Rockcraft 1.18 release notes¶
13 April 2026
Learn about the new features, changes, and fixes introduced in Rockcraft 1.18. For information about the Rockcraft release cycle, see the Release policy and schedule.
Requirements and compatibility¶
To run Rockcraft, a system requires the following minimum hardware and installed software. These requirements apply to local hosts as well as VMs and container hosts.
Minimum hardware requirements¶
AMD64, ARM64, ARMv7-M, RISC-V 64-bit, PowerPC 64-bit little-endian, or S390x processor
2GB RAM
10GB available storage space
Internet access for remote software sources and the Snap Store
Platform requirements¶
Platform |
Version |
Software requirements |
|---|---|---|
GNU/Linux |
Popular distributions that ship with systemd and are compatible with snapd |
systemd |
What’s new¶
Rockcraft 1.18 brings the following features, integrations, and improvements.
Support for Ubuntu Pro-compliant rocks¶
Rockcraft 1.18 supports packing rocks containing the extended security maintenance fixes and regulatory compliance enabled by Ubuntu Pro. This feature requires a Pro-enabled system and is further described on this page.
override-overlay key¶
This new part key enables the execution of a bash script
directly on the overlay system. This is in contrast to the existing overlay-script key
which runs commands on the build system and requires explicit targeting of the overlay.
New .NET plugin¶
Rockcraft projects targeting bases ubuntu@25.10 and higher can now use a new version of the .NET plugin which provides better control over the distinct steps of a .NET build process. See the plugin’s reference for a list of the new keys and a description of the plugin’s behavior.
Updated documentation system¶
The documentation base is updated to Canonical’s Sphinx Starter Pack 1.4.0. Going forward, the system will stay in step with the Starter Pack, keeping pace with its features.
The documentation commands that are standard in Canonical products are accessible by
prefixing them with docs-:
Command |
Result |
|---|---|
|
Renders the docs as a static set of HTML pages. |
|
Hosts the docs in a local server you can view in the web browser. When you save a change to a source file, the server updates the doc in real time. |
|
Checks for problems in the documentation. |
|
Removes the built docs and temporary files. |
|
See the full list of commands from the Starter Pack. |
The Starter Pack is no longer a Git submodule. If you’ve written for Rockcraft 1.17 or lower, or built the documentation before, you must remove the submodule from your host to continue developing:
git submodule deinit -f docs/sphinx-docs-starter-pack
rm -r docs/sphinx-docs-starter-pack
Minor features¶
Rockcraft 1.18 brings the following minor changes.
Better OCI image history¶
The rocks packed by Rockcraft now have a description of the commands used to create and configure each layer.
How-to: migrate to ubuntu@26.04¶
A new guide describes the guidelines for migrating an existing Rockcraft project to ubuntu@25.10 and ubuntu@26.04.
Documentation improvements¶
We’ve made improvements to the documentation:
Added expected completion times to the tutorials.
Updated the Node.js tutorial to display application logs.
Clarified the UTC timezone on the 12-factor app tutorials.
Fixed bugs and issues¶
The following issues have been resolved in Rockcraft 1.18.
Rockcraft 1.18.0¶
Contributors¶
We would like to express a big thank you to all the people who contributed to this release.
@Aeonoi,
@alithethird,
@arturo-seijas,
@asanvaq,
@atandrewlee,
@bepri,
@canon-cat,
@clay-lake,
@EddyPronk,
@erinecon,
@f-atwi,
@FinnRG,
@gcomneno,
@HamdaanAliQuatil,
@javierdelapuente,
@lengau,
@mateusrodrigues,
@medubelko,
@mr-cal,
@PraaneshSelvaraj,
@smethnani,
@steinbro,
@tigarmo,
and @zhijie-yang