Pantheon release notes

Elasticsearch is now available as a Beta add-on for WordPress sites on Pantheon. This integration is powered by ElasticPress, the leading Elasticsearch solution for WordPress.

What's included?

ElasticPress offloads search queries from your database to Elasticsearch, improving WP_Query performance and reducing load on your application server. Capabilities include:

• Full-text search — Fuzzy matching, synonyms, and weighted fields for more relevant search results.
• Instant Search — Real-time search-as-you-type results without full page reloads.
• WP_Query integration — Elasticsearch can handle WP_Query requests, reducing database load and improving page load times.
• Faceted filtering — Narrow results by category, tag, custom taxonomy, and other attributes.
• WooCommerce support — Product search and filtering for WooCommerce storefronts.
• Related content — Surface related posts and pages automatically.
• Custom content indexing — Index posts, pages, custom post types, and custom fields.

Who has access?

Elasticsearch is available to WordPress sites on Performance Small plans and above, including Elite.

How to enable it

Elasticsearch can be enabled in two ways:

• From the dashboard — Navigate to Site Settings → Add-Ons and activate Elasticsearch. Connection credentials are configured automatically.

• From Terminus — Use the search command:

Once enabled, install and activate the ElasticPress plugin in your WordPress admin and run your initial content sync. No manual credential configuration is required — EP_HOST, EP_INDEX_PREFIX, and EP_CREDENTIALS are set automatically across all environments.

Documentation

For setup instructions and additional guidance, see Elasticsearch on Pantheon.

Starting today, all Dev and Multidev environments that have not yet been upgraded to PHP Runtime Generation 2 will be auto-upgraded over the course of this week. Opting out is no longer available.

What's next?

• April 13, 2026: Auto-upgrades will begin for Test and Live environments

We strongly recommend using this week to verify your site on Dev and Multidev before Test and Live environments are upgraded.

Action Required

If you have not already reviewed your site's compatibility with Generation 2, please check the Known Changes and Requirements and address any issues in your Dev or Multidev environments this week.

PHP 8.5 is now available on the Pantheon platform. You can set PHP 8.5 as the version to use for your site via your pantheon.yml file.

Key changes in PHP 8.5:

• OPcache is now built into PHP core and no longer requires a separate extension package.
• Pipe operator (|>) for improved function chaining.
• curl_close() and imagedestroy() are deprecated but remain functional. These will emit deprecation notices but do not affect site behavior.

For more information on supported PHP versions and how to upgrade, refer to PHP on Pantheon.

Tika config support for disabling OCR

Tika 3 enables OCR (Optical Character Recognition) via Tesseract by default, which can significantly increase processing times for PDFs and image-based documents. A bundled tika-config.xml is now available on all Pantheon environments to disable OCR:

Pass it to Tika using the --config flag:

See External Libraries: Apache Tika for details.

Search API Attachments module update for Drupal

Drupal sites using the Search API Attachments module can now disable OCR directly from the admin UI. Version 10.0.8 adds a Path to Tika configuration file field at /admin/config/search/search_api_attachments. Set it to /opt/pantheon/tika/tika-config.xml

Tika 1.x no longer available starting April 28, 2026

Tika 1.18 and 1.21 are being removed from the platform:

• April 28, 2026 — tika_version: 1 in pantheon.yml will be ignored. Sites will automatically use Tika 3.
• May 12, 2026 — tika_version: 1 in pantheon.yml will be rejected.

PHP version 8.4.19 is now available on the platform. This update includes bug fixes and enhancements that improve performance and stability. Updates will be applied automatically over the next few days, so no manual action is required.

PHP 8.4 is only available with the new PHP Runtime Generation 2.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for dashboard authentication is now available to all Pantheon users. You can now opt in to MFA from your personal account settings to add an extra layer of security to your Pantheon login - no matter how you sign in.

What's new?

MFA is now available as an opt-in security feature for all Pantheon users. Once enabled, you'll be required to verify your identity with an authenticator app each time you log in to the Pantheon dashboard.

Key details:

• Available to all users - MFA is not limited to any login method. Whether you sign in with email and password, Google, or another method, you can opt in.
• Set at the user level - MFA is a personal account setting, not a workspace setting. Each user manages their own MFA enrollment independently.
• Authenticator app supported - We currently support TOTP-based authenticator apps.
• Opt-in - MFA is voluntary. You can enable or disable it at any time from your personal settings.

For more details, see related documentation.

Following a successful Alpha phase, the next-generation Global CDN (GCDN) is now entering Beta. The new GCDN introduces bot protection by default — meaning sites that migrate will automatically benefit from bot detection and mitigation without any additional configuration or cost.

What's included

• Automated bot detection and scoring — Incoming traffic is automatically evaluated and scored, with managed challenges issued to suspicious requests.
• Verified bot identification — Legitimate bots (such as search engine crawlers) are recognized and allowed through while unverified bots are challenged.

Action Required

Eligible sites will see a banner at the site level in the Pantheon dashboard. To participate in the Beta:

1. Look for the GCDN Beta banner on your eligible site.
2. Click the banner and follow the guided steps.
3. Update your DNS records to point to the new GCDN infrastructure.

During the Beta, DNS-01 TXT record validation is the only supported method for domain verification. You will need to add TXT records to your DNS provider to verify domain ownership.

Known limitations

• Traffic metrics — The traffic metrics page in the Pantheon dashboard will not reflect GCDN Beta traffic during the initial Beta period. Traffic metrics for migrated sites will be restored in a future update.

Eligibility

The following configurations are not eligible for the GCDN Beta at this time:

• Sites using Advanced Global CDN (AGCDN), WAF, or Security Starter packages
• Sites with Multi Zone Failover enabled
• Sites using Custom Certificates

More information

To learn more about the new GCDN Beta with Bot Protection, see our beta documentation page on our docs site.

Terminus 4.1.8 is now available. This patch release adds a warning when creating sites without specifying an organization, ahead of the Q2 2026 requirement that all sites belong to an organization.

Key improvements in this release

• site:create --org warning: Warns users when site:create is called without the --org option, and provides a clear error message if the backend rejects the request. The --org option help text now indicates the upcoming requirement. (#2786)

How to upgrade to Terminus 4.1.8

If you use Homebrew (macOS-only) to manage your Terminus installation, you should upgrade using:

If you installed Terminus directly from the .phar file, you should upgrade using the self:update command:

For more information about this release, visit the GitHub release page.

If you have questions or concerns around Terminus, please use the Terminus issue queue.