Usage limits, billing, and administration

About billing for GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions help you automate your software development workflows in the same place you store code and collaborate on pull requests and issues. You can write individual tasks, called actions, and combine them to create a custom workflow. For more information, see "Understanding GitHub Actions" and "About GitHub Actions for enterprises."

GitHub Actions usage is free for GitHub Enterprise Server instances that use self-hosted runners. For more information, see "About self-hosted runners."

Usage limits

Usage limits apply to self-hosted runners. For more information, see "About self-hosted runners."

Artifact and log retention policy

You can configure the artifact and log retention period for your repository, organization, or enterprise account.

By default, the artifacts and log files generated by workflows are retained for 90 days before they are automatically deleted. You can adjust the retention period, depending on the type of repository:

• For public repositories: you can change this retention period to anywhere between 1 day or 90 days.

• For private and internal repositories: you can change this retention period to anywhere between 1 day or 400 days.

When you customize the retention period, it only applies to new artifacts and log files, and does not retroactively apply to existing objects. For managed repositories and organizations, the maximum retention period cannot exceed the limit set by the managing organization or enterprise.

For more information, see:

• "Managing GitHub Actions settings for a repository"
• "Configuring the retention period for GitHub Actions for artifacts and logs in your organization"
• "Enforcing policies for GitHub Actions in your enterprise"

Disabling or limiting GitHub Actions for your repository or organization

By default, after GitHub Actions is enabled on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, it is enabled on all repositories and organizations. You can choose to disable GitHub Actions or limit them to local actions only, which means that people can only use actions that exist in your repository.

For more information, see:

• "Managing GitHub Actions settings for a repository"
• "Disabling or limiting GitHub Actions for your organization"
• "Enforcing policies for GitHub Actions in your enterprise"

Disabling and enabling workflows

You can enable and disable individual workflows in your repository on GitHub.

To prevent unnecessary workflow runs, scheduled workflows may be disabled automatically. When a public repository is forked, scheduled workflows are disabled by default. In a public repository, scheduled workflows are automatically disabled when no repository activity has occurred in 60 days.

For more information, see "Disabling and enabling a workflow."