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This version of GitHub Enterprise Server will be discontinued on 2025-08-27. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features, upgrade to the latest version of GitHub Enterprise Server. For help with the upgrade, contact GitHub Enterprise support.

About self-hosted runners

You can host your own runners and customize the environment used to run jobs in your GitHub Actions workflows.

A self-hosted runner is a system that you deploy and manage to execute jobs from GitHub Actions on GitHub.

Self-hosted runners:

  • Are free to use with GitHub Actions, but you are responsible for the cost of maintaining your runner machines.
  • Let you create custom hardware configurations that meet your needs with processing power or memory to run larger jobs, install software available on your local network.
  • Receive automatic updates for the self-hosted runner application only, though you may disable automatic updates of the runner.
  • Can use cloud services or local machines that you already pay for.
  • Don't need to have a clean instance for every job execution.
  • Can be organized into groups to restrict access to specific workflows, organizations, and repositories. See Managing access to self-hosted runners using groups.
  • Can be physical, virtual, in a container, on-premises, or in a cloud.

You can use self-hosted runners anywhere in the management hierarchy. Repository-level runners are dedicated to a single repository, while organization-level runners can process jobs for multiple repositories in an organization. Organization owners can choose which repositories are allowed to create repository-level self-hosted runners. See Disabling or limiting GitHub Actions for your organization. Finally, enterprise-level runners can be assigned to multiple organizations in an enterprise account.

Next steps

To get hands-on experience with the policies and usage of self-hosted runners, see Getting started with self-hosted runners for your enterprise

To find information about the requirements and supported software and hardware for self-hosted runners, see Self-hosted runners reference.