diff --git a/.github/workflows/npm-types.yml b/.github/workflows/npm-types.yml
index a943633beac..54fd73eefec 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/npm-types.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/npm-types.yml
@@ -56,10 +56,8 @@ jobs:
             bazel-disk-cache-types-${{ runner.os }}-
 
       - name: install dependencies
-        if: runner.os == 'Linux'
         run: |
             export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
-            sudo apt-get install -y build-essential git clang libc++-dev
       - name: build types
         run: |
             bazel build --disk_cache=~/bazel-disk-cache  --remote_cache=https://bazel:${{ secrets.BAZEL_CACHE_KEY }}@bazel-remote-cache.devprod.cloudflare.dev //types:types
diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yml b/.github/workflows/release.yml
index d95ad29aa0c..177b58f4b02 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/release.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/release.yml
@@ -55,7 +55,6 @@ jobs:
         if: runner.os == 'Linux'
         run: |
           export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
-          sudo apt-get install -y build-essential git lsb-release wget software-properties-common gnupg
           wget https://apt.llvm.org/llvm.sh
           chmod +x llvm.sh
           sudo ./llvm.sh 14
diff --git a/.github/workflows/test.yml b/.github/workflows/test.yml
index e3dc45e4776..b4ee72bfb89 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/test.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/test.yml
@@ -41,9 +41,10 @@ jobs:
         # limited.
         # libunwind, libc++abi1 and libc++1 should be automatically installed as dependencies of
         # libc++, but this appears to cause errors so they are also being explicitly installed.
+        # Since the GitHub runner image comes with a number of preinstalled packages, we don't need
+        # to use APT much otherwise.
         run: |
             export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
-            sudo apt-get install -y build-essential git lsb-release wget software-properties-common gnupg
             wget https://apt.llvm.org/llvm.sh
             chmod +x llvm.sh
             sudo ./llvm.sh 14