Introduction

GitLab group runners are a type of GitLab Runner that are registered at the group level and are available to all projects and subgroups within that specific GitLab group. They are distinct from shared runners (available to all groups and projects in a GitLab instance) and project runners (associated with specific projects).

Key characteristics of GitLab group runners:

• Scope:

  They can execute CI/CD jobs for any project or subgroup within the group they are registered to.

• Management:

  They are managed by users with sufficient permissions (e.g., Maintainer or Owner) at the group level. As the owner, you have the permissions to create, register, configure, and manage these runners. This includes tasks such as setting up the runner's environment, managing its tags, and monitoring its usage.

• Visibility:

  They are visible and can be enabled for use by all projects and subgroups within the group.

• Benefits:

  They offer a centralized way to manage CI/CD resources for multiple projects within a group, promoting consistency and potentially reducing overhead compared to managing individual project runners.

How they work:

• A GitLab Runner application is installed and registered with a GitLab instance.
• During registration, the runner is specifically associated with a particular GitLab group.
• When a CI/CD pipeline job is initiated in a project or subgroup within that group, the job is assigned to an available group runner (or other available runners based on configuration and tags).
• The runner executes the job as defined in the .gitlab-ci.yml file and sends the results back to the GitLab instance.