities.

  • Azure private networking functionality, that was previously in public beta, is now generally available. This feature allows you to run your Actions workflows on GitHub-hosted runners that are connected to your Azure virtual network, without compromising on security or performance.
  • We are introducing additional runner SKUs to our hosted runner fleet including a 2 vCPU Linux runner and a 4 vCPU Windows runner, both equipped with auto-scaling and private networking functionalities. Both these SKUs are generally available starting today and are geared to support scenarios where smaller machine sizes suffice yet the demand for heightened security and performance persists.
  • Apple silicon (M1) hosted runners, specifically macOS L (12-core Intel) and macOS XL (M1 w/GPU hardware acceleration) which were previously in public beta, are now generally available.
  • We are also unveiling a GPU hosted runner (4 vCPUs, 1 T4 GPU) available in public beta. The GPU runners are available on Linux and Windows, and are enabled with auto-scaling and private networking functionalities. These runners empower teams working with machine learning models such as large language models (LLMs) or those requiring GPU graphic cards for game development to run their tests more efficiently as part of their automation or CI/CD process.

Get Started

  • Azure private networking for GitHub-hosted runners is available across Team and Enterprise plans. To get started, navigate to the ‘Hosted Compute Networking’ section within your Enterprise or Organization settings. For more details, consult our documentation. To request support for additional Azure regions, please fill out this form. As a note, Azure private networking for GitHub Codespaces continues to remain in beta.
  • The newly added 2 vCPU Linux and 4 vCPU Windows SKUs are generally available starting today across Team and Enterprise plans. To use these runners, create a GitHub-hosted runner by selecting the ‘2-core’ or ‘4-core’ size options in the runner creation flow.
  • macOS L and macOS XL runners are generally available across Free, Team and Enterprise plans, and can be used by updating the runs-on key to use one of the GitHub-defined macOS runner labels. To learn more about pricing for these SKUs, refer to our documentation.
  • GPU runners are available starting today in public beta across Team and Enterprise plans. To learn more about how to setup the runner, images, and pricing, refer to our documentation. To share your feedback and help us find the right additional GPU SKUs to support, please fill out this form.

We’re eager to hear your feedback on any and all of these functionalities. Share your thoughts on our GitHub Community Discussion.

See more

The Repository Actions Runners List is now generally available. With the Repository Actions Runnners List you can view all available runners right within the Actions tab, without needing access to repository or organization settings.

The runner types listed include Standard GitHub-hosted, Larger GitHub-hosted, Self-hosted, and Scale-sets.

Benefits of using the Repository Actions Runners List:

  • Visibility into all GitHub Actions runners: Users with repo:write access can now view which runner options are available for use within a repository, without needing to contact a Repo admin or an Organization owner to find runner label names.
  • Faster access to runner labels: Conveniently view and copy labels for all runners, making it straightforward to identify the type of runner you need and use it in a workflow.

To access the Repository Actions Runners List:

  1. Navigate to the main page of the repository.
  2. Click the "Actions" tab under your repository name.
  3. Under the "Management" section in the left sidebar, click on "Runners".
  4. Explore available runners within a repository and copy runner labels to use them in YAML workflow files.

Note: Enterprise and Organization owners can also create new runners from this page from the "New runner" button.
Repository Actions Runners List

This feature is available to users with:

  • Free and Pro Personal Accounts
  • Organizations on a Free Plan
  • Organizations on a Team Plan
  • Enterprises on a GitHub Enterprise Cloud plan (including Enterprise Managed Users)

Note: This feature is not available to users in Organizations on the GitHub Enterprise Server or Legacy plans.

If you have any feedback to help improve this experience, be sure to post it on our GitHub Community Discussion.

See more

Today we're announcing that Private Networking for GitHub-hosted runners with Azure Virtual Networks (VNET) is now in public beta. This feature allows GitHub Enterprise customers using Azure to integrate their GitHub-hosted runners directly into an Azure VNET under their Azure account.

Key Benefits

What sets this apart is the dual advantage it offers. On one hand, you can continue to enjoy the benefits of GitHub-managed resources. On the other hand, you gain full control over the networking policies applied to those resources. Once your GitHub-hosted runners are connected to your Azure VNET, your Actions workflows can securely access Azure services like Azure Storage and on-premises data sources such as artifactory through existing, pre-configured connections like VPN gateways and ExpressRoutes.

Security is also front and center in this update. Any existing or new networking policies, such as Network Security Group (NSG) rules, will automatically apply to GitHub-hosted runners giving platform administrators comprehensive control over network security.

To further simplify the management of Azure private networking settings across different business units, we're introducing Network Configurations. This feature allows administrators to consolidate various networking settings and assign them to runner groups based on specific operational needs. For example, production-grade runners can be configured with stricter networking policies using a dedicated Azure VNET, as opposed to runners used for testing or staging environments.

image

Starting today, Azure Private Networking and Network Configurations are available in public beta for GitHub Enterprise Cloud users. To get started, navigate to the 'Hosted Compute Networking' section within your Enterprise settings. For more details, consult our documentation.

We're eager to hear your feedback to further improve this feature. Share your thoughts on our GitHub Community Discussion.

See more

GitHub-hosted runners now support up to 1000 concurrent jobs for our 4 – 64 vCPU runners, enhancing their capability to handle large-scale CI/CD workloads.

Our runners are designed to automatically scale to meet your needs. The concurrency limit feature allows users to specify the maximum number of jobs that can run simultaneously to execute Actions workflows. Previously capped at 250, we've made backend improvements to now support a maximum of 1000 concurrent jobs for runners within the 4-64 vCPU range for Windows and Linux operating systems.

Enterprise or organization administrators can set this concurrency limit under the Auto-scaling setting. GitHub-hosted runners with 4 or more vCPUs are available on both the GitHub Team and Enterprise plans.

If you have any feedback to help improve this experience, be sure to post it on our GitHub Community Discussion.

See more

GitHub-hosted larger runners now support dual IP ranges when configured with Static IPs for the GitHub Enterprise Cloud plan.

Static IP enables Enterprise Cloud customers to choose whether a static IP address range will be assigned to their larger runner instances. This provides a fixed IP address range that can be added to your allow list for access to internal systems and can be used in conjunction with GitHub’s IP allow list to enable hosted actions runners and IP allow listing at the same time.

With dual IP ranges, larger runner instances will now receive two IP ranges instead of a single range. This enables runners to scale beyond the previously existing 500 concurrency limit. Additionally, the two IP ranges are created in different geographical locations, providing resiliency against regional outages.

Getting started

For newly created larger runner instances with the Static IP feature, 2 IP ranges will be assigned by default going forward and no additional action is required.

For existing larger runner instances that have Static IP configured:

  • GitHub will assign an additional IP range(s) that admins can view by heading to their existing static IP enabled larger runners.
  • Admins will have 30 days to update their existing firewalls or internal IP allowlists with the new IP ranges before GitHub starts utilizing the new ranges for the runners.
  • Admins will also receive an email guiding them to take the necessary steps for their existing static IP enabled larger runners to continue to function as they switch to the dual IP range functionality.

You can learn more about the Static IP feature by heading over to documentation. If you have any feedback to help improve this experience, be sure to post it on our GitHub Community Discussion.

See more

With the Repository Actions Runners List, you can now view all available runners in the Actions tab of a repository. This feature is now in public beta and will be gradually released in the upcoming weeks.

The runner types listed include Standard GitHub-hosted, Larger GitHub-hosted (for faster builds), Self-hosted, and Scale-sets.

Repository Actions Runners List

For some benefits of using the Repository Actions Runners List:

  • Visibility across all GitHub Actions runners: Users with repo:write access can now view runner options without needing to rely on internal documentation or contacting a Repo admin or an Organization owner for runner label names.
  • Faster access to runner labels: Quickly view and copy labels for all runners, making it straightforward to identify the type of runner you need and use it in a workflow.

To access the Repository Actions Runners List:

  1. Navigate to the main page of the repository.
  2. Click the “Actions” tab under your repository name.
  3. Under the “Management” section in the left sidebar, click on “Runners”.
  4. Explore the available runners for the repository and copy runner labels as needed.

Note: Enterprise and Organization owners can also create new runners from this page from the “New runner” button.

This feature is available to users with:

  • Free and Pro Personal Accounts
  • Free Organizations
  • Paid Organizations on the Team and GitHub Enterprise Cloud plans

Note: This feature is not currently available to users in Organizations on the GitHub Enterprise Server and Legacy plans, or Enterprise Managed Users.

If you have any feedback to help improve this experience, be sure to post it on our GitHub Community Discussion.

See more

Today, we are announcing that larger hosted runners for GitHub Actions are generally available for paid Team and Enterprise Cloud plans! This feature has been in public beta since September of 2022 where customers have been using it in production to run their CI/CD jobs faster and with more flexibility.

larger runner machine sizes

The new larger runners provide new capabilities:

  • Larger Linux and Windows machines: This allows development teams to use machine sizes up to 64 vCPUs with 256 GB of RAM, and 2 TB of SSD storage to support their on-demand CI/CD jobs and other workflows. Larger runners are charged by the job minute for both private and public repositories and do not consume included minutes.
  • Static IP address to enable secure access to your resources: Enterprise Cloud customers can now choose whether a static IP address range will be assigned to their larger runner instances. This provides a fixed IP address range that you can add to your allow list for access to internal systems. You can also use this in conjunction with GitHub’s IP allow list to enable hosted actions runners and IP allow listing at the same time.
  • Administrative control over access to larger runners and concurrency: Your administrators can decide who has access to larger machine sizes and at what concurrency, providing guard rails on spending.

You can learn about the larger runner per job minute pricing by checking the current pricing documentation and learn more about this feature by digging into the documentation.

If you have any feedback to help improve this experience, be sure to post it on our GitHub Community Discussion.

See more