It is now possible to pause individual Buildkite agents. Pausing an agent is similar to stopping an agent, but unlike stopping, a paused agent remains running and can resume work later on.

Pausing an agent is a useful alternative to stopping an agent, especially when resources are tied to the lifetime of the agent, such as a cloud instance configured to terminate when the agent exits. By pausing an agent, you can investigate problems in its environment more easily, without the worry of jobs being dispatched to it.

Some examples of maintenance operations that could benefit from pausing an agent include:

• pruning Docker caches
• emptying temporary directories
• updating code mirrors
• installing software updates
• compacting or vacuuming databases

You can pause agents in either the UI, GraphQL API or Rest API. Paused agent counts will be reflected in the platform.

To fully benefit from pausing, we recommend upgrading your agents to the latest released version.

See Pausing and resuming agents on Buildkite Docs for more information.