Add macOS-13 (arm64) & macOS-14 (arm64) & macOS-15 (arm) Image to Azure Pipelines

[Nathan-Molby]

Tool name

macos-13-arm64

Add or update?

• [X] Add
• [ ] Update

Desired version

macos-13-arm64

Brief description of tool

The macos-13-arm64 image was briefly enabled last month for Azure Pipelines and ran Xcode tests roughly 3x faster and significantly more reliably than the macos-13 (x86) image.

Additionally, given that most iOS developers are using M1/M2/M3 chips, it would be great to be able to use the same architecture in the pipelines that our machines are using.

Accordingly, please re-enable the macos-13-arm64 image and commit to providing long-term support for an arm64 runner in order to support iOS developers using Azure Pipelines.

Platforms where you need the tool

• [X] Azure DevOps
• [ ] GitHub Actions

Runner images where you need the tool

• [ ] Ubuntu 20.04
• [ ] Ubuntu 22.04
• [ ] macOS 11
• [ ] macOS 12
• [X] macOS 13
• [ ] Windows Server 2019
• [ ] Windows Server 2022

[qwertylolman]

Thumbs up, we really need this agent :(

[FuzzyKart]

Thumbs up! For the short period that we have used it, it's really boosted our work!

[mikhailkoliada]

cc @Steve-Glass @mmrazik to comment on this

[Steve-Glass]

macos-13-arm64 is not a supported macOS agent for Azure Pipelines. All supported macOS agents are documented here.

[Saratsin]

macos-13-arm64 is not a supported macOS agent for Azure Pipelines. All supported macOS agents are documented here.

That is the very reason why this change ticket was created. And such response with ticket closing is at least a bit rude. @mikhailkoliada could you please re-open the ticket? I would be nice to at least consider a possibility of adding of the macOS-13-arm64 agent, or giving more relevant answer (not just stating the fact that it is absent)

[Nathan-Molby]

@Steve-Glass

We are aware that currently macos-13-arm64 is not supported on Azure Pipelines. The point of this ticket is to add it, or at least provide some clarity if an Arm64 image will ever be supported Azure Pipelines.

As discussed in the original post, having an Arm64 image provides many benefits to iOS developers. If Azure Pipelines does not plan on providing support for this image, we will have to switch to using GitHub Actions as the benefits for running on Arm64 are too big to ignore.

Please provide clarity on if Azure Pipelines will support an Arm64 image, and if so, a timeline for the release of that.

[qwertylolman]

Arm64 image provides many benefits to iOS developers

to be clear, not only for iOS developers but for Xamarin and Flutter developers as well.

[joshuapoq]

We're being actively redirected to raise tickets about this here. So closing this ticket directly contradicts that...

[Steve-Glass]

@Nathan-Molby My apologies for the previously short response. With regard to this question:

Please provide clarity on if Azure Pipelines will support an Arm64 image, and if so, a timeline for the release of that.

I am not aware of any plans for Azure Pipelines to support an arm64 image. However, I can escalate this request with my contacts for clarification. Many staff are OOO for holidays and I do not expect a response until the new year. We can re-open this issue to track progress.

We're being actively redirected to raise tickets about this here. So closing this ticket directly contradicts that...

Is the Azure Pipelines HD redirecting you to this repository?

[joshuapoq]

Is the Azure Pipelines HD redirecting you to this repository?

We were previously redirected to follow the progress / raise issues for the beta release of macos-12 and 13 images from the Developer Community forums. Specifically for this issue from this issue.

Customers choosing to use Beta images are encouraged to provide feedback in the runner-images repo by creating an issue.

We've also had a similar suggestion from emails via our SP to raise issues here for the runners. Both kind of stem from a misunderstanding of our issue but arm64 runners would improve a lot of the problems Apple have been causing.

[Nathan-Molby]

@Steve-Glass how can we go about re-opening this issue in order to track progress?

[asos-chrisblackmore]

@Steve-Glass Hey! You left this comment on https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/8439 back in October:

This will happen but the date is TBD. GitHub is responsible for the provisioning of all Mac hardware in Azure data centers. Our team is ramping up capacity in preparation forhttps://github.com/github/roadmap/issues/819. Once we reach the GA milestone, we will start working on additional plans to support open source, along with new macOS runners.

That slightly contradicts the message you left last week on this issue:

I am not aware of any plans for Azure Pipelines to support an arm64 image. However, I can escalate this request with my contacts for clarification. Many staff are OOO for holidays and I do not expect a response until the new year. We can re-open this issue to track progress.

Could you clarify whether Azure (at minimum) is planning to support Apple Silicon at all? Or is it the date of the delivery that's unknown as opposed to the commitment of the delivery?

[xernaj]

Eagerly awaiting an official response/roadmap whether apple silicon will ever be on ADO microsoft-hosted agents. As it stands the alternatives are:

1. continue to use ADO but use self-hosted agents
2. move away from ADO to github actions or xcode cloud

[ondererguven]

In my organisation our mobile apps are small yet on a good day our test pipelines take around 30 min. to complete IF it doesn't fail. A clean build + running unit tests for the project takes 1~2 min. locally whereas the tests sometimes timeout on Azure.

It would be really good to know what's the plan, if at all there is any?

I simply cannot move to a different solution unless I can make my case, and to make my case I need to know what's gonna happen and what's not gonna happen from MS/Github side.

Wish you a Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a happy New Year

[esheri3]

What is the plan to support ARM64?

[Steve-Glass]

@mikhailkoliada Can we reopen this issue for tracking?

@asos-chrisblackmore My apologies for the confusion. My first comment was in relation to making M1 runners available for GitHub for use in public repositories (open source), not other platforms. I am a member of the GitHub team and can't speak to when new capabilities will be available for Azure pipelines. I am back from holiday and will find someone who can provide a response to this question for you.

@Steve-Glass Hey! You left this comment on #8439 back in October:

This will happen but the date is TBD. GitHub is responsible for the provisioning of all Mac hardware in Azure data centers. Our team is ramping up capacity in preparation forhttps://github.com/github/roadmap/issues/819. Once we reach the GA milestone, we will start working on additional plans to support open source, along with new macOS runners.

That slightly contradicts the message you left last week on this issue:

I am not aware of any plans for Azure Pipelines to support an arm64 image. However, I can escalate this request with my contacts for clarification. Many staff are OOO for holidays and I do not expect a response until the new year. We can re-open this issue to track progress.

Could you clarify whether Azure (at minimum) is planning to support Apple Silicon at all? Or is it the date of the delivery that's unknown as opposed to the commitment of the delivery?

[radeva]

Hi all, you can use FlyCI's M1 and M2 runners. Our runners are on average 2x faster and 2x cheaper than GitHub's and we already support macos-13.

Install Instructrions

• Install the FlyCI GitHub app.
• Modify the runs-on directive in workflow files as demonstrated in this PR.
• Enjoy 2x faster and 2x cheaper MacOS workflow runs!

Easily replace GitHub's runners:

jobs:
 ci:
-    runs-on: macos-latest
+    runs-on: flyci-macos-large-latest-m1
   steps:
   - name: 👀 Checkout repo
     uses: actions/checkout@v4

500 mins/month Free for Public Repos

If your repo is public, then FlyCI offers 500 mins/month of free M1 runner usage with the flyci-macos-large-latest-m1 runner.

Best Regards, Veselina Radeva Product Manager at FlyCI

[mosinms7711]

Any update on this? When we can get this? It is impacting the creation of MAUI iOS build.Net 8. macOS-13 takes so much time and sometimes it results in cancelling the build automatically.

[asos-chrisblackmore]

@Steve-Glass Did you manage to find someone who can respond to our questions re. Azure?

[StephenHodgson]

I'm not able to run automated builds and publish without arm64 support

[TsvetoslavVasev]

Any updates on this? This impacts our organization as well and its a critical issue

[haavamoa]

I am also able to run automated build and publish without arm16 support with .NET MAUI iOS 8.0. But the azure providers are very slow when requiring macOS-13, which has now resulted in our entire release for next week to be blocked.

macOS-13 takes so much time and sometimes it results in cancelling the build automatically.

[MihaiEros]

@Steve-Glass any updates on this? How many weeks should we wait for an update? 😕

[mosinms7711]

@StephenHodgson is macOS-14 available in Azure Pipelines?

[guilhermezanellato]

Any updates? I tried to use the image "macOS-14" on Azure Pipeline, but got the error message: "An image label with the label macOS-14 does not exist".

[vlad-buhaescu-qoob]

I need that as well, looking forward for it

[Mo0Khaled]

Any updates?

[asos-chrisblackmore]

It's now been over a month with no reply :(

[ondererguven]

Well by end of April, Apple makes it mandatory to build apps with Xcode 15 and iOS 17.

I tested our pipeline on Azure yesterday using the macOS-13 image and Xcode 15.2. It still fails because of how slow the machine is 🤗

As a cloud CI/CD provider it’s wonderful how Azure doesn’t offer the latest platforms, OS and tools to their customers.

All we need is Apple Silicon machines running macOS 13/14 and maybe the latest Xcode set as the default IDE.

[muellnes]

Also this ticket is even more important as instrumented tests for VisionOS require Apple Silicon.