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How to configure self-hosted runners

conda-forge has access to external CI resources that can provide GPU-equipped and/or long-running builds (beyond the usual 6h limit). If your package needs a GPU to be built or tested, or its compilation times are so long that they are currently done manually off-CI, you can request access to these runners.

Request access​

Open a PR in conda-forge/admin-requests by following the instructions in the repository README.

Note you need to specify the type of resource you want access to (e.g. GPU runners, or long-running CPU builds). Once merged, this will enable the requested self-hosted Github Actions runners for your feedstock.

Configure your feedstock​

  1. In conda-forge.yml, ensure that the provider setting for the required build platform is set to github_actions
  2. In recipe/conda_build_config.yaml, configure the github_actions_labels field to specify the runs-on value for each platform, using selectors as needed. The exact values depend on which runner type you requested and are listed in conda-forge/admin-requests.
note

Some of the usual automation infrastructure is not available for self-hosted runners:

  • Due to security measurements imposed by Github, automated re-rendering is not possible when they modify Github Actions workflows. You will need to rerender it manually by running conda-smithy rerender in your machine and then commit and push the result.
  • Automerge will not function properly either.
  • The conda-forge bots may not be able to trigger the self-hosted runners.
  • Closing and reopening the PR may not work, but a maintainer with sufficient permissions can trigger it manually by pushing an empty commit.
info

Prior to conda-smithy 3.57.0, conda-forge.yml needed a github_actions.self_hosted: true field in conda-forge.yml. This is now deprecated and has no effect, so please remove it.

Example​

For example, to configure a-custom-self-hosted-provider for linux-64:

conda-forge.yml
provider:
  linux_64: github_actions
  linux_aarch64: github_actions
recipe/conda_build_config.yaml
github_actions_labels:
- a-custom-self-hosted-provider  # [linux64]
# absent value for linux-aarch64 means it will use the default; same as:
# - default  # [linux and aarch64]

Then rerender.

Real world examples​

Use this search query to find some real world examples in conda-forge.