If you require additional software packages on GitHub-hosted runners, you can create a job that installs the packages as part of your workflow.
To see which packages are already installed by default, see About GitHub-hosted runners.
This guide demonstrates how to create a job that installs additional software on a GitHub-hosted runner.
Installing software on Ubuntu runners
The following example demonstrates how to install an apt package as part of a job.
name: Build on Ubuntu on: push jobs: build: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Check out repository code uses: actions/checkout@v4 - name: Install jq tool run: | sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install jq Note
Always run sudo apt-get update before installing a package. In case the apt index is stale, this command fetches and re-indexes any available packages, which helps prevent package installation failures.
Installing software on macOS runners
The following example demonstrates how to install Brew packages and casks as part of a job.
name: Build on macOS on: push jobs: build: runs-on: macos-latest steps: - name: Check out repository code uses: actions/checkout@v4 - name: Install GitHub CLI run: | brew update brew install gh - name: Install Microsoft Edge run: | brew update brew install --cask microsoft-edge Installing software on Windows runners
The following example demonstrates how to use Chocolatey to install the GitHub CLI as part of a job.
name: Build on Windows on: push jobs: build: runs-on: windows-latest steps: - run: choco install gh - run: gh version