• The new runner registration workflow
• Estimated time frame for planned changes
• Prevent your runner registration workflow from breaking
• Using registration tokens after GitLab 17.0
• Runners registered with a registration token will continue to work after 18.0
• Changes to the gitlab-runner register command syntax
• Impact on autoscaling
• Impact on existing runners
• Creating runners programmatically
• Installing GitLab Runner with Helm chart

Migrating to the new runner registration workflow

In GitLab 16.0, we introduced a new runner creation workflow that uses runner authentication tokens to register runners. The legacy workflow that uses registration tokens is deprecated and will be removed in GitLab 18.0.

For information about the current development status of the new workflow, see epic 7663.

For information about the technical design and reasons for the new architecture, see Next GitLab Runner Token Architecture.

If you experience problems or have concerns about the new runner registration workflow, or if the following information is not sufficient, you can let us know in the feedback issue.

The new runner registration workflow

For the new runner registration workflow, you:

1. Create a runner directly in the GitLab UI.
2. Receive a runner authentication token.
3. Use the runner authentication token instead of the registration token when you register a runner with this configuration. Runner managers registered in multiple hosts appear under the same runner in the GitLab UI, but with an identifying system ID.

The new runner registration workflow has the following benefits:

• Preserved ownership records for runners, and minimized impact on users.
• The addition of a unique system ID ensures that you can reuse the same authentication token across multiple runners. For more information, see Reusing a GitLab Runner configuration.

Estimated time frame for planned changes

• In GitLab 15.10 and later, you can use the new runner registration workflow.
• In GitLab 17.0, we plan to disable runner registration tokens.
• In GitLab 18.0, we plan to completely remove support for runner registration tokens.

Prevent your runner registration workflow from breaking

Until GitLab 17.0, you can still use the legacy runner registration workflow.

In GitLab 17.0, the legacy runner registration workflow will be disabled automatically. You will be able to manually re-enable the legacy runner registration workflow for a limited time. For more information, see Using registration tokens after GitLab 17.0.

If no action is taken before your GitLab instance is upgraded to GitLab 17.0, then your runner registration workflow will break.

To avoid a broken workflow, you must:

1. Create a shared runner and obtain the authentication token.
2. Replace the registration token in your runner registration workflow with the authentication token.

Using registration tokens after GitLab 17.0

To continue using registration tokens after GitLab 17.0:

• On GitLab.com, you can manually re-enable the legacy runner registration process in the top-level group settings until GitLab 18.0.
• On GitLab self-managed, you can manually re-enable the legacy runner registration process in the Admin Area settings until GitLab 18.0.

Plans to implement a UI setting to re-enable registration tokens are proposed in issue 411923

Runners registered with a registration token will continue to work after 18.0

Existing runners will not be affected by these changes, they will still work even after the legacy registration method is removed.

Changes to the gitlab-runner register command syntax

The gitlab-runner register command will stop accepting registration tokens and instead accept new runner authentication tokens generated in the GitLab runners administration page. The runner authentication tokens are recognizable by their glrt- prefix.

When you create a runner in the GitLab UI, you specify configuration values that were previously command-line options prompted by the gitlab-runner register command. These command-line options have been deprecated.

If you specify a runner authentication token with:

• the --token command-line option, the gitlab-runner register command does not accept the configuration values.
• the --registration-token command-line option, the gitlab-runner register command ignores the configuration values.

Authentication tokens have the prefix, glrt-.

To ensure minimal disruption to your automation workflow, legacy-compatible registration processing triggers if a runner authentication token is specified in the legacy parameter --registration-token.

Example command for GitLab 15.9:

gitlab-runner register \
    --non-interactive \
    --executor "shell" \
    --url "https://gitlab.com/" \
    --tag-list "shell,mac,gdk,test" \
    --run-untagged "false" \
    --locked "false" \
    --access-level "not_protected" \
    --registration-token "GR1348941C6YcZVddc8kjtdU-yWYD"

In GitLab 15.10 and later, you create the runner and some of the attributes in the UI, like the tag list, locked status, and access level. In GitLab 15.11 and later, these attributes are no longer accepted as arguments to register.

The following example shows the new command:

gitlab-runner register \
    --non-interactive \
    --executor "shell" \
    --url "https://gitlab.com/" \
    --token "glrt-2CR8_eVxiioB1QmzPZwa"

Impact on autoscaling

In autoscaling scenarios such as GitLab Runner Operator or GitLab Runner Helm Chart, the registration token is replaced with the runner authentication token generated from the UI. This means that the same runner configuration is reused across jobs, instead of creating a runner for each job. The specific runner can be identified by the unique system ID that is generated when the runner process is started.

Impact on existing runners

Existing runners will continue to work as usual. This change only affects registration of new runners.

Creating runners programmatically

In GitLab 15.11 and later, you can use the POST /user/runners REST API to create a runner as an authenticated user. This should only be used if the runner configuration is dynamic or not reusable. If the runner configuration is static, you should reuse the runner authentication token of an existing runner.

For instructions about how to automate runner creation and registration, see the tutorial, Automate runner creation and registration.

Installing GitLab Runner with Helm chart

Several runner configuration options cannot be set during runner registration. These options can only be configured:

• When you create a runner in the UI.
• With the user/runners REST API endpoint.

The following configuration options are no longer supported in values.yaml:

## All these fields are DEPRECATED and the runner WILL FAIL TO START if you specify them
runnerRegistrationToken: ""
locked: true
tags: ""
maximumTimeout: ""
runUntagged: true
protected: true

If you store the runner authentication token in secrets, you must also modify them.

In the legacy runner registration workflow, fields were specified with:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: gitlab-runner-secret
type: Opaque
data:
  runner-registration-token: "REDACTED" # DEPRECATED, set to ""
  runner-token: ""

In the new runner registration workflow, you must use runner-token instead:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: gitlab-runner-secret
type: Opaque
data:
  runner-registration-token: "" # need to leave as an empty string for compatibility reasons
  runner-token: "REDACTED"