Ability to specify the runner image version.

[woblerr]

GitHub Actions currently provides multiple runner images with different OS and pre-installed toolchains. However, these images are continuously updated, which can lead to unexpected bugs. For example, #11471

Currently, we can specify an image by operating OS (e.g., ubuntu-latest, ubuntu-22.04, etc), but we can't specify a specific image version (20250120.5.0, etc).

This functionality would be useful for troubleshooting.

For example, image support may be limited to only the last 3 versions of each image.

[lakshminarayana02]

Hi
GitHub does not support pinning specific images versions , the only option is that you can control the OS version by specifying ubuntu-24.04 or ubuntu-22.04 , ubuntu-latest etc in your workflow

Why specific images version aren't recommended:

• If there are errors, reproducing them can be challenging.
• It can cause unexpected behaviour or disrupt existing workflows.
• OS runner images, always maintain the latest tools/packages version that is compatible with the respected OS versions.

[woblerr]

Hi

It's currently difficult to determine if issues are caused by the new runner image version or your code.

The only way to check is by running old pipelines on previous commits.
If they don't work in the new version of runner, it's most likely a problem with runner.
But this method isn't a direct debugging method.

Instead of specifying the image version, there could be a checkbox: run on the previous runner version, or something similar.