Lab: Runner - Self-Hosted

Introduction

In this lab, you will create and execute a GitHub Actions workflow that runs on a self-hosted runner. This lab demonstrates how to print custom messages and gather system-level information from your own environment. Self-hosted runners give you full control over the hardware and software your workflows run on.

Estimated Duration: 20–30 minutes (includes setup if self-hosted runner is not yet configured)

Prerequisites

📘 Learn how to add a self-hosted runner

Instructions

Step 1: Set up your repository

  1. Navigate to your GitHub repository where you want to create the workflow.
  2. If you don’t have one, create a new repository by clicking + > New repository.

Step 2: Create the workflow file

  1. In the repository, click the Code tab.

  2. Navigate to the .github/workflows/ directory.

    • If the directory doesn’t exist, create it.
    • Then click Add file > Create new file and name it: .github/workflows/runner-self-hosted.yml

  3. Paste the following YAML content into the editor:

    name: Runner - Self Hosted

on: workflow_dispatch

jobs:
  run:
    runs-on: self-hosted
    steps:
      - run: echo "This is a message from self hosted runner"
      - name: Display OS Information
        run: |
          systeminfo

  4. Click Commit new file to save the workflow.

Step 3: Understand the workflow

  1. Workflow name: Runner - Self Hosted
  2. Trigger: workflow_dispatch – it must be triggered manually.
  3. Runner: Executes on a machine tagged as self-hosted.

  4. Steps:

    • Echoes a custom message.
    • Runs the systeminfo command to print operating system details (Windows environment expected).

Step 4: Trigger the workflow manually

  1. Go to the Actions tab in your repository.
  2. Click on Runner - Self Hosted in the workflow list.
  3. Click the Run workflow button and confirm to trigger it.

Step 5: View the output

  1. Once the run starts, click the most recent execution.

  2. Expand the run job to view the logs:

    • You should see the custom message.
    • You’ll also see system details such as OS version, RAM, processor info, and more from systeminfo.

📝 If the workflow stays queued or fails to find a runner, ensure your self-hosted runner is properly configured and online.

Summary

In this lab, you created and executed a GitHub Actions workflow on a self-hosted runner. This allowed you to access local system resources and have greater control over the runtime environment compared to GitHub-hosted runners.

Additional Resources