The ubuntu-22.04 countdown

The ubuntu-22.04 and ubuntu-22.04-arm hosted runners are being retired. GitHub announced the schedule in actions/runner-images#14254:

date what happens
September 17, 2026 deprecation begins — longer queue times during peak hours
March 23 / 30, April 6 / 13, 2027 scheduled failure brownouts — jobs that run during the windows fail
April 17, 2027 fully unsupported — jobs requesting the label stop running entirely

(Dates from the announcement as of 2026-09-08; the issue is the source of truth if GitHub adjusts the schedule.)

ubuntu-latest users are not affected — it has pointed at ubuntu-24.04 since late 2024. This page is about workflows that pin the label.

How many repos are still on it?

Snapshot of 2026-09-08, static lint of the default branch of the 250 most-starred repos on GitHub (205 with analyzable workflows — same population as the state of the top 250 study):

The busiest offenders:

repo jobs pinning ubuntu-22.04* workflow files
huggingface/transformers 45 25
localsend/localsend 19 7
microsoft/playwright 19 5
coder/code-server 12 4
clash-verge-rev/clash-verge-rev 9 5
openclaw/openclaw 7 3
farion1231/cc-switch 6 3
ggml-org/llama.cpp 6 4
unslothai/unsloth 6 3
louislam/uptime-kuma 4 1

(A “job” here is one D020 finding: one runs-on: label occurrence, including labels reached through ${{ matrix.os }} values. Counts are what gha-doctor rule D020 reports with --lint-only — no run history involved.)

The one-command migration

gha-doctor flags every pinned ubuntu-22.04/ubuntu-22.04-arm label (rule D020) and --fix rewrites them to ubuntu-24.04 / ubuntu-24.04-arm — a same-architecture, mechanical swap with an unambiguous target:

$ gha-doctor --diff              # preview the patch
$ gha-doctor --fix               # apply it

No checkout handy? Lint any repo remotely and apply the patch locally:

$ gha-doctor --repo you/yourrepo --diff > bump.patch
$ git apply bump.patch           # in a clone

What --fix deliberately does not touch (you get a loud skip note instead of a silent edit):

After the bump, skim the ubuntu-24.04 image manifest if your workflow leans on preinstalled tools: the 24.04 image ships different default tool versions than 22.04 did.

While you’re in there: macos-14 dies sooner

macos-14 (+ -large/-xlarge) is on a shorter countdown — brownouts since July 6, 2026 and fully unsupported November 2, 2026 (#13518). D020 flags it too; the fix is by hand (macos-15 or macos-26 — newer images change Xcode majors, so the target is your call).

Generated by scripts/gen-runner-countdown.py from a fresh top-250 sweep. See also: rules reference · state of the top 250 · the CI waste ledger.