Remove default labels on GitHub self hosted runner

Question

When creating a new self-hosted runner for GitHub (enterprise), some default labels (Windows, X64, self-hosted) are automatically added. I can also add custom labels with the --labels parameter.

The thing is that I would like to reserve this runner for some specific workflows, but without restricting the repositories where it can be called. Because some projects use this default labels to choose runner, I would like to remove them.

I tried to find where this labels are created, but I'm fearing they are created server-side and that I would not have control over them...

Did anybody deal with a similar situation?

Thank you.

Answer 1

The support for not adding default labels to self-hosted runners, was added in this PR:

https://github.com/actions/runner/pull/2443

It should become available in the next stable release that includes this change.

To use it, pass in:

--no-default-labels 

to the config.sh script, when configuring the self hosted runner. Opting out of the default labels makes the --labels option, mandatory.

Answer 2

You cannot remove the default labels. If this runner is meant to be used exclusively by specific repos, then move them into a Runner Group and only allow that groups to be used by those repos.

No other way to configure that at the moment.