GitHub offers free ARM64 runners (ubuntu-24.04-arm) for public repositories since August of this year (see reference below).
We can replace the self-hosted ARM64 runner infrastructure for smoke tests and simplify the workflows.

Current state

• template-arm64-smoke-tests.yml - runs ARM64 smoke tests on self-hosted ARM64 runner
• template-versions-smoke-tests.yml - runs AMD64 smoke tests on ubuntu-latest
• pr-e2e.yml - uses self-hosted ARM64 runner for build-test-images and run-arm-smoke-test jobs

Proposed changes

• Consolidate ARM64 and AMD64 smoke tests into a unified matrix job
• Replace self-hosted ARM64 with ubuntu-24.04-arm
• Delete template-arm64-smoke-tests.yml (covered by matrix)

Benefits

• No self-hosted runner maintenance for smoke tests
• Kind images are multi-arch, so the same workflow steps work on both architectures
• Simplified workflow structure

References

• https://github.blog/changelog/2024-09-03-github-actions-arm64-linux-and-windows-runners-are-now-generally-available/
• https://github.blog/changelog/2024-01-17-arm-hosted-runners-for-github-actions-are-now-in-public-beta/