CircleCI config hardening: enable --next validation
Summary
Plan and implement --next validation for CircleCI configs so we catch August 17, 2026 breaking changes before they block pipelines.
Target date: Before 2026-08-17 (recommend completing by 2026-08-01)
Background
On August 17, 2026, CircleCI will enforce stricter config compilation. Pipelines using affected patterns will fail to compile. The three changes are:
- Undeclared parameters — references to undeclared/out-of-scope pipeline parameters fail instead of resolving to
null
- Regex engine update — negative lookaheads/lookbehinds, possessive quantifiers, and backreferences are rejected
- Config v2.0 sunset — configs must comply with v2.1 semantics (HEREDOC
<<, job names, workflow filters, etc.)
Preview affected configs today:
circleci config validate <path-to-config> --next
CircleCI config hardening: enable
--nextvalidationSummary
Plan and implement
--nextvalidation for CircleCI configs so we catch August 17, 2026 breaking changes before they block pipelines.Target date: Before 2026-08-17 (recommend completing by 2026-08-01)
Background
On August 17, 2026, CircleCI will enforce stricter config compilation. Pipelines using affected patterns will fail to compile. The three changes are:
null<<, job names, workflow filters, etc.)Preview affected configs today: