{
  "id": 8970336,
  "title": "Running GitHub Actions Runner Controller on AKS Automatic: the blog post, executed end to end",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/21/running-github-actions-runner-controller-on-aks-automatic-the-blog",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-21T17:37:04.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/sathpal_singh/running-github-actions-runner-controller-on-aks-automatic-the-blog-post-executed-end-to-end-24bp"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Step 0: prerequisites\nThe AKS engineering blog assumes you have an Azure CLI and a GitHub account. The first command is to upgrade the aks-preview extension to the latest build. If you're using an older CLI version, you might encounter issues with command execution. In my case, an upgrade to a newer CLI version resolved the issue. Next, create an AKS cluster using the 'automatic' SKU, which enables AKS Automatic features such as auto-provisioning, Azure RBAC, managed Prometheus and Grafana, and Deployment Safeguards. This process took slightly longer than expected due to the newer version of the CLI being used.\n\nStep 1: cluster creation\nCreate the AKS cluster with the specified resource group, name, and location. The cluster takes approximately 33 minutes to create, which is longer than the ten minutes mentioned in the blog post due to the use of the automatic SKU. Once created, the cluster consists of three system nodes spread across availability zones, three hosted pool nodes for managed components, and a managed Prometheus and Grafana setup. Local accounts are disabled, and you'll use kubelogin to authenticate with your Kubernetes RBAC role.\n\nStep 2: install the controller\nInstall the GitHub Actions Runner Controller using Helm and the provided values file. The initial installation may show warnings related to missing liveness and readiness probes, as well as anti-affinity and topology spread constraints being added by mutation. These are considered warn-level policies, so the installation proceeds. If you wish to suppress these warnings, you can configure livenessProbe and readinessProbe values in the controller chart, although this does not affect the functionality of the installation.",
  "summary": "On 17 September 2026 the AKS engineering blog published Running GitHub Actions Runner Controller on AKS Automatic by Steve Griffith. It is a clean guide: create an AKS Automatic cluster, install Actions Runner Controller (ARC), register a runner scale set against a GitHub repository, run a workflow, watch it scale. I followed it from a subscription that had never run AKS Automatic, and this post…",
  "key_points": [
    "AKS engineering blog requires Azure CLI and GitHub account",
    "Create AKS cluster with automatic SKU, takes ~33 minutes",
    "Install GitHub Actions Runner Controller via Helm"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}