# Platform updates, May 2026

> Longer trials, agent skills, environment thumbnails, and a MySQL upgrade on the way.

We are still iterating on the format for these monthly updates. The split between the new and the old platform stays for now, as both are running side by side for the time being.

## New platform

### Trial extended from 72 hours to one week

Every new app on the new platform now starts with a one-week trial instead of 72 hours. That is a meaningful change: each new app is a trial app, so a longer window means more room to actually try things. Connect a domain, deploy a real project, evaluate the platform without rushing. In later stages the same feature can be used for idea validation, weekend hacks, and free hosting until the stakeholder will take over billing.

### Agent skills

We published a first preview of fortrabbit agent skills — the plain-text instruction files that teach AI coding assistants like Claude how to deploy code, sync databases, and run common platform tasks. See the [agent skills release post](/introducing-agent-skills) for the background.

### Website screenshots for environments

Each environment now shows a thumbnail preview of its main domain. You see it in the environment list and on the environment overview page, so you can tell at a glance whether the site is live, broken, or showing the default placeholder. Useful when you have many apps or environments to keep track of.

### Re-deploy the same commit

You can now deploy the same git commit again without changing anything. This helps when you need to retrigger a build after fixing an environment variable, swapping a service, or recovering from a failed deployment — no more empty commits.

### PHP runtime updates

`imagick` now runs at 3.8.1 across every PHP version (8.1 through 8.4 were still pinned to 3.7.0), and Blackfire switched to calendar versioning. New platform will receive more frequent minor version updates, we are still figuring out the right format to publish this.

**Tooling**

- Composer: 2.9.4 → 2.9.7
- ImageMagick: 7.1.2-13 → 7.1.2-21
- MS ODBC for SQL Server: 18.6.1.1 → 18.6.2.1

**PHP extensions**

- imagick: 3.8.1 — now consistent across all PHP versions
- mongodb: 2.1.4 → 2.3.1
- ssh2: 1.4.1 → 1.5.0
- xdebug: 3.5.0 → 3.5.1

**Profiling and monitoring**

- Blackfire PHP probe: 1.92.59 → 2026.4.1
- Blackfire CLI: 2.30.1 → 2026.4.2
- New Relic PHP agent: 12.4.0.29 → 12.6.0.34

### Less verbose SSH rate limiting

SSH rate limit messages are now less noisy. We are still tuning the thresholds based on real usage, so expect more adjustments here.

### Smaller fixes

Many smaller fixes and improvements across the dashboard and platform. Nothing dramatic on its own, but the rough edges keep getting smoother.

## Old platform

### MySQL 8.4 upgrade upcoming

We are preparing to upgrade MySQL on the old platform to 8.4. A separate post with the details, timeline, and what to check on your end will follow.

### Website screenshots fixed

The website screenshot feature on the old platform is now working again.

### Statustool cleanup and migration

After years on SorryApp, we have moved the old platform's status subscribers over to Better Stack — the same service the new platform already uses. Not an easy call, we liked SorryApp. But we prefer to keep the number of services we run small.

Old and new platform still have separate status pages, and subscriptions stay separate too (we think that is fine):

- [status.fortrabbit.com](https://status.fortrabbit.com) — old platform, for as long as it runs
- [fortrabbit.betteruptime.com](https://fortrabbit.betteruptime.com) — new platform

Better Stack only supports email subscriptions, so the Slack and Teams exports are gone. The fortrabbit Twitter status bot will also go silent.

We also cleaned up the old subscribers list and removed everyone without an active account. Some people who subscribed with a different email may have been caught in that, but after more than a decade in business a thorough cleanup was overdue.

We also fixed a data inconsistency where some subscribers had no region assigned. Region subscriptions are now mapped to app location.

## Outlook

Planned for the new platform next:

- **Logs and metrics** — proper observability is one of the larger gaps right now.
- **US data center** — launch is getting closer. More on that soon.
- **API and CLI** — bringing programmatic access back for the new platform.

As always, feedback is welcome.