Set up and connect Buildkite agent on a Google Axion C4A Arm VM

What you’ll do in this section

In this section, you’ll configure and connect a Buildkite agent on a Google Axion C4A Arm virtual machine (VM). You’ll generate an agent token, set up the agent configuration, create a Buildkite queue, and verify that your agent is online and ready to run CI/CD jobs on Arm infrastructure.

Create an agent token

Before configuring the agent, you need an agent token from your Buildkite organization.

To create an agent token, follow these steps:

• Sign in to your Buildkite account. You can use your GitHub credentials if you prefer.
• In the left menu, select Organization settings.
• Select Agents.
• Select Create agent token.
• Enter a descriptive name for the token, such as buildkite-arm.
• Select Create token.
• Copy the token and store it securely as you won’t be able to view it again after you leave the page.

Create Buildkite agent token

Configure the Buildkite agent

Create the configuration directory and file on your local system with the commands below:

    

        
        
sudo tee /root/.buildkite-agent/buildkite-agent.cfg > /dev/null <<EOF
token="YOUR_AGENT_TOKEN"
tags="queue=buildkite-queue1"
EOF

    

Replace YOUR_AGENT_TOKEN with the token that you generated from your Buildkite Agents page.

    

        
        
bash ./config-agent.sh

    

In Buildkite tags are key-value labels that let you match pipeline steps to specific agents, ensuring jobs run only on agents with the required tag.

The name field is optional; if omitted, Buildkite will assign a default name.

Verify the configuration:

    

        
        
sudo cat /root/.buildkite-agent/buildkite-agent.cfg

    

You should see output similar to:

    

        
        # The token from your Buildkite "Agents" page
token="YOUR-GENERATED-TOKEN-VALUE"
tags="queue=buildkite-queue1"

        
    

Create a queue in Buildkite

Now that your agent is created, you can create a queue.

• Go to your Buildkite organization, select Queues, and then select Create queue.
• Enter a name for the queue, for example buildkite-queue1.
• Select Save to create the queue.

This step connects your agent to the correct queue, ensuring jobs are routed to your Arm-based Buildkite agent.

Create the Buildkite queue

Verify the agent in the Buildkite UI

First, start the agent on your local computer:

    

        
        
sudo /root/.buildkite-agent/bin/buildkite-agent start --build-path="/var/lib/buildkite-agent/builds"

    

Then, confirm the agent is visible in the Buildkite UI, by doing the following:

• In the Buildkite dashboard, select Agents from the left menu. This page lists all registered agents for your organization.
• Look for your new agent in the list and verify that its status is online and that it is assigned to the correct queue.

Confirm that the agent is online and connected to the queue buildkite-queue1.

Verify the agent

Congratulations! Your Buildkite agent is now set up and connected to your queue. You can now start using Buildkite to build multi-architecture images on your Arm-based VM. This setup enables you to run CI/CD pipelines optimized for Arm platforms, and take advantage of the performance and scalability of Arm servers.