diff --git a/.github/workflows/build.yml b/.github/workflows/build.yml
index 1f16d9bf399..e59532597b1 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/build.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/build.yml
@@ -14,6 +14,10 @@ concurrency:
   group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.event_name }}-${{ github.event_name == 'push' && github.sha || github.ref }}
   cancel-in-progress: true
 
+defaults:
+  run:
+    shell: bash
+
 jobs:
   interop-prep:
     if: github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' || github.event_name == 'workflow_dispatch'
@@ -44,7 +48,7 @@ jobs:
           path: cmd/ipfs/ipfs
   interop:
     needs: [interop-prep]
-    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    runs-on: ${{ fromJSON(github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' && '["self-hosted", "linux", "x64", "2xlarge"]' || '"ubuntu-latest"') }}
     timeout-minutes: 20
     defaults:
       run:
@@ -75,7 +79,7 @@ jobs:
           npm install ipfs-interop@^10.0.1
         working-directory: interop
       # Run the interop tests while ignoring the js-js interop test cases
-      - run: npx ipfs-interop -- -t node --grep '^(?!.*(js\d? -> js\d?|js-js-js))'
+      - run: npx ipfs-interop -- -t node --grep '^(?!.*(js\d? -> js\d?|js-js-js))' --parallel
         env:
           LIBP2P_TCP_REUSEPORT: false
           LIBP2P_ALLOW_WEAK_RSA_KEYS: 1
@@ -156,7 +160,7 @@ jobs:
         working-directory: go-ipfs-http-client
   ipfs-webui:
     needs: [interop-prep]
-    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    runs-on: ${{ fromJSON(github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' && '["self-hosted", "linux", "x64", "2xlarge"]' || '"ubuntu-latest"') }}
     timeout-minutes: 20
     env:
       NO_SANDBOX: true
@@ -191,14 +195,26 @@ jobs:
           key: ${{ runner.os }}-${{ github.job }}-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}
           restore-keys: |
             ${{ runner.os }}-${{ github.job }}-
-      - run: |
-          npm ci --prefer-offline --no-audit --progress=false
-          npx playwright install
+      - env:
+          NPM_CACHE_DIR: ${{ steps.npm-cache-dir.outputs.dir }}
+        run: |
+          npm ci --prefer-offline --no-audit --progress=false --cache "$NPM_CACHE_DIR"
+          npx playwright install --with-deps
+        working-directory: ipfs-webui
+      - id: ref
+        run: echo "ref=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)" | tee -a $GITHUB_OUTPUT
         working-directory: ipfs-webui
-      - name: Run ipfs-webui@main build and smoke-test to confirm the upstream repo is not broken
-        run: npm test
+      - id: state
+        env:
+          GITHUB_REPOSITORY: ipfs/ipfs-webui
+          GITHUB_REF: ${{ steps.ref.outputs.ref }}
+          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ github.token }}
+        run: |
+          echo "state=$(curl -L -H "Authorization: Bearer $GITHUB_TOKEN" "https://api.github.com/repos/$GITHUB_REPOSITORY/commits/$GITHUB_REF/status" --jq '.state')" | tee -a $GITHUB_OUTPUT
+      - name: Build ipfs-webui@main (state=${{ steps.state.outputs.state }})
+        run: npm run test:build
         working-directory: ipfs-webui
-      - name: Test ipfs-webui@main E2E against the locally built Kubo binary
+      - name: Test ipfs-webui@main (state=${{ steps.state.outputs.state }}) E2E against the locally built Kubo binary
         run: npm run test:e2e
         env:
           IPFS_GO_EXEC: ${{ github.workspace }}/cmd/ipfs/ipfs
diff --git a/.github/workflows/gobuild.yml b/.github/workflows/gobuild.yml
index f1e3a60b776..8591213c4b2 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/gobuild.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/gobuild.yml
@@ -12,12 +12,9 @@ concurrency:
   cancel-in-progress: true
 
 jobs:
-  go-build-runner:
-    if: github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' || github.event_name == 'workflow_dispatch'
-    uses: ipfs/kubo/.github/workflows/runner.yml@master
   go-build:
-    needs: [go-build-runner]
-    runs-on: ${{ fromJSON(needs.go-build-runner.outputs.config).labels }}
+    if: github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' || github.event_name == 'workflow_dispatch'
+    runs-on: ${{ fromJSON(github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' && '["self-hosted", "linux", "x64", "4xlarge"]' || '"ubuntu-latest"') }}
     timeout-minutes: 20
     env:
       TEST_DOCKER: 0
diff --git a/.github/workflows/gotest.yml b/.github/workflows/gotest.yml
index 81c39fd5e51..b20dca2a38e 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/gotest.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/gotest.yml
@@ -12,12 +12,9 @@ concurrency:
   cancel-in-progress: true
 
 jobs:
-  go-test-runner:
-    if: github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' || github.event_name == 'workflow_dispatch'
-    uses: ipfs/kubo/.github/workflows/runner.yml@master
   go-test:
-    needs: [go-test-runner]
-    runs-on: ${{ fromJSON(needs.go-test-runner.outputs.config).labels }}
+    if: github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' || github.event_name == 'workflow_dispatch'
+    runs-on: ${{ fromJSON(github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' && '["self-hosted", "linux", "x64", "2xlarge"]' || '"ubuntu-latest"') }}
     timeout-minutes: 20
     env:
       TEST_DOCKER: 0
@@ -41,8 +38,11 @@ jobs:
         with:
           name: ${{ github.job }}
       - name: 👉️ If this step failed, go to «Summary» (top left) → inspect the «Failures/Errors» table
+        env:
+          # increasing parallelism beyond 2 doesn't speed up the tests much
+          PARALLEL: 2
         run: |
-          make -j 2 test/unit/gotest.junit.xml &&
+          make -j "$PARALLEL" test/unit/gotest.junit.xml &&
             [[ ! $(jq -s -c 'map(select(.Action == "fail")) | .[]' test/unit/gotest.json) ]]
       - name: Upload coverage to Codecov
         uses: codecov/codecov-action@81cd2dc8148241f03f5839d295e000b8f761e378 # v3.1.0
diff --git a/.github/workflows/runner.yml b/.github/workflows/runner.yml
deleted file mode 100644
index 74a8b41d764..00000000000
--- a/.github/workflows/runner.yml
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,34 +0,0 @@
-name: Runner
-
-on:
-  workflow_call:
-    outputs:
-      config:
-        description: "The runner's configuration"
-        value: ${{ jobs.choose.outputs.config }}
-
-jobs:
-  choose:
-    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
-    timeout-minutes: 1
-    outputs:
-      config: ${{ steps.config.outputs.result }}
-    steps:
-      - uses: actions/github-script@v6
-        id: config
-        with:
-          script: |
-            if (`${context.repo.owner}/${context.repo.repo}` === 'ipfs/kubo') {
-              return {
-                labels: ['self-hosted', 'linux', 'x64', 'kubo'],
-                parallel: 10,
-                aws: true
-              }
-            } else {
-              return {
-                labels: ['ubuntu-latest'],
-                parallel: 3,
-                aws: false
-              }
-            }
-      - run: echo ${{ steps.config.outputs.result }}
diff --git a/.github/workflows/sharness.yml b/.github/workflows/sharness.yml
index 2d9dfb41da2..a4c2241bee4 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/sharness.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/sharness.yml
@@ -12,12 +12,9 @@ concurrency:
   cancel-in-progress: true
 
 jobs:
-  sharness-runner:
-    if: github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' || github.event_name == 'workflow_dispatch'
-    uses: ipfs/kubo/.github/workflows/runner.yml@master
   sharness-test:
-    needs: [sharness-runner]
-    runs-on: ${{ fromJSON(needs.sharness-runner.outputs.config).labels }}
+    if: github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' || github.event_name == 'workflow_dispatch'
+    runs-on: ${{ fromJSON(github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' && '["self-hosted", "linux", "x64", "4xlarge"]' || '"ubuntu-latest"') }}
     timeout-minutes: 20
     defaults:
       run:
@@ -57,7 +54,8 @@ jobs:
           TEST_EXPENSIVE: 1
           IPFS_CHECK_RCMGR_DEFAULTS: 1
           CONTINUE_ON_S_FAILURE: 1
-          PARALLEL: ${{ fromJSON(needs.sharness-runner.outputs.config).parallel }}
+          # increasing parallelism beyond 10 doesn't speed up the tests much
+          PARALLEL: ${{ github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' && 10 || 3 }}
       - name: Upload coverage report
         uses: codecov/codecov-action@81cd2dc8148241f03f5839d295e000b8f761e378 # v3.1.0
         if: failure() || success()
@@ -86,12 +84,12 @@ jobs:
       - name: Upload one-page HTML report to S3
         id: one-page
         uses: pl-strflt/tf-aws-gh-runner/.github/actions/upload-artifact@main
-        if: fromJSON(needs.sharness-runner.outputs.config).aws && (failure() || success())
+        if: github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' && (failure() || success())
         with:
           source: kubo/test/sharness/test-results/sharness.html
           destination: sharness.html
       - name: Upload one-page HTML report
-        if: (! fromJSON(needs.sharness-runner.outputs.config).aws) && (failure() || success())
+        if: github.repository != 'ipfs/kubo' && (failure() || success())
         uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
         with:
           name: sharness.html
@@ -106,18 +104,18 @@ jobs:
       - name: Upload full HTML report to S3
         id: full
         uses: pl-strflt/tf-aws-gh-runner/.github/actions/upload-artifact@main
-        if: fromJSON(needs.sharness-runner.outputs.config).aws && (failure() || success())
+        if: github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' && (failure() || success())
         with:
           source: kubo/test/sharness/test-results/sharness-html
           destination: sharness-html/
       - name: Upload full HTML report
-        if: (! fromJSON(needs.sharness-runner.outputs.config).aws) && (failure() || success())
+        if: github.repository != 'ipfs/kubo' && (failure() || success())
         uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
         with:
           name: sharness-html
           path: kubo/test/sharness/test-results/sharness-html
       - name: Add S3 links to the summary
-        if: fromJSON(needs.sharness-runner.outputs.config).aws && (failure() || success())
+        if: github.repository == 'ipfs/kubo' && (failure() || success())
         run: echo "$MD" >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
         env:
           MD: |