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Boost Performance: Arm64 Runners Expand to Private Repositories, Supporting Your Development Goals

Developer managing CI/CD pipelines with new ARM64 runners.
Developer managing CI/CD pipelines with new ARM64 runners.

Unleashing Arm64 Power for Private Repositories

In a significant update for the developer community, GitHub has announced the full availability of Linux and Windows arm64 standard GitHub-hosted runners for private repositories. This expansion, detailed in a discussion initiated by samus-aran, builds upon existing macOS arm64 support, offering a powerful new avenue for teams to achieve their development goals examples related to performance and multi-architecture builds.

This update means developers can now leverage free-tier eligible arm64 runners across all their repositories, public and private. The core benefit lies in the ability to take advantage of the native performance of arm64 processors, facilitating multi-architecture builds without the overhead typically associated with virtualization or emulation. For teams focused on optimizing their CI/CD pipelines and targeting arm64 production environments, this is a game-changer.

What's New and Why It Matters for Your Development Goals

  • Expanded Support: Linux and Windows arm64 standard hosted runners are now fully supported in all repositories, extending the reach of high-performance CI/CD.
  • Resource Allocation: In private repositories, these runners come with 2 vCPUs, while public repositories benefit from 4 vCPUs, offering scalable power where needed.
  • Managed by Arm: These runners utilize arm64 processors and images directly managed by Arm, LLC, ensuring optimized performance and reliability.
  • Cost-Effective: As standard GitHub-hosted runners, their usage counts towards the free minutes included in your GitHub plan, making them an efficient choice for many projects.

This capability is particularly ideal for teams whose development goals examples include deploying containerized services to arm64 infrastructure or managing complex multi-architecture build processes. It streamlines workflows and reduces the complexity of cross-compilation, allowing developers to focus more on innovation.

Getting Started with Arm64 Runners

Integrating these new runners into your existing GitHub Actions workflows is straightforward. Simply update the runs-on field in your workflow file with one of the following supported labels:

runs-on: windows-11-arm
runs-on: ubuntu-24.04-arm
runs-on: ubuntu-22.04-arm

These runners are designed for production CI workloads, offering full support and reliability. For more comprehensive details on arm64 runners and their usage, GitHub's documentation for standard GitHub-hosted runners provides in-depth guidance.

Community Voices: Feedback and Future Directions

While the announcement was met with enthusiasm, the community discussion also highlighted areas for future improvement and current challenges. ferferga, for instance, raised a popular request for an ubuntu-arm-latest tag, similar to the existing ubuntu-latest. This reflects a common desire for simplified workflow configurations and underscores how developer experience directly impacts the efficiency of achieving development goals examples.

Another crucial piece of feedback came from jay0lee, who pointed out issues with the Windows arm64 image. Specifically, the Python cryptography library had to drop Windows arm64 wheel support due to problems with the partner image. This highlights the importance of robust and well-maintained images for critical dependencies, as issues here can significantly impede development progress and the ability to meet specific development goals examples.

Team collaborating on multi-architecture build strategies.
Team collaborating on multi-architecture build strategies.

Driving Forward with Arm64

The expansion of arm64 runners to private repositories marks a significant step forward in GitHub's commitment to providing versatile and high-performance CI/CD solutions. While initial feedback points to areas for refinement, the core offering empowers developers to build and test for arm64 targets with greater efficiency and native performance. As the ecosystem matures, we anticipate even more streamlined workflows and robust support, further enabling teams to confidently pursue their most ambitious development goals examples.