macOS 26 (Tahoe) is now available as a public beta in GitHub Actions

[erik-bershel]

Breaking changes

macOS-26 Tahoe is now available for all GitHub Actions.
You can use the macos-26 image label in your YAML to select this image.

macOS-26 Apple Silicon

jobs:
  job:
    runs-on: macos-26

jobs:
  job:
    runs-on: macos-26-xlarge

The image is marked as beta for now. It means some software can be unstable on the new platform. Also, there could be queueing issues as the capacity will be balanced only throughout the next weeks.

Target date

Thursday, September 11, 2025

The motivation for the changes

The purpose of a Beta is to collect feedback on an image before it is released to GA. The goal of a Beta is to identify and fix any potential issues that exist on that image.

Possible impact

N/A

Software difference between macOS-15 and macOS-26

Tool name	macOS 15 (Apple Silicon)	macOS 26 (Apple Silicon)	Notes
Xcode	16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 (default) 26.0	16.4 26.0 (default)	Base Xcode major release for macOS-26 is Xcode 26
Xcode CLT	16.*	26.*	Default Xcode changed to 26.0
Clang/LLVM (Xcode)	16.*	17.*	Default Xcode changed to 26.0
Clang/LLVM (Homebrew)	18.*	20.*	The most recent version is installed
GCC	12.* 13.* 14.* 15.*	13.* 14.* 15.*	Out of software support policy version was removed
Go (toolcache)	1.22* 1.23.* 1.24.* 1.25.*	1.23.* 1.24.* 1.25.*	The most recent versions are installed
Node.js (default)	22.*	24.*	The most recent version is installed
Node.js (toolcache)	18.* 20.* 22.*	20.* 22.* 24.*	The most recent versions are installed
NPM	10.*	11.*	Version associated with Node.js 24 is installed
OpenSSL	1.1.*	3.*	The most recent version is installed
Ruby (default)	3.3.*	3.4.*	The most recent version is installed
Ruby (toolcache)	3.1.* 3.2.* 3.3.* 3.4.*	3.2.* 3.3.* 3.4.*	EOL version removed
Az PowerShell	12.5.*	14.3.*	The most recent version is installed
Android NDK	26 27 28 (default)	27 28 (default)	EOL version removed

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• macOS 13
• macOS 13 Arm64
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• macOS 26 Arm64
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2025

Mitigation ways

Please report any problems with the new image to this repository.

[smarkars]

Hi When will this be available in Azure DevOps?

[erik-bershel]

Hi When will this be available in Azure DevOps?

We don't have a specific date for the Azure DevOps release at the moment. As soon as we have some confirmed information, we will announce it separately. Related issue: #8971

[waterskier2007]

Will these instances have Apple Intelligence enabled and the required language model data downloaded?

[jared-ca]

In Azure DevOps macos-latest is now two major OS versions behind. macos-15 is still technically in preview and there are no Apple Silicon image available despite the architecture change happening almost 5 years ago.

It would be better if Microsoft just dropped MacOS from DevOps rather than pretend it's supported, that would at least allow us to cut our losses and move over to GitHub.

[erik-bershel]

In Azure DevOps macos-latest is now two major OS versions behind. macos-15 is still technically in preview and there are no Apple Silicon image available despite the architecture change happening almost 5 years ago.

This is purely a documentation issue. ADO uses macos-15 as macos-latest, and as far as I know, it was released to GA some time ago. I'll report this to the ADO developers so they can check their documentation.

[erik-bershel]

Will these instances have Apple Intelligence enabled and the required language model data downloaded?

We haven't tested it. Neither the fact nor the technical feasibility of this. It would be great if you could verify this and submit a request to have it enabled if it's not. While the image is in beta, making these kinds of changes will be easiest.