Reuse Github Actions self hosted runner on multiple repositories

Question

I have a Self-Hosted Github Actions runner running on my server for 1 of my repositories. But now I want to use that same runner for an other repo.

Is there a way that I can reuse that same Github Actions runner for an other repo without the need of creating a new runner?

Answer 1

Update:

This is possible as of 22nd of April 2020. You can now share runners across an organization. This allows for repositories within your organization to use those runners.

https://github.blog/2020-04-22-github-actions-community-momentum-enterprise-capabilities-and-developer-improvements/#share-self-hosted-runners-across-an-organization

Old Answer:

This is not possible as of yet, according to a Github Partner:

Currently, we have no methods to use the self-hosted runners across repositories, and also have no options to added self-hosted runners on Organization level.

Source: https://github.community/t5/GitHub-Actions/Can-one-Github-Actions-self-hosted-runner-work-for-multiple/td-p/41465

Answer 2

We're using auto-scaled self-hosted github action runners on AWS spot instances.

We've open-sourced it: https://github.com/philips-labs/terraform-aws-github-runner

One of its creators make a blog post about it with some information about the workings: https://040code.github.io/2020/05/25/scaling-selfhosted-action-runners

Once a runner is active it can pick up multiple builds from various repositories. After a while, the idle runners are terminated. When a new workflow is triggered, a github app will create a new runner and that runner will pick up the work.