Hello all,

If you use the mwscript-k8s tool to launch MediaWiki maintenance scripts on Kubernetes at WMF [0], this message is relevant to you.

*What is changing?*

On Monday, 3rd of November, the mwscript-k8s tool will default to launching scripts on PHP 8.3 instead of 8.1.

This is part of the ongoing migration of production MediaWiki workloads at WMF to PHP 8.3 [1] and follows the earlier introduction of 8.3 on an opt-in basis [2].

*If I encounter issues, is it possible to temporarily use PHP 8.1?*

Yes, if you encounter compatibility issues on 8.3, you can provide the --php_version=8.1 flag to the mwscript-k8s tool to select 8.1 instead.

Since this fallback will be removed at a later date, please open a sub-task of [3] to report the issue, so that it can be fixed.

*What about periodic maintenance jobs?*

Production periodic maintenance jobs [4] will migrate later on, trailing the mwscript-k8s migration by at least 1 week.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns, either to me directly, on this thread, or via a task on Phabricator.

Many thanks, Scott French Service Ops SRE

[0] https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Maintenance_scripts [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T360995 [2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org/t... [3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T401855 [4] https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mw-cron_jobs