How It Works
GitHub Actions is an event driven automation system built into GitHub. You define workflows in YAML files inside .github/workflows/ in your repository. Workflows are triggered by GitHub events (push, PR, issue, schedule, manual dispatch, or custom webhook) and run on GitHub hosted runners or your own self hosted runners.
Runner Types and Pricing
- GitHub hosted (Linux): Free for public repos. $0.008/min for private repos. 2 vCPU, 7 GB RAM standard.
- GitHub hosted (Windows): 2x Linux pricing ($0.016/min private).
- GitHub hosted (macOS): 10x Linux pricing ($0.08/min private). Required for iOS builds.
- Larger runners: 4 to 64 vCPU options at higher per minute rates. Available on Team and Enterprise plans.
- Self hosted runners: Free to use (you provide the hardware). Full control over environment and no minute limits.
Free Tier Limits
Free accounts get 2,000 minutes per month for private repos (unlimited for public repos). Team gets 3,000 minutes, Enterprise gets 50,000 minutes. Unused minutes do not roll over.
Marketplace
The GitHub Actions marketplace has 20,000+ community built actions for common tasks: deploying to AWS, Azure, or Vercel, running linters, building Docker images, sending notifications, managing releases, and much more. Most workflows can be assembled from existing actions with minimal custom code.