GitHub Actions: Ubuntu 20 runner image brownout dates and other breaking changes

Update: The date for closing down the Ubuntu 20 image has changed to April 15. The following post has been updated to reflect this change.

Ubuntu 20 image is closing down

We are beginning the process of closing down the Ubuntu 20 hosted runner image, following our N-1 OS support policy. This image will be fully retired by April 15, 2025. We recommend updating workflows to use ubuntu-22.04, or ubuntu-24.04.

Brownout dates

To raise awareness of the upcoming removal we will temporarily fail jobs using the ubuntu-20.04 label starting in March 2025. The brownouts will occur on the following dates and times:

• March 4 14:00 UTC – 22:00 UTC
• March 11 13:00 UTC – 21:00 UTC
• March 18 13:00 UTC – 21:00 UTC
• March 25 13:00 UTC – 21:00 UTC
• April 1 13:00 UTC – 21:00 UTC
• April 8 13:00 UTC – 21:00 UTC

Upcoming breaking changes to hosted runner images

For a full list of this month’s breaking changes to our hosted runner images, please see our announcement page.

Artifact actions v3 brownouts

Artifact actions v3 will be closing down by January 30th, 2025. To raise awareness of the upcoming removal, we will temporarily fail jobs using v3 of actions/upload-artifact or actions/download-artifact. Builds that are scheduled to run during the brownout periods will fail. The brownouts are scheduled for the following dates and times:
– January 16th 3pm – 7pm UTC
– January 23rd 2pm – 10pm UTC

Note: v3 of the artifact actions will continue to be supported for GitHub Enterprise Server customers. The brownouts and retirement will not affect your workflows.

actions/cache v1-v2 and actions/toolkit cache package closing down

Starting February 1st, 2025, Actions’ cache storage will move to a new architecture, as a result we are closing down v1-v2 of actions/cache. In conjunction, all previous versions of the @actions/cache package package (prior to 4.0.0) in actions/toolkit will be closing down. If users run workflows that call the retired versions after March 1st, 2025, the workflows will fail.

You should upgrade to actions/cache v4 or v3 as soon as possible to avoid any disruption in March. For information on how to migrate, see the announcements in the actions/cache and actions/toolkit repositories.

To raise awareness of the upcoming deprecation, we have scheduled brownouts for the following dates/times, builds that are scheduled to run during the brownout periods will fail.

February 4, 5pm – 6pm UTC
February 11, 3pm – 7pm UTC
February 18, 2pm – 10pm UTC

Note: all versions of actions/cache will continue to be supported for GitHub Enterprise Server customers. The retirement will not affect your workflows.