actions-marketplace-validations/On-demand self-hosted AWS EC2 runner for GitHub Actions

GitHub Action for automatic creation and registration AWS EC2 instance as a GitHub Actions self-hosted runner.

Trust Signals

Scorecard Score: not yet scored
Maintenance Recency: Activelast commit Apr 10, 2026
License: MIT

Pinned Snippet

workflow.ymlSHA-pinned

uses: actions-marketplace-validations/machulav_ec2-github-runner@343a1b2ae682e681c3cec9a235d882da17ff04ef # no releases — HEAD as of 2026-07-13

tags can be moved; commit SHAs can't. why a SHA?

Inputs

name	description	required	default
mode	Specify here which mode you want to use: - 'start' - to start a new runner; - 'stop' - to stop the previously created runner.	yes	—
github-token	GitHub Personal Access Token with the 'repo' scope assigned.	yes	—
availability-zones-config	JSON string array of objects with configurations for multiple availability zones. Each object should contain 'imageId', 'subnetId', and 'securityGroupId'. Optionally, you can specify 'region' to launch the instance in a specific AWS region. If 'region' is not specified, the default AWS_REGION environment variable will be used. Example: '[{"imageId":"ami-123","subnetId":"subnet-123","securityGroupId":"sg-123"},{"imageId":"ami-456","subnetId":"subnet-456","securityGroupId":"sg-456","region":"us-west-2"}]' When provided, the action will try each configuration in sequence until a successful instance is launched. This takes precedence over individual ec2-image-id, subnet-id, and security-group-id parameters.	no	—
ec2-image-id	EC2 Image Id (AMI). The new runner will be launched from this image. This input is required if you use the 'start' mode and don't provide availability-zones-config.	no	—
ec2-instance-type	EC2 Instance Type. This input is required if you use the 'start' mode.	no	—
subnet-id	VPC Subnet Id. The subnet should belong to the same VPC as the specified security group. This input is required if you use the 'start' mode and don't provide availability-zones-config.	no	—
security-group-id	EC2 Security Group Id. The security group should belong to the same VPC as the specified subnet. The runner doesn't require any inbound traffic. However, outbound traffic should be allowed. This input is required if you use the 'start' mode and don't provide availability-zones-config.	no	—
label	Name of the unique label assigned to the runner. The label is used to remove the runner from GitHub when the runner is not needed anymore. This input is required if you use the 'stop' mode.	no	—
ec2-instance-id	EC2 Instance Id of the created runner. The id is used to terminate the EC2 instance when the runner is not needed anymore. This input is required if you use the 'stop' mode.	no	—
iam-role-name	IAM Role Name to attach to the created EC2 instance. This requires additional permissions on the AWS role used to launch instances.	no	—
aws-resource-tags	Tags to attach to the launched EC2 instance and volume. This must be a stringified array of AWS Tag objects, with both Key and Value fields, for example: '[{"Key": "TagKey1", "Value": "TagValue1"}, {"Key": "TagKey2", "Value": "TagValue2"}]'	no	[]
runner-home-dir	Directory that contains actions-runner software and scripts. E.g. /home/runner/actions-runner.	no	—
pre-runner-script	Specifies bash commands to run before the runner starts. It's useful for installing dependencies with apt-get, yum, dnf, etc.	no	—
market-type	Specifies the market (purchasing) option for the instance: - 'spot' - Use a spot instance	no	—
block-device-mappings	JSON string specifying the block device mappings for the EC2 instance. Example: '[{"DeviceName": "/dev/sda1", "Ebs": {"VolumeSize": 100, "VolumeType": "gp3"}}]'	no	—
startup-quiet-period-seconds	Specifies the quiet period in seconds after the instance starts. The runner will not be registered during this period.	no	—
startup-retry-interval-seconds	Specifies the retry interval in seconds to register the runner after the quiet period.	no	—
startup-timeout-minutes	Specifies the timeout in minutes to register the runner after the quiet period.	no	5
run-runner-as-service	Start the runner as a service rather than using ./run.sh as root.	no	false
run-runner-as-user	Specify user under whom the runner service should run	no	—
ec2-volume-size	EC2 volume size in GB.	no	—
ec2-device-name	EC2 block device name.	no	/dev/sda1
ec2-volume-type	EC2 block device type.	no	—
metadata-options	JSON string specifying the metadata options for the EC2 instance. Example: '{"HttpTokens": "required", "HttpEndpoint": "enabled", "HttpPutResponseHopLimit": 2, "InstanceMetadataTags": "enabled"}'	—	—
packages	JSON array of packages to install via cloud-init. Example: '["git", "docker.io", "nodejs"]'	no	[]
use-jit	Enable JIT (Just-In-Time) runner configuration. Uses GitHub's generate-jitconfig API instead of the traditional registration-token approach. JIT runners are single-use and auto-deregister after completing one job. Incompatible with 'run-runner-as-service: true'.	no	false
runner-group-id	The ID of the runner group to register the JIT runner in. Defaults to 1, which is the "Default" runner group for repository-level runners. Only used when 'use-jit' is true.	no	1
runner-debug	Enable verbose debug logging for the runner setup. When true, outputs detailed instance info, console output polling, and step-by-step script execution logs.	no	false

Outputs

name	description
label	Name of the unique label assigned to the runner. The label is used in two cases: - to use as the input of 'runs-on' property for the following jobs; - to remove the runner from GitHub when it is not needed anymore.
ec2-instance-id	EC2 Instance Id of the created runner. The id is used to terminate the EC2 instance when the runner is not needed anymore.
region	AWS region where the EC2 instance was created. This is useful for subsequent AWS operations on the instance.