In early February, Camunda released Camunda 8.9-alpha4. We have some highlights to share about this latest release. For a full list of features and updates for the release, we encourage you to check out the release notes.
- Value at a glance
- Fetch and honor active process definitions for connectors
- Modeling enhancements
- Task list enhancements with Microsoft Teams integration
- Addition of Camunda Docs AI MCP server to documentation
- Audit log coverage for Camunda 7 → 8 migrations
- Safer rollouts, faster modeling, less toil
This alpha release helps teams maintain continuity and control by making everyday modeling and onboarding easier. You can work in your favorite productivity tool, align runtime behavior with what you see in production, and keep auditability intact from Camunda 7 to Camunda 8.
Value at a glance
This alpha release provides value to your entire organization. Our connectors now respect the active process definition rather than just the latest version. This helps to prevent stalled instances after frequent deployments and protects your SLAs.
Onboarding and reuse are faster when you adopt this release. Web Modeler can import a full process application from a single Camunda Marketplace link, while modeling flows with cross-tool BPMN copy/paste, instant duplicate, and reliable autosave in Desktop Modeler, so work isn’t lost when you switch tabs.
We have enhanced our application integration, allowing you to participate where they already collaborate. With access to process tasks, sort, and the ability to participate in processes directly within Microsoft Teams, this release reduces context switching and increases productivity.
We introduced docs-backed AI support that helps business analysts and developers implement confidently with a shortened ramp-up time, minimizing trial-and-error during implementation.
Finally, this alpha release keeps regulated teams confident during Camunda 7 to Camunda 8 upgrades by preserving end-to-end audit trails. Accountability remains intact across versions.
Fetch and honor active process definitions for connectors
Business processes often evolve frequently, and it is common to have multiple versions of the same process running in production at the same time. Even when newer versions are deployed, older versions may still have active process instances that need to continue operating reliably until completion.
In our previous releases, customers could experience stalled or failing processes that could not progress because the corresponding connectors were no longer instantiated. This led to unpredictable behavior in versioned environments, especially for customers with frequent deployments or CI/CD pipelines. Active processes could be tied to older versions that could no longer be maintained correctly, leading to stalled or broken processes. There was no straightforward way to configure the runtime to focus on process definitions that actually mattered: those with active instances.
With our alpha4 release, we have introduced an enhancement that provides a filtering capability in the process definitions search API that allows the runtime to retrieve the latest and active process definition versions with running instances. Now:
- The connector runtime instantiates connectors for all process definitions that have active process instances regardless of whether they are the latest version.
- Older yet still-running process versions continue to function correctly, eliminating stalled workflows.
- Customers retain backward compatibility with older versions while benefiting from optimised behavior when this feature is available.
With this enhancement, we have increased the reliability, scalability, and performance of the connector runtime in real-world production environments. As customers increasingly adopt automated deployment strategies and iterate rapidly on their processes, the system must gracefully handle multiple active process versions without manual intervention or operational risk. No more stalled processes on older versions, so you have smoother, safer deployments.
Overall, this feature ensures that connector behavior accurately reflects what is happening in production, delivering a more robust, performant, and predictable experience for customers managing evolving process landscapes.
Modeling enhancements
Web Modeler: Download entire process applications from Camunda Marketplace
Camunda Marketplace provides solutions and blueprints that often contain several assets including:
- BPMN processes
- DMN tables
- Forms
- Connector templates
- RPA scripts
- Test files
- Documentation, etc.
In previous releases, Marketplace contributors had to submit and maintain individual links for every file in a solution. And users of Web Modeler found the import process for larger process applications confusing and were not guaranteed that larger process applications would be imported properly. This could lead to missing dependencies, significantly delaying onboarding, training and solution reuse.
In this alpha, Camunda provides a single-link import of packages .zip with up to 100 files, leading to safer and scalable imports. This feature reduces the onboarding time, making it more reliable for both Marketplace contributors and Web Modeler users. For example, this feature:
- Provides a simple way to publish and maintain complete process applications as a single downloadable package instead of juggling many individual links for solution authors and repository maintainers.
- The import user interface uses collapsible sections and a structured table to categorize resources (e.g., new resources, replacements, ignored resources, and resources that cannot be imported), making it easier to scan larger process applications.
- Safer, smarter element template handling when imported templates conflict with existing ones in the project or organization.
- Gives a one‑click way to obtain a fully configured process application into Web Modeler, so your focus can be on adapting and extending the solution for business users and developers.
- Enables consistent, repeatable workshops and PoCs by ensuring every participant starts from the same, complete, working process application in just a few steps for enablement, consulting, and training personnel.
Together, these improvements deliver a seamless, one‑click experience to bring a complete process application into Web Modeler, reducing setup time, lowering the risk of broken imports, and making it much easier to adopt and reuse Marketplace solutions at scale.
Shared global clipboard and duplicate: Desktop and Web Modeler
When you were working in two different models, but wanted to share a BPMN element or group of elements, there was no ability to seamlessly copy/paste them between the models. This slowed model creation and increased the cycle time to recreate working BPMN elements or element sequences.
Now you have the option to copy and paste a BPMN element or group of elements across Camunda 7 or Camunda 8 and even other BPMN editing tools using the standard Ctrl+C/Ctrl-P, for Windows and Cmd+C/Cmd+P for Macintosh to copy and paste these elements between tools. You can also duplicate elements using Ctrl+D (Windows) and Cmd+D (Mac).
This means quicker iteration and pattern reuse across environments and can assist in the efforts to migrate models from Camunda 7 to Camunda 8.
Note: When migrating complex models from Camunda 7 to Camunda 8, we recommend using the Diagram Converter which can convert the entire diagram instead of just pasting one or two tasks. For more information on this tool, please refer to our documentation.
Tabs autosave: Desktop Modeler
Modelers using the Desktop Modeler application can lose unsaved changes when switching between tabs. The application experiences a focus loss when switching to other applications or integrated development environments (IDEs). This can also happen if there are other interruptions that cause focus loss; such as crashes. Any of these risk progress loss when building BPMN diagrams.
This forces authors to manually save the modeling flow. If this is not done, then changes might not be visible and this can cause synchronization issues.
To ensure seamless persistence in desktop environments, with this release, we have made Camunda Desktop Modeler more reliable for professional use where interruptions are common and work must sync reliably with file systems and tools. Now the desktop application features tabs autosave, which automatically saves diagram changes when switching tabs or when the application loses focus.
This update ensures work persists immediately to disk, making it visible to your IDE and other tools without manual intervention. This reduces risk and enables smoother flow and reliable synchronization with external tools without requiring manual saves, thereby eliminating lost progress.
Task list enhancements with Microsoft Teams integration
Productivity is of the utmost importance in any organization and process participants can be more efficient if they can continue to work within their collaborative tool without having to exit to another application or web browser tab. Camunda addressed this when we introduced our Microsoft Teams integration.
However, in previous releases, users had limited access to the details of individual tasks that were accessible through the Camunda Task List. In addition, there was no ability to filter and sort tasks within Microsoft Teams which made prioritizing tasks more difficult adding to cycle time and lack of adoption.
With this release, we provide task “cards” that show more detailed information.
These tasks can easily be sorted by accessing the sort options available, such as priority.
Users can also access all tasks, open tasks, unclaimed, and completed tasks by selecting from the tabs on the left.
This enhanced Microsoft Teams integration keeps work where collaboration already happens, boosting throughput, improving response times, and increasing adoption of the process.
Addition of Camunda Docs AI MCP server to documentation
When you are working on a process orchestrated model, it is imperative that you have access to all the right documentation at your fingertips. Today that means you need not only access to documentation, but also the proper AI tools to build on Camunda.
Without this access, business architects and developers can’t reliably get accurate, up‑to‑date answers from official Camunda 8 documentation inside their IDE/AI assistant, which leads to context‑switching, slower implementation, and higher risk of incorrect solutions.
In fact, lack of access to the proper information can lead to:
- Unreliable AI answers about Camunda resulting in hallucinations or outdated guidance because models aren’t grounded in current, official documentation.
- Constantly switching between IDEs and documentation which means developers have to jump from their editor to a browser tab, search docs, then come back and wire things up by hand.
- Not getting access to all Camunda knowledge which is often scattered across many sources including documentation, forums, GitHub, blogs, and more.
- Slow onboarding for new Camunda developers because of not knowing where to start and finding information which extended their time to success.
With this release, Camunda has provided the Camunda Docs MCP server powered by the Kapa.ai AI assistant. It’s a quick way to provide additional support to Camunda developers alongside our docs Ask AI assistant. This server:
- Allows any MCP‑capable IDE or AI tool to query the latest official Camunda 8 docs and related public sources directly via a single semantic search tool.
- Provides a controlled, docs‑backed context source so AI assistants generate more accurate, Camunda‑aligned answers and code instead of guessing from generic or outdated web content.
You can add the Camunda Docs MCP server to let your AI agent directly access the latest official Camunda 8 documentation. For example, if you use an AI coding tool such as Cursor or Copilot, adding the MCP server can help ensure more accurate AI responses and code generation by accessing the current Camunda 8 documentation and context.
The MCP server is available at https://camunda-docs.mcp.kapa.ai.
With this release, you get more accurate AI assistance and in-IDE code suggestions that fit your stack. New hires ramp faster, and everyone spends less time hunting through docs.
For more information, please review our documentation: Camunda Docs MCP server.
Audit log coverage for Camunda 7 → 8 migrations
Industries with strict audit requirements cannot migrate without maintaining their rich audit history as regulators often require a complete historical audit trail that can often spans months or even years. Without this operational visibility, teams lose the ability to trace who made changes to production processes, creating blind spots for troubleshooting and forensics. Bottom line, without historical audit data, organizations cannot enforce accountability policies or investigate past incidents after migration.
To enable compliant, complete migrations for regulated industries and organizations with strict governance requirements, we implemented audit log coverage in our migration tools with this latest alpha release. The audit log migrator automatically converts Camunda 7 UserOperationLog entries to Camunda 8 AuditLog format, preserving the complete history of user operations including:
- Who performed actions
- What entities were affected (process instances, tasks, variables, decisions)
- The operation types (create, update, delete, assign, complete)
- The timestamps
- Any annotations
This ensures uninterrupted audit trail continuity across the migration, enabling customers to meet compliance requirements and maintain operational visibility without manual data reconstruction or workarounds.
Audit logs are essential for demonstrating regulatory compliance, performing incident analysis, and maintaining organizational accountability. By migrating this data, we can enable customers to maintain continuity of their compliance posture during the transition to Camunda 8.
Safer rollouts, faster modeling, less toil
This release tightens the loop between design and runtime. For example:
- Connectors now honor active process definitions (not just “latest”), so frequent deployments stop breaking in-flight work.
- Modeling moves faster with one-click Marketplace imports, cross-tool copy/paste, duplicate, and autosave.
- Participation happens where collaboration already lives: inside Microsoft Teams.
- Docs-backed AI reduces false starts during builds.
- If you’re migrating from Camunda 7, you keep end-to-end auditability.
Don’t forget to check out our release notes to see all the new features provided with Camunda 8.9.0-alpha4.
