Skip to content
Elastic Fruit Runner

Getting Started

This tutorial takes you from an empty Mac to one completed GitHub Actions job. You will also use the Console to see what the runner is doing.

What you need

Section titled “What you need”
  • A Mac with Apple Silicon
  • Homebrew
  • Tart
  • A GitHub organization where you have admin access
  • A GitHub Personal Access Token with Organization Self hosted runners read and write access

Install Tart before you continue:

Terminal window
brew install cirruslabs/cli/tart

Check that Tart is ready:

Terminal window
tart --version

You should see a version number.

Install Elastic Fruit Runner

Section titled “Install Elastic Fruit Runner”
Terminal window
brew install boring-design/tap/elastic-fruit-runner

Check the installed path:

Terminal window
command -v elastic-fruit-runner

The command should print the Homebrew binary path.

Create the config

Section titled “Create the config”

Create the config directory:

Terminal window
mkdir -p ~/.elastic-fruit-runner

Create ~/.elastic-fruit-runner/config.yaml with this content. Replace your-org and ghp_xxx with your own values.

orgs:
  - org: your-org
    auth:
      pat_token: ghp_xxx
    runner_group: Default
    runner_sets:
      - name: efr-macos-arm64
        backend: tart
        image: ghcr.io/cirruslabs/macos-tahoe-xcode:26.3
        labels: [self-hosted, macos, arm64]
        max_runners: 2


idle_timeout: 15m
log_level: info

Elastic Fruit Runner checks the config when it starts. If a field is not valid, the local log names the field and the problem.

Start the service

Section titled “Start the service”
Terminal window
brew services start elastic-fruit-runner

Check the service:

Terminal window
brew services info elastic-fruit-runner

The output should show Running: true.

Set up the Console

Section titled “Set up the Console”

The first start writes a one time setup code to the local log.

Terminal window
grep '"msg":"console admin setup required"' /opt/homebrew/var/log/elastic-fruit-runner.log | tail -n 1

Open http://127.0.0.1:8080. Enter the setup code, choose an admin password, and sign in.

The Overview page should show:

  • One configured runner set
  • The GitHub connection state
  • No running job yet
  • Current host resources
  • Config state In sync

Run your first workflow

Section titled “Run your first workflow”

In a repository that belongs to the configured organization, create .github/workflows/test-efr.yaml:

name: Test Elastic Fruit Runner
on:
  workflow_dispatch:


jobs:
  hello:
    runs-on: efr-macos-arm64
    steps:
      - run: |
          echo "Hello from Elastic Fruit Runner"
          sw_vers
          uname -m

Open the Actions page in GitHub, select Test Elastic Fruit Runner, and choose Run workflow.

Watch the job

Section titled “Watch the job”

Return to the Console and open Jobs. The new job moves through its lifecycle while the Tart VM starts and runs the workflow.

Open the job to see:

  • Repository and workflow name
  • Runner set and runner name
  • Start and completion times
  • Runner log
  • Available resource data
  • A link back to GitHub Actions

Confirm the result

Section titled “Confirm the result”

Wait for the job to finish. The Jobs page should show Success.

Open the job in GitHub Actions. Its output should contain the macOS version and arm64.

You now have an elastic macOS runner and a working operations Console.

Continue

Section titled “Continue”