Release notes

Find general updates here on new content, feature enhancements, and improvements that help teams architect and optimize deployments of the tools that support their development communities.

2025 Q1

• Design Principle Updates
  • Expanded real-world examples for the Collaboration and Application Security pillars, offering clearer guidance on pull request best practices and early vulnerability scanning
  • Refined the Architecture pillar with new considerations for multi-region deployments
• Checklists 2.0
  • Overhauled the assessment checklists to align with recent GitHub product updates (e.g., enhanced code scanning, improved secret scanning)
  • Introduced tiers to help teams prioritize actions based on their current maturity level
• Fixes & Refinements
  • Updated language in the Governance and Productivity design principle pages to improve clarity
  • Revised the main navigation for quicker access to new scenarios and checklists
  • Refreshed the homepage layout and branding
  • Modularized the site’s hosting template to simplify ongoing maintenance and updates

2024 Q4

• General Availability (GA) and Well-Architected MVP Launch
  • Transitioned from beta to GA with a fully published structure around the five pillars
  • Introduced curated examples and illustrations that demonstrate practical implementations of each pillar
• Initial Tooling & Assessment Checklists
  • Provided downloadable checklists for customers to self-assess alignment with WAF’s pillars
  • Gathered early adoption feedback to inform the Checklists 2.0 release
• Design Principles and Content Highlights
  • Published an in-depth overview of all five pillars: Productivity, Collaboration, Application Security, Governance, and Architecture
  • Co-authored an initial set of design principles with KPMG and our Partner Community
  • Added a high-level scenario to guide teams just starting with GitHub Enterprise
• Early Feedback Incorporations
  • Streamlined site layouts and navigation, based on user suggestions from the beta, for a cleaner, more intuitive reading experience
  • Expanded content library articles on common deployment scenarios, including scaling Git repositories and enforcing GHAS at scale

Future Plans & Roadmap

• Partner & Ecosystem Growth: Ongoing partner showcases, workshops, and contributions will introduce new specialized assessment offerings
• Deeper AI Integration: Expanding GitHub Copilot insights and AI-based recommendations to cover governance, security, and productivity checks
• Advanced Scenarios & Recommendations: Adding guides on large-scale workflows, compliance-first deployments, and hybrid architectures
• Continuous Feedback: Regularly soliciting community input through partner channels and real-world customer engagements to shape new content

We’re committed to continuous improvement of GitHub Well-Architected. If you have questions or feedback, please reach out to your Partner or our GitHub Support and Services teams.

Thank you for your interest in building resilient, scalable development practices!