How CircleCI Notifies You About Planned Maintenance and Service Changes

Overview

At CircleCI, we're committed to maintaining service reliability while keeping you informed about any changes that may affect your workflows. This article explains how and when we notify customers about planned maintenance and critical platform updates.

When We Schedule Maintenance

We perform planned maintenance only when necessary and always aim to minimize impact on your builds and workflows. Maintenance may be required for:

Infrastructure updates and patches
Database maintenance and performance improvements
Feature updates or deprecations
Critical security vulnerabilities requiring immediate attention

Notification Timeline

Standard Notice Periods

We provide advance notice based on the scope and impact of the maintenance:

1 Month Notice: Major platform changes affecting all services or requiring significant customer planning
2 Weeks Notice: Changes that may cause noticeable job delays or temporary loss of specific features
48 Hours to 1 Week Notice: Infrastructure updates with minimal service interruption or urgent security patches
Emergency Maintenance: Immediate action required for critical security issues or incident response (notification provided as soon as possible)

Note: We require a minimum of 48 hours' notice for all non-emergency maintenance.

Maintenance Windows

To minimize disruption to your workflows:

We schedule maintenance during off-peak hours, preferably on weekends between Saturday 1:00 AM and Monday 10:00 AM UTC
We avoid scheduling during 00:00 UTC, which is peak time for scheduled jobs
We consider global time zones to reduce impact across all regions

How We Notify You

Notification Channels

Status Page: Real-time updates at [status.circleci.com]
Email Notifications: Sent to account administrators for high-impact maintenance
In-App Banners: Displayed in the CircleCI application when relevant

What We Include in Notifications

Description of the maintenance and its purpose
Expected start and end times (in UTC)
Potential impact on your builds and workflows
Any actions you may need to take

Staying Informed

Subscribe to Updates

Visit our Status Page
Click "Subscribe to Updates"
Choose your preferred notification method (email, SMS, webhook, or RSS)

Best Practices

Share maintenance notifications with your team
Configure multiple notification methods for critical updates
Plan around scheduled maintenance windows when possible

Our Commitment

We work hard to:

Minimize the frequency and duration of maintenance windows
Provide clear, timely communications
Schedule maintenance during the least disruptive times
Implement changes without service interruption whenever possible