Blacksmith
Blacksmith is a drop‑in hosted runner platform for GitHub Actions. It provisions bare‑metal microVMs, co‑locates caches, and persists Docker layers to cut build times and compute spend, while adding a purpose‑built console for CI observability, failure forensics, and performance tuning.
Overview
Setup is minimal: connect your GitHub organization, keep runs‑on: ubuntu‑latest, and let Blacksmith provision isolated microVMs per job. Dependency caches live near your compute, Docker layers persist on NVMe, and results flow back into PRs and the console for quick triage and tuning.
Capabilities
Blacksmith suits engineering teams with heavy CI workloads: containerized microservices, monorepos with large dependency graphs, Android builds, Rust or Go toolchains, and data‑intensive tests. Platform and DevOps groups gain better cost control and visibility without assuming the operational burden of self‑hosted runners. Product teams benefit from faster PR feedback and inline failure context that shortens review cycles. Enterprises appreciate isolated execution via microVMs plus predictable performance for compliance‑sensitive pipelines.
- Provision isolated microVM runners instantly for every job with consistent performance.
- Accelerate dependency downloads by co‑locating cache artifacts with your compute.
- Persist Docker layers on NVMe to avoid rebuilding unchanged images across runs.
- Search CI logs globally to pinpoint regressions, flaky tests, and failing steps.
- Post inline failure context to pull requests to speed reviews and fixes.
Highlights
Why Choose Blacksmith
Connect your GitHub organization to Blacksmith and authorize repositories. Keep your existing workflows—runs‑on: ubuntu‑latest remains valid—while Blacksmith provisions microVMs per job. Optionally enable Docker pull‑through and layer caching. Configure cache keys for dependencies to maximize locality benefits. Use the console to monitor throughput, search logs globally, and annotate failing tests back to pull requests. Start with a free allocation of build minutes, then scale concurrency as demand grows without managing fleets of self‑hosted machines.
Drop‑in runners that make GitHub Actions faster, observable, and significantly cheaper.
Getting Started
Blacksmith stands out by pairing faster, bare‑metal GitHub Actions runners with first‑class CI observability and smart caching. It preserves developer ergonomics—no workflow rewrites—while cutting latency on dependency fetches and container builds. The console shortens diagnosis cycles with search and annotations, and the platform’s efficiency often drives meaningful cost reductions compared with GitHub‑hosted or self‑managed runners. For teams chasing faster feedback at lower spend, it’s a compelling default.
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Blacksmith
Blacksmith Software Inc builds high‑performance CI infrastructure for modern engineering teams. Backed by Y Combinator and Google Ventures, the company focuses on bare‑metal execution, cache locality, and developer‑centric observability that reduces toil. The team ships pragmatic, production‑ready tooling that improves pipeline speed, reliability, and cost.
Blacksmith replaces GitHub‑hosted runners with high‑performance, drop‑in infrastructure. Jobs execute on isolated microVMs pinned to modern bare‑metal CPUs, with near‑instant provisioning and high concurrency. Build artifacts and dependency caches are co‑located in the same data center as your workloads, and Docker layers persist across runs on NVMe storage to avoid re‑building hot paths. A dedicated console makes GitHub Actions observable: quickly surface slow or failing jobs, run global log searches, and post inline failure context back to pull requests. Teams report materially faster pipelines—helped by faster hardware, co‑located cache downloads, and significantly accelerated Docker builds—while lowering total CI spend. Processing tens of millions of jobs each month for thousands of organizations, Blacksmith targets reliability, performance, and straightforward operations without forcing workflow rewrites.
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