Pantheon release notes

Pantheon introduced a new build pipeline for Front End Sites to significantly improve build times. Beginning on November 13th, 2023, newly created sites are automatically using the new pipeline and cannot opt back to the old pipeline. Sites made prior to that date can opt-in to the new pipeline to take advantage of the new features. All pre-existing sites that do not opt-in will be switched over for new builds on or around January 15th.

Additionally, we are adding support for Node 18 (for dynamic sites) and 20 (for both static and dynamic sites). To select a specific version, Pantheon is moving away from using .nvmrc and will instead look to the “engines” field in your project’s package.json file.

To find out more about adopting the new pipeline, check out our documentation, and read our blog post about how we’re already experiencing the benefits of this internally at Pantheon.

The File System team at Pantheon achieved significant speed improvements in backup processes. The Valhalla export process was overhauled, allowing backups to be constructed from new objects, cutting down export times by 25-83%. This was accomplished by initiating object retrieval immediately after receiving MANIFEST metadata, omitting empty files, and promptly archiving received files.

Visibility into composer logs has been a top customer request. Now, if you need to debug a composer build failure due to an error, install the Terminus Composer Logs plugin on your machine to view more details. Upstream Update logs are also available. Installation instructions and command usage can be found here in the plugin's GitHub repository.

Global CDN now has improved compatibility with the WPML multilingual WordPress plugin. Page variations for each language can be cached at the edge. This update was rolled out automatically for all sites that use the WPML plugin and increased site cache hit ratio by 24% on average.

Sometimes you just need more memory to serve your site reliably. To learn more about why we doubled the memory for most site plans, check out this blog by Rachel Whitton, Lead Technical Writer here at Pantheon.

To take advantage of the increased memory limit, contact our customer support team. Or drop by our regular Zoom-based office hours.

PHP 8.2.11 and 8.1.24 were released on the platform. They contain the latest bug fixes and security releases for PHP. As a reminder, PHP 8.0 will reach End-of-Life on 26 November 2023. For the best performance and security, Pantheon recommends running PHP 8.1 and above.

The Pantheon Front-End Sites Settings page is now available for users of the WordPress for Front-End project. It provides a simplified post install experience where users can copy environment variables for use in the Front-End Sites dashboard, and also test their preview endpoint. Instructions for creating a new WordPress project can be found here. Want to chat more about these kinds of sites? Join the #front-end-frameworks Slack Channel.

On September 20th, Drupal core updates were released to address a critical vulnerability in the JSON:API module. Those updates became immediately available within the Pantheon dashboard for one-click code updates. Additionally, our engineers updated our CDN to mitigate potential attacks.

If you have a Drupal site using JSON:API we suggest you update as soon as possible if you haven't done so already. And even if you aren't using JSON:API, it'll still feel good to apply an update, right? To better understand the nature of security updates, come watch the Pantheon YouTube Livestream on October 25th.