2 posts tagged with "Ops"

The release of Terminus 4.1.4 is a quiet reminder that while AI and flashy dashboards get the headlines, the command line is still where the real work of site reliability engineering happens.

Why I Care​

I manage a fleet of sites on Pantheon. Clicking through a dashboard to clear caches or run updates for one site is fine; doing it for twenty is a waste of a morning.

I rely on Terminus to script these interactions. When a tool like this gets an update, it's not just a "nice to have"—it's a potential impact on my CI/CD pipelines and local automation scripts. Ignoring CLI updates is a recipe for waking up one day to an authentication error that breaks a deployment.

The Update​

Terminus 4.1.4 is a maintenance release, but in the world of platform CLIs, "maintenance" often means "keeping the lights on."

These tools bridge the gap between my local terminal and the remote container infrastructure. A minor version bump often contains fixes for API changes on the platform side that aren't visible until your old version stops working.

# Updating Terminus (standard method)
curl -O https://github.com/pantheon-systems/terminus/releases/download/4.1.4/terminus.phar
chmod +x terminus.phar
sudo mv terminus.phar /usr/local/bin/terminus

# Check version
terminus --version

# In your CI config, pin versions or fetch latest carefully
- name: Install Terminus
  run: |
    curl -L https://github.com/pantheon-systems/terminus/releases/download/4.1.4/terminus.phar -o terminus
    chmod +x terminus
    ./terminus auth:login --machine-token=${{ secrets.PANTHEON_MACHINE_TOKEN }}

The Code​

No separate repo—this is a review of a tool release.

What I Learned​

• Pin Dependencies: Just like package.json or requirements.txt, your operational tools need version pinning in automated environments. I've been burned by auto-updating pipelines before.
• Read the Changelog: Even for patch releases. 4.1.4 might fix a specific edge case with remote:drush or token handling that you've been working around with a hacky script.
• CLI > GUI: Every time I update Terminus, I'm reminded of how much faster I am in the terminal. If a platform offers a CLI, learn it. It pays dividends in speed and scriptability that a UI can never match.

References​

• Terminus 4.1.4 Release
• Pantheon Dashboard Metrics: Top Traffic Patterns

The release of Terminus 4.1.4 reminds us that the most critical part of our deployment pipeline isn't always the code we write, but the tools we use to ship it.

Why I Built This (Or rather, why I track it)​

I maintain several automation pipelines that rely heavily on the Pantheon CLI (Terminus) to manage environments, clear caches, and deploy code. When a tool like this gets a version bump, it’s not just "maintenance"—it's a signal to check our dependencies. Ignored CLI updates are a ticking time bomb in CI/CD; eventually, an API changes or a PHP version is deprecated, and your Friday deploy fails because your runner is using a two-year-old binary.

Terminus 4.1.4 targets stability and compatibility. In a world of flashy AI agents and complex orchestration, rock-solid platform CLIs are the unsung heroes that actually move the bits.

The Strategy: Managed CLI Updates​

Upgrading a CLI locally is easy (brew upgrade), but managing it in CI requires a strategy to balance stability with security. I've moved from "install latest" to a pinned-version approach with automated checks.

Here is a typical decision flow for adopting a new CLI release like 4.1.4:

Automation Patterns​

Updating your CI runners shouldn't be a manual task. Here is how I handle Terminus versions across different environments.

# A safer way to install Terminus in GHA
# Instead of pulling 'latest', we specify the version to avoid surprises
- name: Install Terminus 4.1.4
  run: |
    curl -O https://github.com/pantheon-systems/terminus/releases/download/4.1.4/terminus.phar
    chmod +x terminus.phar
    sudo mv terminus.phar /usr/local/bin/terminus
    terminus --version

{
  "require-dev": {
    "pantheon-systems/terminus": "^4.1.4"
  },
  "config": {
    "allow-plugins": {
      "pantheon-systems/terminus": true
    }
  }
}

The Code​

No separate repo—this is an operational update based on the Terminus 4.1.4 Release.

What I Learned​

• Release Notes Matter: Even minor versions (4.1.x) can introduce PHP compatibility changes. 4.1.4 likely solidifies support for newer PHP runtimes, which is essential as platforms deprecate PHP 8.1/8.2.
• Phar vs. Composer: For CI, I strictly prefer the PHAR (PHP Archive) installation. It isolates the CLI's dependencies from my project's dependencies, preventing "dependency hell" where the CLI requires guzzlehttp/guzzle version X but my project needs version Y.
• Silent Failures: I noticed that older versions of CLI tools sometimes fail silently on newer OS images. Keeping close to the latest stable release (like 4.1.4) mitigates the risk of OS-level incompatibilities (e.g., OpenSSL versions).

References​

• Terminus 4.1.4 Release