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GitHub-hosted runner images deprecation notice: Docker Compose v1

Docker Compose v1 has been deprecated as of July 2023. All customers utilizing Compose v1 on GitHub-hosted runners are encouraged to migrate to Compose v2. Per GitHub’s support policy we will remove this tool from our GitHub managed runner images effective July 9, 2024.

To avoid breaking changes, customers will need to update their Actions workflow files from using docker-compose to docker compose. After July 9, workflows will begin to fail that are using the previous syntax. Customers are advised to review the migration instructions to ensure they are making all the changes required.

For more information on GitHub managed images, see the runner-images repository.

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GitHub Actions: Hardware accelerated Android virtualization now available

Available now, Actions users of our 2-vCPU GitHub-hosted Linux runners will be able to make use of hardware acceleration for Android testing. Previously this feature was only available on runners with 4 or more vCPUs.

To make use of this on Linux, Actions users will need to add the runner user to the KVM user group

      - name: Enable KVM group perms
        run: |
            echo 'KERNEL=="kvm", GROUP="kvm", MODE="0666", OPTIONS+="static_node=kvm"' | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/99-kvm4all.rules
            sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
            sudo udevadm trigger --name-match=kvm

You will then be able to make use of hardware acceleration when making use of Android emulator actions such as reactivecircus/android-emulator-runner.

For more information on how to set-up hardware acceleration, please see our documentation.

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What’s new for GitHub Actions hosted runners

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.

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macOS 14 (Sonoma) is generally available

macOS 14 (Sonoma) is now generally available. Over the next 12 weeks, jobs using the macos-latest runner label will migrate from macOS 12 (Monterey) to macOS 14 (Sonoma). During migration, you can determine if your job has migrated by viewing the Runner Image information in the Set up job step of your logs. This announcement also applies to larger macOS runners, for which the following runner labels can be used:

  • macos-latest-xlarge
  • macos-latest-large 
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: macos-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Build
        run: swift build
      - name: Run tests
        run: swift test

To use macOS 14 directly, update runs-on: in your workflow file to macos-14, macos-14-xlarge, or macos-14-large:

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: macos-14
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Build
        run: swift build
      - name: Run tests
        run: swift test

The macOS 14 runner image has different tools and tool versions than macOS 12. See the full list of changed software.

Please note that once your workflows run on macOS 14 using latest they will not revert to run on older image versions. If you spot any issues with your workflows when using macOS 14, please let us know by creating an issue in the runner-images repository.

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Actions Usage Metrics public beta

Customers desire clear, relevant, and actionable insights about how Actions workflows are being used in their organization. Today, we are thrilled to announce that Actions Usage Metrics is available in public beta for GitHub Enterprise Cloud plans.

Actions Usage Metrics screenshot

Time is the most important metric for DevOps and DevEx teams. The question they want answered is, “where are all my minutes going?” Actions Usage Metrics addresses this question and others by focusing on minutes used per workflow, job, repository, runtime OS, and runner type. This data helps organizations locate areas of improvement in their software delivery lifecycle, saving time and money.

Customers can filter data by any combination of workflows, jobs, repositories, runtime OS, and runner type to view total minutes, number of jobs, workflow executions, and more. All usage metrics, filtered or not, can be downloaded as a .csv file to use with your tool of choice.

By default, organization owners can access Actions Usage Metrics. However, access permissions can be granted to other members or teams using Actions fine-grained permissions. This ensures the right level of access to Actions Usage Metrics data, enabling informed decisions and improvements.

To learn more about Actions Usage Metrics, check out our docs or head to our community discussion.

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GitHub Actions; All Actions will run on Node20 instead of Node16 by default

Node16 has been out of support since September 2023. As a result we have started the deprecation process of Node16 for GitHub Actions. We plan to migrate all actions to run on Node20 by Spring 2024.
Following on from our warning in workflows using Node16 we will start enforcing the use of Node20 rather than Node16 on the 3rd of June.

If you would like to test this ahead of timer, you can choose to set
FORCE_JAVASCRIPT_ACTIONS_TO_NODE20=true
as an ‘env’ in their workflow or as an environment variable on your runner machine to force the use of Node20 now.

To opt out of this and continue using Node16 while it is still available in the runner, you can choose to set ACTIONS_ALLOW_USE_UNSECURE_NODE_VERSION=true
as an ‘env’ in their workflow or as an environment variable on your runner machine. This will only work until we upgrade the runner removing Node16 later in the spring.

Removal of Operating System support for non-Node20 OS versions

To support this change, we will be removing the Action runner support for the following operating systems which do not have official support for Node20:
– Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
– CentOS 7
– Oracle Linux 7
– Debian 9
– Ubuntu 16.04
– Linux Mint 18
– openSUSE 15
– SUSE Enterprise Linux (SLES) 12 SP2
– Windows 7 64-bit
– Windows 8.1 64-bit

To find out more about our currently supported OS versions, please read our public docs

What you need to do

For Actions maintainers: Update your actions to run on Node20 instead of Node16 (Actions configuration settings)
For Actions users: Update your workflows with latest versions of the actions which runs on Node20 (Using versions for Actions)

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Actions Fine Grained Permissions

We’ve enhanced Custom Organization Roles by adding fine-grained permissions for GitHub Actions. Now, with Enterprise Cloud plans, organization owners can assign members and teams specific permissions for managing various aspects of Actions, including:

  • Actions general settings
  • Organization runners and runner groups
  • Actions secrets
  • Actions variables

These additional settings allow organization owners to delegate CI/CD automation management responsibilities to individuals or teams without granting access to any other organization owner privileges.

Please refer to our documentation for more detail about GitHub Actions fine grained permissions with Custom Organization Roles.

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Deprecation notice: v1 and v2 of the artifact actions

On December 14, 2023, GitHub Actions released v4 of the actions to upload and download artifacts. This version improves upload/download speeds by up to 98%, addresses long-standing customer feedback requests, and represents the future of artifacts in GitHub Actions.

With the introduction of v4, we will be deprecating v1 and v2 of actions/upload-artifact, actions/download-artifact, and related npm packages on June 30, 2024. We strongly encourage customers to update their workflows to begin using v4 of the artifact actions.

In order to prevent issues for customers using GitHub Connect, the tags for v1 through v2 will not be removed from the actions/upload-artifact and actions/download-artifact project repositories. However, attempting to use a version of the actions after the announced deprecation date will result in a workflow failure. This deprecation will not impact any existing versions of GitHub Enterprise Server being used by customers.

This announcement will also be added to actions/upload-artifact and actions/download-artifact. Please visit the documentation to learn more about storing workflow data as artifacts in Actions.

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GitHub Actions: macOS 14 (Sonoma) is now available

The macOS 14 runner image is now available for GitHub hosted runners. Workflows executed on this image will run exclusively on the 3 vCPU M1 runner announced earlier today. To use the runner, simply update the runs-on: key in your YAML workflow file to macos-14, macos-14-xlarge, or macos-14-large.

The macOS 12 runner image will remain latest until migration of the latest YAML workflow label to macOS 14 in Q2 FY24 (April – June 2024). While macOS 13 is now generally available under the macos-13 label, this image will not be migrated to latest. Following this announcement, macOS 11 runner image will begin deprecation immediately with retirement expected to complete by June 2024.

The full list of software available for all macOS runner images can be found here. If there is software you require that is not installed on the image, please create an issue in the runner-images repository.

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GitHub Actions: Introducing the new M1 macOS runner available to open source!

Today, GitHub is excited to announce the launch of a new M1 macOS runner! This runner is available for all plans, free in public repositories, and eligible to consume included free plan minutes in private repositories. The new runner executes Actions workflows with a 3 vCPU, 7 GB RAM, and 14 GB of storage VM, which provides the latest Mac hardware Actions has to offer. The new runner operates exclusively on macOS 14 and to use it, simply update the runs-on key in your YAML workflow file to macos-14.

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GitHub Actions – Repository Actions Runners List is now generally available

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.

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Reduce job queue times with newly updated ‘min’ attribute in Action-Runner-Controller

The min attribute in Action-Runner-Controller is now updated to enhance system responsiveness and efficiency. Previously, the min attribute was focused on determining the minimum number of runners that the system could scale down to during periods of inactivity. This meant that when there were few to no jobs running, the system would maintain this minimum number of runners, which could be either active or idle.

The new behavior of the min attribute shifts focus to maintaining a minimum number of idle runners at all times. This means that even when there are many jobs in progress, the system will ensure that a certain number of runners are always idle and ready to immediately take on new jobs. This change allows for smoother handling of incoming jobs, reducing wait times and improving overall job processing efficiency.

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GitHub Actions – Artifacts v4 is now Generally Available

We listened to your feedback and released new versions (v4) of actions/upload-artifact and actions/download-artifact. While this version of the artifact actions includes up to 10x performance improvements and several new features, there are also key differences from previous versions that may require updates to your workflows.

  • Artifacts will be scoped to a job rather than a workflow. This allows the artifact to become immediately available to download from the API after being uploaded, which was not possible before.
  • Artifacts v4 is not cross-compatible with previous versions. For example, an artifact uploaded using v3 cannot be used with actions/download-artifact@v4.
  • Using upload-artifact@v4 ensures artifacts are immutable, improving performance and protecting objects from corruption, which would often happen with concurrent uploads. Artifacts should be uploaded separately and then downloaded into a single directory using the two new inputs, pattern and merge-multiple, available in download-artifact@v4. These objects can then be re-uploaded as a single artifact.
  • A single job can upload a maximum of 500 artifacts.

Customers will still be able to use v1 – v3 of the artifact actions. If you wish to upgrade your workflow to use v4, please carefully consider the impact the aforementioned major version changes will have on your project and any downstream dependencies.

Artifacts v4 is only available to GitHub.com customers today but we will be extending support to GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES) customers in the future.

To learn more about what is included in v4, visit the actions/upload-artifact and actions/download-artifact repositories.

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