Self-Hosted Runner Pools

On Cloudflare, per-run coding work executes in Cloudflare Containers by default. If you want control over where agents run, or you want to bring your own compute, Cat-Factory supports self-hosted runner pools. On the Node.js runtime there is no built-in per-run container, so repo-operating agent kinds (coder, mocker, blueprints, ci-fixer, conflict-resolver, merger, requirements-writer, analysis) run on a runner pool. Wiring one up is what turns those kinds on there.

When to use a runner pool

Reach for a runner pool when you need to:

Run agent jobs on your own infrastructure (Kubernetes, Nomad, or another scheduler).
Meet data-residency or network requirements that rule out managed containers.
Reuse existing compute capacity for execution.

How it works

A runner pool is described by a declarative manifest you register on the deployment. It holds request templates for dispatching a job, polling its status, and (optionally) releasing it, plus the auth scheme and a mapping from your scheduler's responses onto the canonical job view. A single generic adapter interprets any manifest, so there's no per-org code. See Integration Manifests for the shape.

Cat-Factory dispatches per-run jobs to the pool, which executes the executor-harness container image. That's the same payload that runs the coding agent, performs Git operations, and produces the branch the platform opens a pull request from.

Backend  ──dispatch──▶  Runner pool (K8s / Nomad / scheduler)
                          └─ executor-harness container
                               → coding agent
                               → Git operations & PR creation

Configuration

Setting	Purpose
Runner pool manifest	Describes your scheduler's dispatch/poll/release API declaratively.
Pool API credentials	Supplied at registration by logical key, stored encrypted at rest.
Container image registry + pull credentials	Where the executor-harness image is pulled from.

The manifest's structure is documented in Integration Manifests; registration is part of the Infrastructure configuration. See Configuration → Infrastructure.

Bring-your-own infrastructure

Combined with the Node.js backend and your own PostgreSQL, runner pools let you run the entire platform on infrastructure you control, while keeping the same board UI, API, and agent pipelines.

Next: give agents somewhere to test their work with Ephemeral Environments.