Chef Habitat Builder release notes

Chef Habitat Builder 20260820

Release date: August 25, 2026

Summary

We’ve promoted this release to the on-prem-base channel and is the recommended version for new and existing Chef Habitat On-Prem Builder deployments. It includes changes from several releases that were previously published to the base channel, including major version upgrades to the bundled MinIO and PostgreSQL packages and an updated Habitat Supervisor.

Note

If you’re upgrading an existing Chef Habitat On-Prem Builder deployment that uses the bundled MinIO and PostgreSQL packages to store data, read Before you begin before you start the upgrade.

Breaking changes

MinIO and PostgreSQL major version upgrades: This release includes major version upgrades of the bundled MinIO and PostgreSQL packages. Upgrading from an earlier version to this release—or any Chef Habitat On-Prem Builder release dated July 28, 2026 or later—triggers an automatic data migration that can take several minutes to complete. If you use an externally hosted PostgreSQL database or S3-compatible object storage instead of the bundled services, this migration doesn’t apply. See Upgrade your Chef Habitat On-Prem Builder deployment for complete upgrade and rollback steps.
Default channel changed to on-prem-base: The default value of BLDR_CHANNEL in bldr.env changed from on-prem-stable to on-prem-base. Update your bldr.env file to set BLDR_CHANNEL=on-prem-base before upgrading.
Required HAB_AUTH_TOKEN: bldr.env now requires a valid personal access token, from the public Habitat Builder that’s associated with an active license. Set HAB_AUTH_TOKEN in your bldr.env file before installing or upgrading. The installer adds this token to your Builder’s systemd environment. See Install Chef Habitat On-Prem Builder for setup steps.

New features

Habitat Supervisor updated to the latest Habitat 2.1.x release: Chef Habitat On-Prem Builder now installs the Habitat Supervisor from the latest Habitat 2.1.x release line, bringing in all Supervisor fixes and improvements released since the previous on-prem release.
aarch64-linux and aarch64-darwin added as default platforms: Chef Habitat On-Prem Builder now supports aarch64-linux and aarch64-darwin as default target platforms, so you can sync and serve packages for these architectures without additional configuration.