--- title: "Reduce GitHub Actions runner CPU usage" url: https://daily.dev/posts/reduce-github-actions-runner-cpu-usage-sqgbskprc source_url: https://www.meziantou.net/reduce-github-actions-runner-cpu-usage.htm type: article source: "Meziantou" published: 2025-12-29T12:10:43.410Z updated: 2025-12-29T12:11:03.500Z tags: ["devops", "performance", "linux", "github-actions", "bash"] reading_time: 3 upvotes: 0 comments: 0 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Reduce GitHub Actions runner CPU usage **[Meziantou](https://daily.dev/sources/meziantou)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Self-hosted GitHub Actions runners consume excessive CPU due to a busy-waiting sleep implementation that continuously checks the system clock instead of using efficient OS-level sleep functions. This can be fixed by replacing the runner's safe_sleep.sh script with a smarter version that prioritizes native sleep commands, falls back to bash built-ins like read with timeout, and only uses busy-waiting as a last resort. The solution significantly reduces idle CPU usage, though changes may be overwritten during automatic runner updates. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [1 vCPU Linux runner now generally available in GitHub Actions](https://daily.dev/posts/1-vcpu-linux-runner-now-generally-available-in-github-actions-2mmk9fdwb) · GitHub Changelog · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#devops](https://daily.dev/tags/devops), [#performance](https://daily.dev/tags/performance), [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#github-actions](https://daily.dev/tags/github-actions), [#bash](https://daily.dev/tags/bash) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/reduce-github-actions-runner-cpu-usage-sqgbskprc)