How can I (and my org) subscribe to any breaking changes?

[cmantilla]

My team would like to learn about databricks releases, specifically any breaking changes that are made. What's the best way to subscribe and learn about these changes?

[Ashwin_DSA · Accepted solution]

Hi @cmantilla ,

If you’d like to stay up to date on Databricks releases and any potentially breaking changes, the best way is to follow the official release notes and subscribe to the documentation RSS feed for your cloud.

Subscribe to release notes via RSS

Choose the feed for the cloud you’re using:

• Databricks on AWS:
  RSS feed:  https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/feed.xml
  Release Notes hub:  https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/release-notes/

• Databricks on GCP:
  RSS feed:  https://docs.databricks.com/gcp/en/feed.xml
  Release Notes hub:  https://docs.databricks.com/gcp/en/release-notes/

• Azure Databricks:
  RSS feed:  https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/databricks/feed.xml
  Release Notes hub:  https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/databricks/release-notes/

You can add the RSS URL to any feed reader (for example, Feedly, Outlook, Thunderbird, or an RSS‑to‑email service) to get notified whenever new release notes are published.

Where breaking/behaviour changes are documented

Once you click-through from the feed or the hub pages:

• Databricks Runtime release notes (per version) include sections like “Breaking changes” or “Behavioural changes” where behaviour-affecting updates are called out.
• Platform release notes (web UI, SQL, APIs, etc.) often explicitly mark items as “Breaking change: …” when something may affect existing workloads or scripts.

If you care specifically about breaking changes, you can also filter or search within your RSS reader or browser for terms like “Breaking change” or “behavioural changes” in those notes.

If your org is interested, you may use the official docs RSS feeds as the single source of truth, but wire them into org‑level tools rather than have individual users subscribe to them. You can then integrate it with Teams/Slack, etc, so that users can follow.

Also note, for some intentional breaking changes in Databricks Runtime, customers are usually notified in advance by email to registered Databricks account admins.

If this answer resolves your question, could you mark it as “Accept as Solution”? That helps other users quickly find the right fix.

Regards,

[SteveOstrowski]

Hi @cmantilla,

There are several channels you can use to stay on top of breaking changes and platform updates. Here is a rundown of each one.

RSS FEED FOR DOCUMENTATION RELEASE NOTES

The Databricks docs site publishes an RSS feed that covers product release notes, behavior changes, deprecations, and new feature announcements. The feed URL is:

https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/feed.xml

(Replace "aws" with "azure" or "gcp" if you are on those clouds.)

You can plug this into any RSS reader, or route it into Slack or Microsoft Teams so your whole team gets notified automatically. Many RSS reader tools also support filtering by keyword, so you could set up a filter for terms like "breaking", "behavior change", "deprecated", or "removed" to surface only the high-impact items.

PLATFORM RELEASE NOTES PAGE

Databricks publishes monthly platform release notes that include breaking changes, behavior changes, and deprecations alongside new features. Bookmark this page and check it regularly:

https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/release-notes/product/index.html

Each entry is dated and categorized, so you can quickly scan for items tagged as behavior changes or deprecations.

RUNTIME RELEASE NOTES

If your concern is specifically about Spark runtime behavior changes (new DBR versions), each Databricks Runtime version has its own release notes page. Pay particular attention to the "Behavior changes" and "Deprecations and removals" sections when upgrading runtimes. The runtime release notes index is here:

https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/release-notes/runtime/index.html

Sticking with Long Term Support (LTS) runtimes gives you a more predictable upgrade cadence with longer support windows.

WORKSPACE ADMIN EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS

Workspace admins receive email notifications for certain platform changes. For example, expiring personal access tokens trigger automatic email alerts. Make sure admin contact information is up to date in your account settings so these notifications reach the right people.

DATABRICKS STATUS PAGE

For real-time operational incidents and maintenance windows, subscribe to the Databricks status page. You can sign up for notifications via email, SMS, or webhook:

https://status.databricks.com

This covers service availability rather than feature changes, but it is an important complement to the release notes feeds.

COMMUNITY AND BLOG

The Databricks blog often announces major platform changes with context and migration guidance:

https://www.databricks.com/blog

The community forums here are also a good place to learn about changes from other users' experiences.

TIPS FOR ORGANIZATIONAL COVERAGE

1. Set up the RSS feed in a shared Slack channel (e.g., #databricks-updates) so the whole engineering team sees new release notes automatically.
2. Assign someone on your team to review the monthly platform release notes and flag anything relevant to your workloads.
3. Subscribe your ops team to the status page for incident and maintenance alerts.
4. When planning runtime upgrades, always review the target DBR version's release notes for behavior changes before rolling out.

Between the RSS feed, the monthly release notes page, and the status page subscriptions, you should have solid coverage for both breaking changes and operational events.

* This reply used an agent system I built to research and draft this response based on the wide set of documentation I have available and previous memory. I personally review the draft for any obvious issues and for monitoring system reliability and update it when I detect any drift, but there is still a small chance that something is inaccurate, especially if you are experimenting with brand new features.

If this answer resolves your question, could you mark it as "Accept as Solution"? That helps other users quickly find the correct fix.