Pantheon Web Hosting Auto Update Service

The Pantheon Web Hosting Auto Update service utilizes Pantheon's Autopilot feature to automatically detect and deploy updates for community-supported plugins/modules and site upstreams. This is an optional add-on to the Pantheon Web Hosting service, and costs $500/year.

Autopilot is available for use without this paid service. For more information on how to use Autopilot on your own sites, open a ticket by emailing pantheon-support@utlists.utexas.edu.

This service is available for most websites hosted on Pantheon, including:

• WordPress*
• WordPress for Texas*
• Drupal 7
• Drupal 8 or 9 (only if using Integrated Composer)
• UT Drupal Kit 2
• UT Drupal Kit 3

* = WordPress plugins and themes must be updatable with WP-CLI in order to be updated with this service. Many premium/paid plugins cannot be updated via WP-CLI. For more information, open a ticket by emailing pantheon-support@utlists.utexas.edu.

How to request Auto Update service

For a new site, select the option on the Pantheon go-live request form.

For an existing site, email pantheon-support@utlists.utexas.edu to request adding this service.

How does Auto Update work

For sites running Autopilot managed by ITS, a daily automation process will check for the following types of available updates:

• Upstream updates (Drupal or WordPress core)
• Theme updates
• Plugin/module updates

If any available updates are detected, they will be applied to the site in a separate testing environment where a basic visual regression test will be applied to the site's homepage. If no negative changes are detected, the changes will be automatically deployed to the site environment.

Considerations

• Pantheon Autopilot cannot be configured to run at a particular time of day; your site may be updated at anytime.
• Pantheon Autopilot cannot modify custom code that is part of a site's repository, unless the site's codebase is managed with Composer and that custom code is available via Packagist.
• Site owners will not be notified that updates have been deployed.
• Autopilot is not compatible with many premium/paid WordPress plugins and themes. Plugins and themes must be updatable with WP-CLI in order to work with Autopilot.