TL;DR: The thing that finally broke me wasn't the compute minute cap itself — it was watching a critical hotfix sit in the queue for 14 minutes during a Friday afternoon deploy because every shared runner was saturated. GitLab's free tier gives you 400 minutes per month on shared runne 📖 Reading time: ~31 min What's in this article Why I Stopped Using GitLab's Shared Runners What You Actually Need Before Starting Step 1 — Install the GitLab Runner Binary Step 2 — Register the Runner with Your GitLab Instance Step 3 — Configure the Runner for Docker Executor Step 4 — Write a .gitlab-ci.yml That Actually Uses Your Runner The Rough Edges I Hit (And How to Fix Them) Locking Down the Runner: Security Basics You Shouldn't Skip Why I Stopped Using GitLab's Shared Runners The thing that finally broke me wasn't the compute minute cap itself — it was watching a critical hotfix sit in the queue for 14 minutes during a Friday afternoon deploy because every shared runner was saturated.…