GitHub Runner Images

Custom GitHub Actions runner images for Actions Runner Controller (ARC).

This repo currently builds and publishes one practical ubuntu-latest-style runner image for ARC. It is not a byte-for-byte clone of GitHub-hosted runners, but it covers the common toolchain most self-hosted workflows need:

• Official actions-runner base image
• Ubuntu userland and common build tooling
• git, gh, curl, jq, zip, unzip, make, build-essential
• python3, pip, venv
• node latest LTS
• go
• temurin latest LTS JDK
• .NET latest LTS SDK
• powershell
• docker CLI, buildx, compose
• kubectl and helm

Image

• Image definition: images/ubuntu-latest
• Published image: ghcr.io/aliktb/github-runner-images-ubuntu-latest

The image is currently pinned to Ubuntu 24.04-era packages and common current tooling versions. The folder name stays ubuntu-latest because that is how it will usually be referenced by consumers.

Version policy:

• Use the official actions-runner base image
• Prefer the latest LTS major where a tool has an LTS track
• Prefer current stable releases for tools without an LTS model
• Avoid trying to exactly mirror every package on GitHub-hosted runners

Current defaults in the image:

• Node.js 24 LTS
• Temurin 25 LTS
• .NET 10 LTS
• Go 1.26.4

Local Build

docker build -t github-runner-images:test images/ubuntu-latest

The image has been verified to build locally with docker build.

Publishing

This repo includes a workflow that builds and publishes the image to GHCR on:

• pushes to main
• version tags like v1.2.3
• manual workflow_dispatch

The published image name is:

ghcr.io/aliktb/github-runner-images-ubuntu-latest

The package is published with OCI source metadata so GHCR associates it with this repository.

The workflow:

• builds on pull requests without pushing
• pushes latest, branch, tag, and SHA tags on main and version tags
• uses the repository GITHUB_TOKEN to publish to GHCR

For workflows that use Docker-based actions or container: jobs, you still need ARC container mode configured appropriately, usually dind or Kubernetes mode. This image includes the Docker CLI, but it does not embed a daemon.