Reusable workflow call jobs not dispatched to self-hosted runners

[rhod9rz]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

ARC (Actions Runner Controller)

Discussion Details

This 'simple' action works on my self-hosted runner.

It's running locally in docker on my laptop and created from here:
https://github.com/Azure/avm-container-images-cicd-agents-and-runners/tree/main/github-runner-aca

name: simple
on:
  workflow_dispatch: {}
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: self-hosted
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Run a one-line script
        run: echo Hello, world!

✔ This job executes immediately and completes successfully on the self-hosted runner.

---

However, reusable workflows do not dispatch jobs to the same 'self-hosted' runner pool, but work fine on 'ubuntu-latest'.

name: level-1
on:
  workflow_dispatch: {}
jobs:
  call_validate:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/level-2.yml
    with:
      message: "hello from caller"

name: level-2
on:
  workflow_call:
    inputs:
      message:
        required: true
        type: string
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: self-hosted
    # runs-on: ubuntu-latest # this works
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Print message
        run: echo "${{ inputs.message }}"

The job just sits there:

Requested labels: self-hosted
Job defined at: rhod9rz-org/iac-9-github/.github/workflows/level-2.yml@refs/heads/main
Reusable workflow chain:
rhod9rz-org/iac-9-github/.github/workflows/level-1.yml@refs/heads/main (be00213210c9ef86a774ad441f07424e597bb59e)
-> rhod9rz-org/iac-9-github/.github/workflows/level-2.yml@refs/heads/main (be00213210c9ef86a774ad441f07424e597bb59e)
Waiting for a runner to pick up this job...
Evaluating call_validate.if
Evaluating: success()
Result: true
Evaluating call_validate.test.if
Evaluating: success()
Result: true

---

❌ Observed Behaviour

When using reusable workflows (workflow_call):

• The job is created successfully
• Workflow is evaluated successfully (success() = true)
• No errors are shown in workflow logs
• However, the job remains stuck in:
  Waiting for a runner to pick up this job...
• Runner logs show no job being received (no "Running job" entry)
• Runner is idle and polling correctly

---

✔ Key Observations

• Self-hosted runner is healthy and successfully executes non-reusable workflows
• Reusable workflow executes correctly on GitHub-hosted runners (ubuntu-latest)
• Issue is isolated to reusable workflow → self-hosted runner dispatch path only
• No authentication, permission, or syntax errors are present
• Job is created but never appears in runner queue

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[Rightpartners]

Than you very much