Heptapod Blog

Starting on May 1st, 2025 our prebuilt Heptapod container images depend on a paid subscription. Send us an email to get your quotation.

The release of Heptapod 17.8 not so long ago was the first to include a feature funded by our Sponsorable Issues program: automatic clone bundles, sponsored by [Logilab].

Starting with Heptapod 17.6, registration is now required to download our prebuilt Docker images for production (free of charge). While Heptapod fully remains Open Source, we intend to start charging for production downloads around April, 2025.

Please read below to learn more and do not miss the mini-FAQ at …

With the release yesterday of Heptapod 1.0.0rc1, the close future of Heptapod development has become clearer.

The release candidate was installed on foss.heptapod.net. The final version is due next week.

Read this to know more about what we will be up to in the first half …

Heptapod 0.40.0 (final) was released today. This release saw us reaching an important milestone, as we stopped mirroring Mercurial repositories to Git by default. More about this below.

We're also jumping from GitLab 15.11 to 16.2 and bumping Mercurial to 6.5.

The release candidate was …

We are calling out for beta testing of the data migration that makes Projects eventually not need the auxiliary conversions to Git.

This article is intended for our early adopters. If your Heptapod instance was created at version 0.25 or later, it is unlikely that you have any concerned …

Heptapod 0.30.0 (final) was released today. This is a fairly simple release, focusing on GitLab and Mercurial version bumps.

This time we're jumping from GitLab 14.6 to 14.8, in order to get more time for Heptapod-specific development in the next cycles.

The update from Mercurial 6 …

The release last week of Heptapod 0.29.0 provides a good opportunity to look back at what happened since the previous of these announcements and point out the subjects that we will focus on in the next development cycles. Since then we also released Heptapod 0.29.1 to …

The release today of Heptapod 0.26.0rc1 brings in ground work for the fully native Mercurial support and the new "Mercurial Publisher" role. Read below for more details about these.

As we announced earlier, this new series does not include an upstream GitLab version change. Instead we boosted Python …

We're glad to announce the release of Heptapod 0.25.0, based on GitLab 14.2 and making Mercurial native projects the default for creations.

As previously explained, to upgrade an existing instance to 0.25, one needs to start from a Heptapod 0.24 instance whose background migrations have …

We're glad to announce the release of Heptapod 0.24.0rc1, the first to feature GitLab 14. It should be followed in a few days by the final 0.24.0 version.

As all major GitLab version changes, this is a pivotal version for upgrading existing instances. Please read below …

We're glad to announce that Heptapod Runner 0.4.0 was released this week, built for many more operating systems and architectures. We're calling out to our users for testing of some of them.

Download links are available on the Heptapod download page

Thanks to all the people involved in …

What are native Mercurial projects? What does this "fully native" qualifier you've seen here or there in our issues and merge requests mean? How will Heptapod get there?

This is about getting rid of the side conversions to Git that Heptapod performs under the hood, and the Heptapod 1.0 …

Heptapod 0.20.0rc1 was released today, featuring GitLab 13.9 and aiming for a final version on March 2nd. Many thanks to all our contributors, of any kind. Please give it a try, and tell us about it!

The release candidate was installed shortly afterwards on foss.heptapod.net …

Heptapod 0.19.0rc2 was released today, featuring GitLab 13.7. The final version will be released on January 20th. Many thanks to all our contributors, of any kind.

The release candidate was installed immediately on foss.heptapod.net.

Heptapod 0.19.0rc2 can be installed as a Docker image …

We're especially happy to announce the final release of Heptapod 0.18.0, based on GitLab 13.5 (security updates until January 22th, 2021).

Many thanks to all the people that contributed to this release.

Heptapod 0.18.0 can be installed as a Docker image and from source.

The …

We're very glad to announce the release of Heptapod 0.18.0rc, featuring GitLab 13.5 and Mercurial 5.6.1 built with Rust. Thanks to all those that helped during this development cycle.

It is specially heartening to see Heptapod and the Rust reimplementation of some parts of Mercurial …

We're glad to announce the final release of Heptapod 0.17.0, based on GitLab 13.4 (security updates until December 22th, 2020), with 3 technology previews, including Git support.

Heads up: all projects get migrated to the hashed storage. Major changes in installation from source, see INSTALL_HEPTAPOD.

Many thanks …

Another exciting development cycle is coming to an end with the release of Heptapod 0.17.0rc1 today, featuring GitLab 13.4 and three different technology previews. Many thanks to our contributors!

Heads up: all projects get migrated to the hashed storage. Major changes in installation from source, see INSTALL_HEPTAPOD …

Many things happened this summer since the end of the Bitbucket era and the Heptapod 0.15.0 release, so it's well worth an account.

We'll begin with a recap of advances from July on developer tools, then report on the first Heptapod sprint and end with current progress towards …

How to hack on Heptapod templates using docker-compose as ligthweight development environment

We're glad to announce the final release of Heptapod 0.15.0, based on GitLab 13.1, which should get security updates until September 22th, 2020. This version makes also a nice ground for further Heptapod development.

Many thanks to all the people involved!

This is a major GitLab version …

Contributing to Heptapod has just become much easier, thanks to the introduction of the Heptapod Development Kit (HDK).

Since the beginning of this year, we've been using a custom modified version of the GitLab Development Kit (GDK) for most Heptapod development. However, it didn't go much beyond replacing git by …

We're especially proud to announce the final release of Heptapod 0.14.0, catching up onto supported upstream GitLab versions.

Many thanks to all our contibutors, and especially for those involved in user support on foss.heptapod.net – lots of Bitbucket imports in the past few weeks!

Indeed, Heptapod 0 …

Heptapod is very close to reaching one of its few major goals: catching up to a currently supported upstream GitLab version.

Today's release of Heptapod 0.14.0rc1 is based on GitLab 12.10, which will get security fixes until July, 22th. We expect the final 0.14.0 to …

We're happy to announce the release of Heptapod 0.13.1.

This version brings in important internal changes that solve several long standing issues, and features a new technology preview, in preparation for Heptapod 0.14.

The full changelog is available as usual with the sources

Heptapod 0.13.1 …

We're glad to announce the release of Heptapod 0.13.0.

This version introduces support for wikis and is available in Python 2 and Python 3 variants, see the previous article about Python 3.

It also features major performance and scalability improvements for Mercurial repository content over HTTP.

Heptapod 0 …

A few days ago, Heptapod 0.13.0rc2 was released.

This is the first version with optional support for Python 3.

In this post, we explain why it matters to test Heptapod with Python 3 as soon as possible, and how to do so safely for your Heptapod instance.

Running …

Summary: The Heptapod commercial service will stay free of charge and in beta until the end of June.

In a previous news item, we were commenting on the decision by Bitbucket to postpone the deadline before they remove Mercurial repositories from their hosting by one month.

We were notably underlying …

We're glad to announce that the first release candidate for Heptapod 0.13 has just been released.

The main user visible feature that this new version brings is the support for project wikis (see details below).

One of the main goals of the Heptapod 0.13 series is to provide …

Last week, Bitbucket updated their "sunsetting" announcement with the new July 1st, 2020 deadline. Here we explore some implications of this piece of good news, for Heptapod and the Mercurial ecosystem.

Octobus and Clever Cloud launch heptapod.host, the commercial Heptapod hosting solution. The service starts with a free public beta phase until June 1st, 2020. The demise of Bitbucket is nearing and heptapod.host is the ultimate Mercurial Bitbucket replacement.

Exceptionally, foss.heptapod.net will be offline next Monday, April 20th 2020 from 10:00 UTC+2, only to be back in the evening. Read this to know why and why it won't happen again.

foss.heptapod.net is the Heptapod service hosting Free and Open Source Software offered free …

We're very pleased to announce that Heptapod 0.12.0 has been released. DO NOT MIGRATE DIRECTLY from previous versions. Please read how to migrate from our previous announcement.

This version will be the basis for the commercial service by Octobus and Clever Cloud, entering public beta in a short …

We're very excited to announce that Heptapod reached the 0.12.0rc3 version today. DO NOT MIGRATE DIRECTLY from previous versions.

If you've been following our announcements, you must wonder what happened with Heptapod 0.9, that would be the logical version number after 0.8.3. That part should …

Following the launch of our public instance for FOSS projects, we've presented it at FOSDEM, started to onboard projects, released version 0.8.2 and been provided CI resources by the OSU OSL.

On January 27th, 2020, Octobus and Clever Cloud have launched a free service for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Maintainers of FOSS projects using Mercurial and looking for a new home are invited to apply to use the service

We're glad to announce the release of Heptapod 0.8.0.

An image is available on Docker Hub, and this version is also the first one to be installable from source

Deploying this version performs several significative data migrations. Care must be applied to backup all data before upgrading.

It's …

Those of you that have been following the issues and merge requests on dev.heptapod.net won't be surprised that the winter solstice release of Heptapod finally gets the very much awaited feature of SSH pushes and pulls.

This is now on Docker Hub as usual, as the 0.8 …

Many times over the past few months, we've been asked if Heptapod was to be the perfect haven for teams in search of a new DVCS home after they must flee from Bitbucket?

We're hereby inviting all generic projects related to Mercurial on our main Heptapod instance. Read below for …

We're glad to announce the release of Heptapod 0.7.0, on Docker Hub.

Deploying this version performs several significative data migrations. Care must be applied to backup all data before upgrading.

It's been an exciting development cycle, laying the ground for the major advances of the next one. We …

In short, https://dev.heptapod.net and other instances managed by Octobus will get GitLab base version upgrades up to once a week in the foreseeable future.

We're glad to announce the release of Heptapod 0.6.2, on Docker Hub.

This version is mostly about improving the imports, notably from Bitbucket. The full changelog can be read online alongside the Dockerfile and in the full description of the images in Docker Hub.

Today, we've configured dev.heptapod.net, the self-hosted development instance of Heptapod, for login and registration with BitBucket and GitHub accounts.

This makes it a breeze to register a new account and start filing issues, commenting on Merge Requests, etc.

Existing users have to activate the feature explicitely (see below …

We're glad to announce the release of Heptapod 0.6.1, on Docker Hub.

This version contains several fixes that improve the reliability of imports for mature projects and handles the closing of named branches properly. It also re-enables the import from Bibutcket as a beta feature.

The full changelog …

We're glad to announce the release of Heptapod 0.6.0, on Docker Hub. This version adds workflow and import features, and makes contributing easier.

While the 0.5 series was mostly about fixing the automatic detection of merges done by pushing public changesets directly from the command line, this …

We're glad to announce that version 0.4.0 of Heptapod has been released on 2019-07-09.

This version contains an overhaul of Mercurial logs, with Sentry integration.

We also took this opportunity to give the Docker image its long due README.

This new logging system leverages the brand new loggingmod …