act_runner setup (octowow.st)

Stands up a self-hosted Gitea Actions runner as a container. One runner registered at the user level serves all of your repos (GlueXML, mpq-packager, …).

Prerequisites on the runner host

Docker running. On Windows/macOS that means Docker Desktop with the Linux engine (WSL2 backend on Windows). Settings → Advanced → keep "Allow the default Docker socket to be used" enabled so the socket mount works.

1. Get a registration token

In the Gitea web UI, as your user:

avatar → Settings → Actions → Runners → Create new Runner

Copy the registration token (a long string). This is user-scoped, so the runner picks up jobs from any of your repos.

Direct link: https://octowow.st/git/user/settings/actions/runners

A repo-scoped token (repo → Settings → Actions → Runners) also works if you only want the runner tied to one repo.

2. Configure

cp .env.example .env
# edit .env: paste RUNNER_TOKEN, set RUNNER_NAME

3. Start

docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f        # watch it register

The runner should appear as Idle / online in the Runners list within a few seconds.

4. Enable Actions on each repo

Per repo: Settings → Actions → enable. New repos have it off by default.

5. Verify

Push a tag (or run a workflow) and watch it execute under the Actions tab. For mpq-packager's release flow, a v* tag on a consuming repo builds the MPQ and attaches it to a release.

Notes

First job is slow — it pulls catthehacker/ubuntu:act-latest (~1 GB) the first time; cached afterward.
runs-on labels must match GITEA_RUNNER_LABELS. We map ubuntu-latest → catthehacker/ubuntu:act-latest. Add more pairs (comma-separated) to support other labels.
Docker actions (e.g. uses: paste/mpq-packager@v1) work out of the box: act_runner builds and runs them via the mounted host socket.
Workflows that run docker CLI in a step (like this repo's own .gitea/workflows/ci.yml) need the job container to reach Docker too. The release workflow does not — it only uses the Docker action — so it's fine. Ask if you want the CI's docker-in-job case wired up.
Re-registering: delete ./data and docker compose up -d again with a fresh token.

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