Code review raised two upgrade consequences of no longer stamping actions.github.com/integrity-hash. Both are real, and neither is covered by a test, so cover them. The AutoscalingRunnerSet reconciler compares a live listener's annotations against the desired ones exactly, so a listener created by an older controller is replaced on the first reconcile after an upgrade. That rollout is one-time rather than a loop, because the replacement is built by the same path and carries no annotation. It is not additional either: the listener runs the manager's own image, so a controller upgrade already forces the same recreation through the Spec comparison. Reconcilers that update objects in place merge live annotations under the desired ones, so the annotation survives on objects that already carry it. Nothing reads it any more, so it is inert metadata; stripping it would mean patching every managed object on upgrade, which is a separate decision. Both tests were mutation-checked: re-stamping the annotation fails the first, and stripping the key in mergeAnnotations fails the second. Co-authored-by: Copilot App <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Actions Runner Controller (ARC)
About
Actions Runner Controller (ARC) is a Kubernetes operator that orchestrates and scales self-hosted runners for GitHub Actions.
With ARC, you can create runner scale sets that automatically scale based on the number of workflows running in your repository, organization, or enterprise. Because controlled runners can be ephemeral and based on containers, new runner instances can scale up or down rapidly and cleanly. For more information about autoscaling, see "Autoscaling with self-hosted runners."
You can set up ARC on Kubernetes using Helm, then create and run a workflow that uses runner scale sets. For more information about runner scale sets, see "Deploying runner scale sets with Actions Runner Controller."
People
Actions Runner Controller (ARC) is an open-source project currently developed and maintained in collaboration with the GitHub Actions team, external maintainers @mumoshu and @toast-gear, various contributors, and the awesome community.
If you think the project is awesome and is adding value to your business, please consider directly sponsoring community maintainers and individual contributors via GitHub Sponsors.
If you are already the employer of one of the contributors, sponsoring via GitHub Sponsors might not be an option. Just support them by other means!
See the sponsorship dashboard for the former and the current sponsors.
Getting Started
To give ARC a try with just a handful of commands, please refer to the Quickstart guide.
For an overview of ARC, please refer to About ARC.
With the introduction of autoscaling runner scale sets, the existing autoscaling modes are now legacy. The legacy modes have certain use cases and will continue to be maintained by the community only.
For further information on what is supported by GitHub and what's managed by the community, please refer to this announcement discussion.
Documentation
ARC documentation is available on docs.github.com.
Legacy documentation
The following documentation is for the legacy autoscaling modes that continue to be maintained by the community:
- Quickstart guide
- About ARC
- Installing ARC
- Authenticating to the GitHub API
- Deploying ARC runners
- Adding ARC runners to a repository, organization, or enterprise
- Automatically scaling runners
- Using custom volumes
- Using ARC runners in a workflow
- Managing access with runner groups
- Configuring Windows runners
- Using ARC across organizations
- Using entrypoint features
- Deploying alternative runners
- Monitoring and troubleshooting
Contributing
We welcome contributions from the community. For more details on contributing to the project (including requirements), please refer to "Getting Started with Contributing."
Troubleshooting
We are very happy to help you with any issues you have. Please refer to the "Troubleshooting" section for common issues.