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docs(releasing): what the hosted runner costs

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- public repos: standard runners free, unlimited minutes; only larger
  (4-core+) runners bill there and this workflow does not use one
- private: included minutes per plan, then per-minute; Linux x1 vs
  Windows x2 / macOS x10; each job rounds up to the next minute
- sized from a measurement: cold mkdist.sh is 3.4s on 20 cores, so
  under a minute on a 2-core runner — setup-ocaml dominates, ~3-10
  min per release, and it only runs on a tag
- release assets do not count against Actions artifact storage
- flags that rates drift; check the billing page

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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docs/guides/releasing.md
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@ -98,6 +98,28 @@ Known first-run risks, in the order they are likely to bite:
runners, absent in slim containers); and a 403 on publish, which is
step 4.
## What the hosted runner costs
**Public repository: nothing.** Standard GitHub-hosted runners are free
with unlimited minutes on public repos. Only *larger* runners (4-core
and up) are billed there, and this workflow does not ask for one.
**Private repository:** each plan includes monthly minutes — 2,000 on
Free, 3,000 on Pro and Team, 50,000 on Enterprise Cloud — then bills
per minute. Linux counts ×1, Windows ×2, macOS ×10, so staying on Linux
is also the cheap choice. Each *job* is rounded up to the next minute.
This job is small either way. A cold `scripts/mkdist.sh` measured 3.4s
on a 20-core workstation; on a 2-core runner call it well under a
minute. The real cost is `ocaml/setup-ocaml`, which is minutes cold and
under one when its opam cache hits — so budget roughly 3–10 minutes per
release, and it only ever runs on a tag. Ten releases a month is a
couple of percent of the smallest free allowance.
Release assets do **not** count against Actions artifact storage; they
live with the release. (Rates and allowances change — check the current
billing page before making a decision that depends on them.)
## Why the release job is NOT on a self-hosted runner
A self-hosted runner would work — it needs no inbound ports, polls