GitHub Actions: Apple silicon (M1) macOS runners are now available in public beta!

[tuves]

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Apple silicon (M1) hosted runners can now be used by any developer, team, or enterprise! You can try the new runners today by setting the runs-on: key to macos-latest-xlarge or macos-13-xlarge. The 12-core Intel macOS runner is still available as well and can be used by updating the runs-on: key to macos-latest-large, macos-12-large, or macos-13-large in your workflow file.

More information about using the M1 hosted runner can be found here.
To learn more about hosted runner per job minute pricing, check out the docs.

[miyajan]

Is there a way to run docker commands on the Apple silicon macOS runner?

I tried colima start to setup docker environment, but an error occurred.

https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-github-hosted-runners/about-larger-runners/about-larger-runners

Due to a limitation of Apple's Virtualization Framework, which our hypervisor uses, nested-virtualization is not supported by arm64 runners.

This limitation seems to be the cause of the error.

I need to launch a Linux VM to use docker on macOS, but the Apple silicon macOS runner does not support nested virtualization, so I can't launch a VM and can't use docker command. Is my understanding correct?

[Steve-Glass]

That is correct. As indicated in our docs, this is a limitation of Apple's Virtualization Framework, which our hypervisor uses. Nested-virtualization is not supported by arm64 runners. You can run nested virtualization using larger Linux runners: https://github.blog/changelog/2023-02-23-hardware-accelerated-android-virtualization-on-actions-windows-and-linux-larger-hosted-runners/

[miyajan]

@Steve-Glass
Thank you for your reply.

Launching an ARM64 VM and building a Docker image on an existing Linux runner is very slow, so I was hoping it would be faster on the Apple silicon macOS runner, but I understand that Docker is not available on the Apple silicon runner.

I will wait for Linux ARM64 runner support.

[pcrummett]

what's the keyword to use for the runs-on field for an M1 powered runner that isn't large or xlarge? Per-minute rates docs indicate there is a 6 vCPU option but i don't see the runs-on keyword to use. There a document indicating the keywords to use?

[Steve-Glass]

This section of the docs has the labels: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-github-hosted-runners/about-larger-runners/about-larger-runners#about-macos-larger-runners

[kgantchev]

@pcrummett FlyCI offers M2 MacOS runners that are not xlarge:

The usage is simple:

Step 1: Install the FlyCI GitHub app.
Step 2: Grant the FlyCI app permissions to your repos of choice.
Step 3: Change the runs-on flag to use the FlyCI label (see below).

jobs:
 ci:
-    runs-on: macos-latest
+    runs-on: flyci-macos-large-latest-m1
   steps:
   - name: 👀 Checkout repo
     uses: actions/checkout@v4

[fchimpan]

Hello,

I am inquiring about the API endpoint /enterprises/{enterprise}/settings/billing/actions. Is it possible to retrieve the usage information for Apple Silicon (M1) runners through this API?

Thank you for your assistance!

[ewreerturk]

Any update for this comment ?

[toomanybrians]

Are there options to use the Mac M1 runners on smaller instances which do not cost anything? I manage an open source project and we use GitHub runners to do all our builds except Mac ARM which I run locally. I would love to move our Mac ARM builds to GitHub as well but was hoping to find a way to do this can we didn't have to pay for.

Thanks!

[csukuangfj]

Any update for this comment?

[ewreerturk]

Thanks

[kgantchev]

If your repo is public, then FlyCI offers 500 mins of free M1 runners. You can also get "half" of a full runner. See my other comment for details: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/69211#discussioncomment-7941899

[kgantchev]

You can also try the FlyCI's M1 and M2 runners.

Step 1: Install the FlyCI GitHub app.
Step 2: Change the runs-on flag to use the FlyCI label (see below).

Easily get access to M2 runners:

jobs:
  ci:
-    runs-on: macos-latest
+    runs-on: flyci-macos-large-latest-m2
    steps:
      - name: 👀 Checkout repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

They're up to 2x faster and up to 2x cheaper than GitHub's.

[allinurl]

FlyCI is great — I set up their M1 for GoAccess, and it's running flawlessly.

[air3ijai]

Actions new ship 🚢 - macOS 14 (Sonoma) and the new M1 macOS runner #102846

This runner is available for all plans, free in public repositories, and eligible to consume included free plan minutes in private repositories.
The new runner executes Actions workflows with a 3 vCPU, 7 GB RAM, and 14 GB of storage VM, which provides the latest Mac hardware Actions has to offer. The new runner operates exclusively on macOS 14 and to use it, simply update the runs-on key in your YAML workflow file to macos-14.