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What's new in pullpreview/action@v6 (and what breaks from v5)

Published February 14, 2026 · Updated February 14, 2026 · PullPreview Team

pullpreview/action@v6 is a major release with a runtime rewrite and some behavior changes that matter in production workflows.

If you are upgrading from v5, this post covers:

  • what is actually new,
  • what changed behavior,
  • what can break your existing setup.

Release context

  • Latest v5 line: v5.8.0 (tagged from commit dated 2024-09-25 UTC)
  • v6.0.0 was tagged on 2026-02-10 UTC
  • Latest v6 line at time of writing: v6.1.1 (tagged from commit dated 2026-02-13 UTC)

What is new in v6 compared to v5

1. Runtime moved from Docker action to native Go binary in a composite action

v5 executed as a Docker-based action. v6 executes as a composite action that runs a bundled pullpreview binary.

Why this matters:

  • lower action startup overhead,
  • simpler runtime behavior on standard GitHub-hosted Linux runners,
  • no Docker image build/pull path for the action itself.

2. First-class Hetzner provider support in action inputs

v6 exposes provider-level options directly in action.yml:

  • provider: hetzner
  • region
  • image

This makes multi-cloud configuration explicit in workflow inputs instead of AWS-only assumptions.

3. Built-in HTTPS flow with proxy_tls

v6 adds proxy_tls to inject and wire a Caddy reverse proxy with Let’s Encrypt.

It also documents built-in alternative DNS suffixes (rev1.click through rev9.click) for teams that hit Let’s Encrypt per-domain limits on shared domains.

4. Better reviewer/operator visibility in GitHub UI

v6 focuses on two review surfaces:

  • marker-based PR comments,
  • GitHub Actions job summaries.

This is where preview state and URLs now live by default.

5. New live output and SSH key cache integration

v6 adds a live output to indicate whether a run produced a preview deployment and uses actions/cache@v4 to cache collaborator SSH key lookups between runs.

Breaking changes and migration gotchas

1. GitHub Deployments/Environments integration is removed

If your team relied on the Deployments tab or environment objects as the primary preview source, migrate those checks to PR comments and job summaries.

2. Commit status integration is removed

If automation read PullPreview status contexts from commit statuses, update it to read PR comments and/or workflow results instead.

3. always_on input is gone in v6 action metadata

always_on exists in v5.8.0 action inputs but is not present in v6.1.1 action.yml.

If your workflow used always-on branch behavior through that input, remove it and model long-lived environments in a separate workflow/job strategy.

4. Runner compatibility is stricter in the composite runtime

The v6 action bootstrap checks runner OS/arch and only supports Linux AMD64 for the bundled binary path.

If you run self-hosted non-Linux or non-AMD64 runners, validate compatibility before rollout.

Minimal upgrade checklist

  1. Update action reference from pullpreview/action@v5 to pullpreview/action@v6.
  2. Remove always_on from with:.
  3. Move any deployment/status-based automation to PR comment + workflow/job-summary based checks.
  4. If enabling HTTPS, set proxy_tls and pick a safer DNS suffix (revN.click) or your custom domain.
  5. If using Hetzner, add provider: hetzner, plus HCLOUD_TOKEN and HETZNER_CA_KEY.
  6. Confirm your runner fleet includes Linux AMD64 for this action.

Example workflow delta

# before (v5)
- uses: pullpreview/action@v5
  with:
    always_on: main
    compose_files: docker-compose.yml
# after (v6)
- uses: pullpreview/action@v6
  with:
    compose_files: docker-compose.yml
    proxy_tls: web:80
    # Optional:
    # provider: hetzner
    # region: nbg1
    # image: ubuntu-24.04

Sources

Tags: releases, github-actions, migration, pullpreview