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Runner groups docs don't mention custom groups may not appear in legacy repo Settings → Actions → Runners page #45132
Description
Code of Conduct
- I have read and agree to the GitHub Docs project's Code of Conduct
What article on docs.github.com is affected?
https://docs.github.com/en/actions/how-tos/manage-runners/self-hosted-runners/manage-access
What part(s) of the article would you like to see updated?
The article covers moving a runner into a custom runner group, but doesn't mention a behavior several users have independently run into: after moving an org-level self-hosted runner from the Default group into a custom group, the runner stops appearing on the repository's Settings → Actions → Runners page — even when the group has "All repositories" access configured correctly.
The runner continues to route and execute jobs normally; it only disappears from that specific settings view. It still shows up correctly on the newer Actions → Management → Runners page.
It would help to add a short note under "Moving a self-hosted runner to a group" (or wherever fits best) clarifying that repository-level visibility on the legacy Settings page may not reflect custom group membership, so people don't assume their runner group permissions are misconfigured.
Additional information
Reliably reproducible - confirmed independently by at least three people with different organizations, using different custom runner group configurations (see thread below). One user explicitly tested and confirmed the runner still picks up runs-on: self-hosted jobs despite not appearing in the Settings UI, which points to this being a display-only gap rather than an access/permissions issue.
Community discussion with full repro steps and screenshots: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/201615
Activity
DhruvalAnandkar commentedon Jul 13, 2026
Quick update: the original reporter in the linked Community Discussion has now directly confirmed the underlying behavior firsthand - the runner successfully executes jobs despite not appearing in the legacy Settings → Actions → Runners page. The discussion has since been marked "Answered":
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/201615
This isn't just a single report anymore - it's an independently reproduced and now author-confirmed display gap, not an access/permissions issue. Flagging in case it's useful context for reviewing the proposed note in #45134.
Sharra-writes commentedon Jul 20, 2026
@DhruvalAnandkar I will check and see if this is a bug that needs to be fixed to begin with, and then we can talk documentation.
subatoi commentedon Aug 26, 2026
Hi @DhruvalAnandkar, and thank you for your patience
We appreciate you taking the time to write this up, but at this point, this is not something we'd add to the documentation and if we did, it would be under a new troubleshooting section. Thank you for writing up an issue before raising a PR, and for linking it to the community discussion for context; the community discussion is exactly the right place to keep tracking this, and for now, I'm going to close this issue out. Apologies this may not be the answer you were hoping for, but thank you very much for your interest in the GitHub docs 🙇
DhruvalAnandkar commentedon Aug 26, 2026
Hi @subatoi, no worries at all! Thanks for taking the time to review it, and thanks @Sharra-writes for checking it out. Have a good one!