Buildkite Release notes and new features

Revoke OAuth access for your organization

Organization administrators can now revoke all existing OAuth access and refresh tokens directly from the security settings page.

• Revoke OAuth access for your organization
• More control and visibility for artifacts

Require SSO sign-in again for your organization

Organization administrators can now revoke all active SSO sessions for their organization directly from the security settings during a suspected incident.

See what's happening across your agents and queues

Buildkite has updated its queue pages to provide better visibility into agent capacity and job status. New charts allow teams to track agent and job activity over time to identify bottlenecks and manage capacity more effectively.

Filter webhook job events by queue

Buildkite added cluster queue filtering to webhooks in Notification Services and the REST API, allowing job events (scheduled, started, finished, activated, exit status) to be restricted to selected queues.

Configure OpenTelemetry at the cluster level

You can now turn on OpenTelemetry tracing for every agent in a cluster with one setting. Choose an OpenTelemetry notification service in the cluster's settings. Each agent that registers in the cluster then exports traces to that service's endpoint, using its headers, with no OTLP configuration on the agent.

Inspect matrix jobs directly on the build canvas

Matrix steps previously appeared as a single node on the build canvas, with individual jobs shown in a separate panel. Now you can expand them in place to see each job's status and duration, and navigate directly to the job. Similar to group steps , failed matrix steps now start expanded and focus on failed jobs.

Know when the Buildkite CLI is done or needs you, without watching its tab

You can now see when bk preflight or bk build watch finishes or needs you, without switching back to its tab. From Buildkite CLI v3.64.0 , bk tells your terminal what it's doing, so a terminal that supports it can show you while you work somewhere else.

• Know when the Buildkite CLI is done or needs you, without watching its tab
• Spot slow and flaky tests faster from your test suite Summary

Track your Pro plan spend and get alerted when it reaches a threshold

If your organization is on a monthly Pro plan, you can now see what your next invoice is shaping up to be before the billing period ends. Set a spend alert to get an email when the estimate reaches an amount you choose, so a busy month of builds doesn't become a surprise invoice.

Catch pipeline YAML errors before your first build with Buildkite MCP

Your AI agent can now check the pipeline YAML it writes before you commit or upload it. The Buildkite MCP Server includes validate_pipeline , a read-only tool that checks YAML syntax and structure against Buildkite's pipeline schema, without uploading the pipeline or starting a build.

• Catch pipeline YAML errors before your first build with Buildkite MCP
• Keep your focus on failures within group steps on the build canvas
• Retry jobs with narrower API token permissions

Shipped this week

Buildkite shipped 40 releases. Three themes. Diagnosis. Agents put blocking failures first and retry infrastructure failures. Desktop alerts and log summaries are more reliable. Compatibility. GitHub Actions workflows get hashFiles() in composite actions, Windows checkout fixes, and retries for temporary token failures. Control.

Buildkite MCP Server updates

Your agent can now do more of the work between a failed build and a green one. Here are the latest tool updates for the Buildkite MCP Server . See what changed since the last green build When a build fails, one of the first questions is what's different from the last one that passed. compare_builds answers it in a single call.

Monitor billable active-user usage with the Buildkite API

You can now monitor your organization's billable active-user usage programmatically and compare it with your contracted allowance. Send the count to observability tools such as Datadog to track usage over time, or include it in internal license, billing, and compliance reporting.

Weekly wrap: September 27 – October 3, 2026

What shipped this week Between September 27 and October 3, 2026, we published 4 changelog entries and 35 releases across 13 public repos. Three things run through them: more control and predictability for platform teams, fewer gaps for teams moving off GitHub Actions, and more of the platform agents can drive directly. Tightened how secrets are handled.

Buildkite agent version support policy

From 1 January 2027 , each minor release line of the Buildkite agent will be supported for one year from its first stable release . The final three months are a deprecation period: agents remain supported, with warnings encouraging you to upgrade. Installing an agent or updating to a newer patch doesn't restart that window.

• Buildkite agent version support policy
• Choose the organization for each Remote MCP Server connection
• Get notified about new macOS base image releases

Manage secrets from pipeline settings

If you can edit a pipeline and manage its associated cluster, you can now create and manage secrets directly from Pipeline settings → Secrets . Pipeline secrets are cluster secrets with access restricted to the current pipeline.

See the important parts of job logs first

Job logs on the new build page are easier to scan now that Buildkite folds de-emphasized system groups into compact rows by default. Command output and the groups you usually need remain visible, while setup and other supporting output take up less space. Select a folded row to reveal just that section in place.

Test your schedules with or without edits

Run a pipeline schedule as configured, or customize a one-off build without changing the schedule. Helpful when you need to validate your schedules before turning them on. Two actions on the schedule page make the choice clear: Run now asks for confirmation, then creates a build using the schedule's saved message, commit, branch, and environment variables.

Buildkite Helm chart: Slack App integration

The Buildkite Agent Stack for Kubernetes Helm chart now includes built-in support for Slack App integration. You can configure Slack notifications directly in your Helm values without needing a separate sidecar or custom webhook setup.

Elastic CI Stack v7 is here with Buildkite Agent v4

Elastic CI Stack for AWS v7 is now available, bringing Buildkite Agent v4 to both Linux and Windows instances. Agent v4 clears out functionality deprecated since v3 arrived in 2018 and makes supported behavior the default. New capabilities have continued shipping in v3, so for most setups the move changes nothing about how you use the agent.

• Elastic CI Stack v7 is here with Buildkite Agent v4
• Understand pull request retry patterns with OpenTelemetry

Buildkite for VS Code

The Buildkite VS Code extension is now available, bringing your pipelines and agents directly into your editor. You can browse and manage pipelines, view agent status, stream job logs, get build notifications, and validate pipeline YAML , all without leaving VS Code. Install it from the VS Code Marketplace .

Buildkite MCP Server updates

A few things have shipped in the Buildkite MCP Server since list_tests arrived in August. Read the steps a dynamic pipeline uploaded You can now ask your agent what actually ran in a dynamic pipeline. list_step_uploads returns a build's uploads, most recent first, with the state of each one, the job that sent it, and the reason for any rejection.

Job logs are limited to 1 GiB

Job logs are now limited to 1 GiB (1,024 MiB) by default. You can check your organization’s current log size limit on the Quotas page . When a job log exceeds the limit, Buildkite cancels the job and adds a Log Size Limit Exceeded event to the timeline. Logs received prior to the limit being reached are retained.

Read-only GitHub Actions, Variables, and Environments permissions

To improve GitHub Actions migration support , the Buildkite GitHub App now requests read-only access to Actions , Variables , and Environments . These permissions let Buildkite inspect configuration that affects how workflows and deployments run, including configuration variables referenced through ${{ vars.* }} , secret names (not secret values)...

Buildkite Agent v4 is here

Buildkite Agent v4 is here. It's the first major version of the agent since v3 arrived in 2018, and it's now the stable release: installations and upgrades that follow the latest or stable channels now receive v4.