# What's new in May 2026 | Checkly Changelog

> Checkly changelog: Checkly CLI 8: ESM-only, cancellable runs, recording by default, Playwright Check Suites: faster runs, fewer false negatives, Private Location metrics in the UI and Prometheus, Alert channels now support environment secrets

Source: https://www.checklyhq.com/changelog/whats-new-in-may-2026/

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# What's new in May 2026

Published May 29, 2026

## Checkly CLI 8: ESM-only, cancellable runs, recording by default

CLI 8 ships three major changes: it is ESM-only (Node.js ^20.19.0 or >=22.12.0), `CTRL+C` now cancels `test`, `pw-test`, and `trigger` runs instead of burning quota in the background, and runs record by default unless you pass `--no-record`. Use `-d` for detached mode when you want a run to keep going.

[Read the docs →](https://www.checklyhq.com/docs/cli/)

```
npm i -D checkly@latest
```

## Playwright Check Suites: faster runs, fewer false negatives

A batch of reliability work: cancellable queued and in-progress runs, custom runtime engines (Bun 1.7, Node.js 22/24/26), automatic retries for setup steps hit by transient network issues, browser caching in Private Locations, and full Playwright `globalTimeout` support.

[Read the docs →](https://www.checklyhq.com/docs/detect/synthetic-monitoring/playwright-checks/)

## Private Location metrics in the UI and Prometheus

See queue duration, agent count, and scheduled check runs for your Private Locations right in the UI — and spot over- or underprovisioned agents at a glance. The same metrics are available via Prometheus, so you can autoscale agents on Kubernetes with KEDA.

[Autoscaling guide →](https://www.checklyhq.com/docs/platform/private-locations/autoscaling/)

## Alert channels now support environment secrets

Use `{{MY_SECRET_VAR}}` syntax in alert channel configs, so API keys and other sensitive values no longer live in plain text in the UI or API responses. Convert existing values with the new lock icon.

## Also shipped

- **Maintenance windows:** [pause check execution and silence alerts are now independently configurable behaviors, each scoped by tag, with a maintenance badge and status filter in the dashboard.](https://www.checklyhq.com/docs/communicate/maintenance-windows/overview/#check-behavior)
- **Rocky AI:** root cause analysis now diffs against your last passing result and pulls in OpenTelemetry traces to correlate downstream errors.
- **API:** `swagger.json` is deprecated and frozen — use the OpenAPI spec at `api.checklyhq.com/openapi.json` instead.