[FinOps] Support for time-based minRunners configuration in Actions Runner Controller

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Context

Currently, the Actions Runner Controller allows setting a fixed minRunners value to ensure availability of self-hosted runners. While this is useful for maintaining baseline capacity, it lacks flexibility for time-based scaling — an important requirement for organizations practicing FinOps and infrastructure cost optimization.

In many real-world scenarios, CI/CD workloads follow predictable usage patterns, such as high activity during business hours and low usage at night or on weekends. Maintaining a constant number of idle runners during off-hours leads to unnecessary cloud infrastructure costs.

Feature Proposal

Introduce support for configuring time-based minimum runner counts, allowing users to define different minRunners values based on the time of day and day of the week.

Suggested Configuration Format (example):

minRunners:
  - days: [Mon-Fri]
    time: "08:00-18:00"
    minRunners: 5
  - days: [Mon-Fri]
    time: "18:00-08:00"
    minRunners: 1
  - days: [Sat-Sun]
    minRunners: 0

Benefits

• Cost Optimization: Avoids over-provisioning runners during low-demand periods.

• FinOps Alignment: Encourages responsible usage of cloud infrastructure by adapting to real usage patterns.

• Automation: Reduces the need for custom scripts (e.g. cron jobs adjusting replicas manually).

• Flexibility: Allows more granular control over runner availability aligned to business hours.

Technical Considerations

• This could be implemented as a scheduler-like component or enhancement to the existing reconciler loop.

• Time evaluation could use the cluster timezone or support configurable timezone settings.

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