Release Notes

Stay up to date with new CanaryWP features, improvements, and fixes.

Last updated: September 22, 2026

Unreleased

Changes currently in development following CanaryWP v1.0.0.

Site Testing

Added

  • Active Site Testing runs can recover after navigating away from the page.
  • Active tests can be cancelled.
  • Related tests can be grouped into a single testing run.
  • Testing history provides clearer grouped results.
  • Failed test steps can be manually reviewed and marked as passed where appropriate.
  • Test results can display reviewed and skipped states.
  • Screenshot evidence is easier to access from testing history.
  • Additional WordPress and WooCommerce functional checks are available.

Improved

  • Long-running test progress is more reliable.
  • Active tests are protected against conflicting operations.
  • Testing history remains more consistent after navigation or refresh.
  • Visual comparison workflows provide better control over sampled pages.

WordPress Maintenance

Added

  • Update confirmation provides clearer compatibility issues.
  • CanaryWP can identify plugins and themes that do not yet have enough verification evidence.
  • Update workflows display additional compatibility warnings.
  • Maintenance planning includes confidence information.
  • Instance update history is available for previous maintenance activity.
  • Previous compatibility evidence can be reused when evaluating future updates.

Improved

  • Important maintenance warnings remain visible throughout the workflow.
  • Update risks are presented more clearly before an operation begins.
  • CanaryWP distinguishes more clearly between verified compatibility and updates requiring additional testing.

Canary Wizard

Added

  • Canary Wizard can coordinate workflows across multiple instances.
  • Workflows provide clearer review and confirmation stages.
  • Instance-specific workflow context has been expanded.
  • Canary Wizard can generate richer workflow summaries and reports.

Fixed

  • Improved recovery when a Canary Wizard workflow is interrupted.
  • Resolved cases where workflows could remain stuck while generating summaries.

Backups and Restore

Added

  • Backup records preserve additional information about the WordPress runtime.
  • Restore workflows provide clearer progress information.
  • Supported restores can restore associated PHP runtime information.
  • Plugin and theme inventory is refreshed after a restore.

Improved

  • Restore operations are tracked more consistently.
  • Backup restoration is more reliable across supported environments.

Fixed

  • Fixed situations where interrupted restores could remain marked as active.
  • Improved database restore compatibility.

Instance Operations

Added

  • Long-running instance operations have individual operation history.
  • Operation progress can persist across navigation.
  • Operation logs remain associated with the operation that produced them.

Fixed

  • Fixed operation logs from separate runs being mixed together.
  • Fixed stale progress information from previous operations.
  • Fixed cases where active-operation progress could disappear after navigation.

Imports

Added

  • CanaryWP checks workspace capacity before supported imports begin.
  • Import setup provides clearer provisioning progress.
  • Unsupported source PHP versions can be identified before provisioning.
  • Imported WordPress details are displayed more clearly after provisioning.

Improved

  • The Import Site workflow has clearer steps and progress states.
  • WordPress runtime configuration is applied more consistently during provisioning.
  • Plugin and theme update counts are more accurate.
  • CanaryWP warns before leaving a page while an import is actively running.

Fixed

  • Unsupported legacy PHP versions no longer silently fall back to an incompatible runtime.

Connected Sites

Added

  • Improved Full Upload workflows for connected WordPress sites.
  • Larger connected-site archives receive additional validation.
  • Tested update targets can be returned to supported connected-site workflows.
  • Saved plugin archives can be reused in supported testing workflows.

Improved

  • Automatic update targets are limited to targets that were actually tested.
  • Connected-site workflow results provide clearer information about what was tested.

Usage, Plans, and Credits

Added

  • Workspace Usage page.
  • More detailed workspace credit usage.
  • Per-instance usage information.
  • Runtime and storage usage estimates.
  • Site Testing usage tracking.
  • CanaryWing usage tracking.
  • Canary Wizard usage tracking.
  • Connected-site workflow usage tracking.
  • Credit top-up options.
  • Custom top-up amounts.
  • Billing credit adjustments.
  • Monthly usage summaries.
  • Estimated daily and monthly credit consumption.

Improved

  • Usage information is separated more clearly from plan and billing information.
  • Workspace plan information is displayed more consistently.
  • Large usage and billing tables support pagination.

Self-service payment capture is not yet represented as a completed live payment transaction in the current CanaryWP workflow.

Notifications

Improved

  • Notifications are more strictly limited to their intended recipient.
  • Notification actions follow the same user-scoping rules.
  • Realtime notifications are delivered only to the appropriate user.

Security

Added

  • Stronger authentication for realtime application features.
  • Additional workspace permission checks.
  • Short-lived authorization for certain public WordPress plugin workflows.
  • Stronger callback validation for connected WordPress sites.
  • Additional protection for sensitive application actions.
  • Expanded security test coverage.

Improved

  • Production authentication fails safely when required configuration is unavailable.
  • Rate limiting more accurately identifies incoming requests.
  • External application links use trusted CanaryWP origins.

Fixed

  • Fixed cases where request-security checks could occur in the wrong order.
  • Fixed unsafe callback redirect handling.
  • Fixed security edge cases discovered during application review.

Platform Administration

Added

CanaryWP’s internal administration capabilities have been expanded with operational views for:

  • users
  • workspaces
  • WordPress instances
  • connected sites
  • Site Testing
  • backups
  • notifications
  • plans
  • credits
  • billing
  • product updates
  • releases
  • system health
  • operational jobs
  • incidents
  • integrations

Product Experience

Improved

  • Redesigned CanaryWP login experience.
  • Improved dark, light, and CanaryWP theme support.
  • Redesigned workspace dashboard.
  • Improved instance details.
  • Improved progress displays.
  • Improved confirmation dialogs.
  • Improved Site Testing navigation.
  • Improved Usage and Billing layouts.
  • Improved visual consistency throughout the application.

Reliability

Improved

  • Active workflows recover more consistently after navigation.
  • Operation progress is more resilient to page refreshes.
  • Background jobs provide clearer status.
  • Errors provide clearer recovery actions.
  • Import, testing, restore, and maintenance workflows have broader automated test coverage.

v1.0.0

Released: August 21, 2026

CanaryWP v1.0.0 established the first official major-version baseline for CanaryWP’s WordPress testing, maintenance, automation, backup, connected-site, and site-management capabilities.

WordPress Instances

Added

  • Create and manage isolated WordPress environments.
  • Import existing WordPress sites.
  • Start, stop, restart, and clone instances.
  • Track WordPress and PHP versions.
  • Track database and runtime information.
  • Select supported regions and resource configurations.
  • Add instance tags and notes.
  • View quick actions.
  • View instance status and operational details.
  • Dedicated instance Overview experience.

Site Imports

Added

  • Import supported WordPress archive formats.
  • Upload larger archives using managed uploads.
  • Detect source WordPress information.
  • Detect source PHP information.
  • Preserve supported source runtime information.
  • Rewrite imported site URLs where required.
  • Generate WordPress environment credentials.
  • Apply supported testing-environment sanitization.

Connected Sites

Added

  • Connect existing WordPress websites to CanaryWP.
  • Pair connected sites with a CanaryWP account.
  • Guest connection workflows.
  • Compatibility Scan workflows.
  • Full Upload workflows.
  • Reusable testing environments.
  • Provisioning progress.
  • Result notifications and callbacks.
  • Sanitized custom asset uploads.
  • Large archive upload support.

Site Testing

Added

  • Instance-specific Site Testing.
  • Functional testing.
  • Screenshot evidence.
  • Testing history.
  • Testing result details.
  • Testing progress.
  • Recent test results in instance views.
  • Integration with maintenance workflows.

WordPress Maintenance

Added

  • WordPress core updates.
  • Supported WordPress downgrades.
  • PHP runtime changes.
  • Plugin updates.
  • Theme updates.
  • Fleet-level maintenance.
  • Per-instance maintenance.
  • Per-component maintenance.
  • Maintenance history.
  • Before-and-after version tracking.

Compatibility Intelligence

Added

  • WordPress compatibility observations.
  • PHP compatibility observations.
  • Plugin compatibility observations.
  • Theme compatibility observations.
  • Previous test evidence in update planning.
  • Maintenance confidence information.
  • Risk analysis based on available evidence.

Plugin Management

Added

  • Install plugins.
  • Upload plugin ZIP files.
  • Activate and deactivate plugins.
  • Update supported plugins.
  • Downgrade supported plugins.
  • Replace and remove plugins.
  • View available plugin versions and information.

Theme Management

Added

  • Install themes.
  • Activate themes.
  • Update supported themes.
  • Downgrade supported themes.
  • Replace and remove themes.
  • View available theme versions.

WordPress Management Tools

Added

  • Database management.
  • Media Library management.
  • WordPress user management.
  • Cron management.
  • WordPress Options management.
  • Redirect management.
  • Email logs.
  • Environment variable management.
  • Domain management.
  • Site Health.
  • Uptime information.
  • Performance information.
  • Activity history.
  • Runtime information.
  • Operational logs.

Backup and Restore

Added

  • WordPress backups.
  • Database backups.
  • Full-site backups.
  • Incremental backups.
  • Backup History.
  • Backup downloads where supported.
  • Backup restore workflows.

Scheduler

Added

  • Scheduled WordPress maintenance.
  • Scheduled plugin maintenance.
  • Scheduled theme maintenance.
  • Scheduled WordPress and PHP operations.
  • Scheduled Site Testing.
  • Automated reports.
  • Maintenance notifications.

Canary Wizard

Added

  • Guided CanaryWP workflows.
  • Instance-aware workflow context.
  • WordPress diagnostic assistance.
  • Testing result analysis.
  • Maintenance workflow assistance.

CanaryWing

Added

  • AI-assisted WordPress operational support.
  • Instance-aware conversations.
  • Site Testing diagnostics.
  • Import troubleshooting.
  • Plugin and theme diagnostics.
  • Maintenance context.
  • Relevant operational-log analysis.
  • Confirmation requirements for supported actions.
  • Saved chat history.

Plans and Credits

Added

  • Workspace plans.
  • Feature entitlements.
  • Workspace credit balance.
  • Usage tracking.
  • Site Testing credit usage.
  • Connected-site workflow usage.
  • Plan-change requests.
  • Usage and billing interfaces.

Workspaces

Added

  • Workspace configuration.
  • Workspace members.
  • Workspace roles and permissions.
  • Guided onboarding.
  • Demo environments.
  • Setup progress.

Security

Added

  • Account authentication.
  • Workspace authorization.
  • Protected WordPress site operations.
  • Protected connected-site APIs.
  • Upload authorization.
  • Rate limits for sensitive operations.
  • Protection of privileged service credentials.
  • Validation of connected-site requests.
  • Supported data sanitization for testing copies.

Help and Documentation

Added

  • CanaryWP Help Center.
  • Product documentation.
  • Workflow guidance.
  • Troubleshooting information.
  • Product Release Notes.

v0.13.0

Released: July 16, 2026

This release substantially expanded CanaryWP’s WordPress management capabilities.

Added

  • Connected-site workflow result notifications.
  • Connected-site callbacks.
  • Tested WordPress update plans.
  • Tested PHP update plans.
  • Tested plugin update plans.
  • Tested theme update plans.
  • Reusable source-site uploads.
  • Performance management.
  • Site Health.
  • Notifications.
  • Email log management.
  • Uptime monitoring.
  • Cron management.
  • WordPress Options management.
  • Redirect management.
  • Database management.
  • Media Library management.
  • WordPress user management.
  • Instance cloning.
  • Instance tags.
  • Instance notes.
  • Environment variable management.
  • Quick Actions.
  • Plugin management.
  • Theme management.
  • Starter templates.
  • Instance metrics.
  • Usage and cost estimates.
  • Activity export.

Improved

  • Provisioning reliability.
  • Automated testing.
  • Application persistence.
  • API protection.
  • Documentation.
  • Development and testing workflows.

Fixed

  • Improved installation of uploaded WordPress assets.
  • Fixed several testing and interface inconsistencies.
  • Fixed notification storage behavior.
  • Fixed dependency and application security issues.

v0.1.0

Released: March 15, 2026

The initial CanaryWP release introduced the core WordPress fleet-management experience.

Added

  • WordPress instance list.
  • Instance creation.
  • Instance deletion.
  • Instance status monitoring.
  • SSH terminal access.
  • Hosting connection management.
  • Initial CanaryWP dashboard.
On this page