IdeaSift

Self-hosted CI runners and artifacts linger after workflows

Teams running self-hosted GitHub Actions struggle to clean up runners left behind by cancelled or completed workflows, and shared runners can carry state into later jobs. Release artifacts may also remain after they are no longer useful. The evidence describes a homegrown age-based garbage collector and a lack of convenient cleanup, pointing to a need for reliable post-workflow cleanup.

For teams running self-hosted GitHub Actions. Mentioned from Jun 2021 to Dec 2023 on GitHub.

4 different people described this problem in 3 separate discussions.

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0 mentions in the last 12 weeks
Indie fit
6.0/10
Pain
6.5/10
Frequency
5.8/10
Willingness to pay
0.0/10
Momentum
5.0/10
Who pays
Businesses
Competition
Medium
Build difficulty
Medium

What people said

Quoted word for word. Follow a link to read the whole discussion.

  1. Without this it's basically impossible to use jitconfig without getting a lot of zombie instances when workflows get cancelled
    arianvp on GitHub (actions/runner)Dec 2023Asked for a tool
  2. Right now we have to maintain a "garbage collector" lambda which kills runners older than X hours if there are zombies runners
    jgoux on GitHub (actions/runner)Mar 2022Has a workaround
Build brief

See what to build and who will buy it

  • 2 product ideas with the smallest useful version and pricing
  • 4 places to find your first customers
  • 2 more quotes from people who have this problem
  • Current workarounds, existing solutions and risks