Scaling self-hosted runners with Kubernetes using ARC

Kubernetes is very powerful but also quite complex. Be aware that in this recipe, I will only focus on getting you started when it comes to scaling self-hosted runners in Kubernetes. If you want to run and maintain a secure environment, you will need deeper Kubernetes know-how and must take on more work, depending on your needs.

ARC is a Kubernetes operator that orchestrates and scales your self-hosted runners’ workloads. It is an open source project but it is now fully supported by GitHub.

Getting ready…

If you already have a Kubernetes cluster, you can use that. If not, you can create a new one in Azure by running the following commands:

$ az group create --name AKSCluster -l westeurope
$ az aks create --resource-group AKSCluster \
> --name AKSCluster \
> --node-count 3 \
> --enable-addons monitoring \
> --generate-ssh-keys
$ az aks get-credentials --resource-group AKSCluster --name AKSCluster...