Releasesby Glyphsetup-java v5.5.0: signature verification, Kona JDK, and Maven fixes
The actions/setup-java v5.5.0 release adds cryptographic signature verification for downloaded JDKs, support for a new distribution, and several quality-of-life improvements for Maven users. Here’s what changed since v5.4.0.
Also shipped Jul 8, 2026GitHub in July 2026 →
Object metadata column is now in Public Preview
The _object_metadata column is now in Public Preview. The _object_metadata column is a hidden metadata column that exposes object-level properties for objects in cloud storage, including MIME type, ETag, user-defined key-value metadata, system-defined metadata, and object tags. It is available starting from Databricks Runtime 18.1.
Genie products now use pay-as-you-go pricing
Starting July 8, 2026 at 00:00 UTC, Genie products, including Genie Agents , Genie Code , and Genie One , are billed following a pay-as-you-go pricing model that includes 150 Databricks units (DBUs) of free large language model (LLM) usage every month, equivalent to about $10.50 in the US East region.
Google Gemini 2.5 Flash and Pro are scheduled for retirement
Google Gemini 2.5 Flash and Gemini 2.5 Pro will be retired on October 2, 2026. The recommended replacement models are Gemini 3.1 Pro or Gemini 3.5 Flash. See Deprecated and retired models for migration guidance.
Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4 is scheduled for retirement
Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4 will be retired on October 9, 2026. Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the recommended replacement. See Deprecated and retired models for migration guidance.
Restrict access to AI Functions with Unity Catalog permissions (Public Preview)
You can now use Unity Catalog permissions to restrict which task-specific AI Functions your organization can access, independent of foundation model access. Contact your account team to enable this feature. See AI Functions Unity Catalog permissions .
Genie Agents now uses pay-as-you-go pricing
Starting July 8, 2026 at 00:00 UTC, Genie Agents is billed following a pay-as-you-go pricing model that includes 150 DBUs of free large language model (LLM) usage every month, equivalent to about $10.50 in the US East region. Usage beyond the free amount is billed in DBUs, reflecting the underlying LLM models and agents that power each Genie Agents session.
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Xcode 27 runner image now in public preview
You can now build and test your Apple applications against Xcode 27 on GitHub-hosted macOS runners. This is now available in public preview. With early access to the latest Xcode toolchain and Apple SDKs, you can validate your apps against the newest tools, catch compatibility issues sooner, and keep your CI/CD pipelines current.
Read-only Actions cache for untrusted triggers
GitHub Actions now issues read-only cache tokens to the default branch for workflow events that can be triggered without write permissions to the repository. This applies least privilege to the cache and prevents common privilege-escalation paths through cache poisoning.
More control over your GitHub-hosted runners
Organizations now have more control over who can use GitHub-hosted runners in Actions. Admins can now disable the standard labels for hosted runners such as ubuntu-latest , as well as add macOS runners to runner groups.
Actions steps can now be run in parallel
GitHub Actions now supports running steps concurrently using background . Previously, all steps in a workflow ran in sequence, with each step starting only after the previous step completed. Previously, you could run steps in a non-blocking way using shell backgrounding ( & ), but that often interleaved logs from multiple steps.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux runner images are now in public preview
GitHub-hosted larger runners now support Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9 and RHEL 10 images in public preview, introduced in partnership with Red Hat. Organizations can use these RHEL images as the foundation for custom images that include required tools, dependencies, and configurations.
GitHub Actions holds potentially malicious workflows for approval
Recent supply chain attacks use compromised GitHub credentials to push malicious GitHub Actions workflows that steal CI/CD credentials and carry out additional attacks. To help protect public repositories from these attacks, GitHub Actions now holds certain workflow runs for approval before they start.
Reference same-repository actions with self-repository syntax
You can now reference an action or reusable workflow that lives in the same repository using the new self-repository syntax. A uses: value that starts with $/ resolves to your workflow’s own repository at the exact commit that is running, with no checkout required.
CodeQL 2.26.3 improves GitHub Actions queries and JavaScript modeling
CodeQL 2.26.3 adds JavaScript, TypeScript, and Vue source modeling and improves the accuracy of several GitHub Actions queries. CodeQL is the static analysis engine behind GitHub code scanning , which helps you find and remediate security issues in your code.