diff --git a/.gitea/workflows/deploy.yml b/.gitea/workflows/deploy.yml
index 59ff66fa..4876d81a 100644
--- a/.gitea/workflows/deploy.yml
+++ b/.gitea/workflows/deploy.yml
@@ -11,8 +11,17 @@ jobs:
   deploy:
     runs-on: self-hosted
     steps:
+      # Manual checkout - works without Node.js
       - name: Checkout code
-        uses: actions/checkout@v3
+        run: |
+          echo "📥 Checking out repository..."
+          if [ -d ".git" ]; then
+            git fetch origin
+            git checkout ${{ github.ref_name }}
+            git reset --hard origin/${{ github.ref_name }}
+          else
+            git clone --branch ${{ github.ref_name }} --single-branch ${{ github.server_url }}/${{ github.repository }}.git .
+          fi
 
       - name: Determine environment
         id: env
diff --git a/.gitea/workflows/test-runner.yml b/.gitea/workflows/test-runner.yml
index 90fb877b..0ac3cc68 100644
--- a/.gitea/workflows/test-runner.yml
+++ b/.gitea/workflows/test-runner.yml
@@ -11,22 +11,41 @@ jobs:
   test-basic:
     runs-on: self-hosted
     steps:
+      # Manual checkout - works without Node.js
       - name: Checkout code
-        uses: actions/checkout@v3
+        run: |
+          echo "📥 Checking out repository..."
+          if [ -d ".git" ]; then
+            git fetch origin
+            git checkout ${{ github.ref_name }}
+            git reset --hard origin/${{ github.ref_name }}
+          else
+            git clone --branch ${{ github.ref_name }} --single-branch ${{ github.server_url }}/${{ github.repository }}.git .
+          fi
 
       - name: Test basic runner
         run: |
           echo "✅ Runner is working!"
           echo "Runner OS: $(uname -a)"
-          echo "Docker version: $(docker --version)"
+          echo "Docker version: $(docker --version || echo 'Docker not available')"
           echo "Current directory: $(pwd)"
           echo "Git branch: $(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)"
+          echo "Git commit: $(git rev-parse --short HEAD)"
 
   test-php:
     runs-on: php-ci
     steps:
+      # Manual checkout - works without Node.js
       - name: Checkout code
-        uses: actions/checkout@v3
+        run: |
+          echo "📥 Checking out repository..."
+          if [ -d ".git" ]; then
+            git fetch origin
+            git checkout ${{ github.ref_name }}
+            git reset --hard origin/${{ github.ref_name }}
+          else
+            git clone --branch ${{ github.ref_name }} --single-branch ${{ github.server_url }}/${{ github.repository }}.git .
+          fi
 
       - name: Test PHP environment
         run: |
@@ -34,5 +53,5 @@ jobs:
           php -v
           composer --version
           echo "PHP Extensions:"
-          php -m | grep -E "(pdo|redis|zip|gd|mbstring)"
+          php -m | grep -E "(pdo|redis|zip|gd|mbstring)" || echo "Some extensions not found"