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Runner Autoscaling - CI/CD Glossary Definition

Runner autoscaling adds runners when jobs queue and removes them when idle, balancing CI speed against cost.

Runner autoscaling is automatically adding runner capacity when jobs queue and removing it when demand falls. It keeps CI queue times low without paying for idle machines around the clock.

The trade-off

Scaling to zero saves money but adds cold-start delay; keeping a warm pool cuts start time at some idle cost. Autoscaling tunes this balance based on real queue depth.

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