actions / actions/actions-runner-controller

Clarify how to use Runner Groups correctly

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documentation
Dominant language
Go
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

There is a lot of confusion on how runner groups work and how to correctly leverage them with ARC. Associating a repository with a runner group provides access to runners in that runner group in addition to the runners associated with Default runner group and runners in any other additional runner groups that the repository is also associated with.

Runner groups are NOT designed as a means for locking a repository to using runners not in the Default runner group i.e. custom runner groups only. If you have runners you need to protect you need by putting them in runner groups and give each set a unique label. it is totally legitamate that if you have a workflow which targets a common label like self-hosted or a custom common label then runners from the Default runner group pick up those queued jobs. If the repository is a member of 2 or more runner groups then each set of runners needs a unique label relative to each other and relative to the runners in your Default runner group.

Basically the entire system is designed around:

  • Runner groups being a way of extending runner options, not restricting runner options
  • The uniquenss of labels

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Review the existing Runner Groups and ARC documentation first, since no specific file is identified in the issue. Clarify that groups extend available runners rather than restrict them, and explain the need for unique labels across groups; the documentation is done when these behaviors and the Default group interaction are unambiguous.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
github-actions, kubernetes
Domain
ci-cd, devops, documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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