This week in Orbit is the weekly editorial series that collects every announcement we publish. It runs on a fixed cadence — a dated weekly installment, a monthly Orbit release notes recap, and an Orbit quarterly review wrap in parallel — and every entry lands in one of six topical lanes so you can follow the areas you actually run. This post defines the series, the six lanes, and how to use both.
What each slot looks like, worked
Every announcement lands in one of three slots, and each indexes off the blog. The weekly slot covers only what actually shipped that week, the monthly slot recaps the month on one page, and the quarterly slot wraps the quarter grouped by topic:
| Slot | Cadence | Answers | Current entry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly | Dated This week in Orbit — <date> installment | What shipped this week, newest first | This week in Orbit — August 27, 2026 |
| Monthly | Orbit release notes — <month> <year> recap | The month in one page, carrying the recurring release-notes tag | Orbit release notes — August 2026 |
| Quarterly | Orbit quarterly review — <quarter> <year> wrap | The quarter grouped by topic, carrying the recurring quarterly-review tag | Orbit quarterly review — Q2 2026 |
The canonical history stays at orbit.devotel.io/en/changelog. The editorial series mirrors it rather than replacing it, and entries never promise capability before it ships.
Six topical lanes
Announcements group into six topical lanes, so you follow the areas you operate rather than reading everything end to end:
- AI agents. New agent capability and safeguards — for example tenant-authored guardrail rules from the custom guardrail announcement or champion/challenger promotions from the canary rollouts explainer.
- Compliance reminders. Dated regulatory obligations and the review cadence itself, like the quarterly compliance posture review and the sender-ID KYC loop checklist.
- Integration updates. New connectors and partner hooks, like the integrations marketplace, the n8n integration, and the Salesforce, Zendesk, and HubSpot connectors.
- Pricing and fee changes. Carrier-fee announcements and billing-surface edits, like the H2 2026 A2P carrier fee changes explainer or the prepaid auto-reload announcement.
- Channel expansion. New or re-scoped channels and coverage, like the WhatsApp calling GA, the Apple Messages for Business expansion, and the RCS carrier-state briefings.
- Industry shifts. Vendor sunsets, fraud waves, and market-level changes, like the Twilio Video EOL readiness explainer, the SMS pumping fraud explainer, and the regional CPaaS entrants round-up.
Every entry in every slot links back to its line in the canonical changelog, so a claim in the series is traceable to the dated source entry — the series is a set of reading windows over one history, not a second history.
How to follow each lane
- AI agents. Open Agents in the dashboard for the agent controls each entry names; entries link the docs guide when one exists.
- Compliance reminders. Watch the dated obligation posts; entries name the dashboard compliance surface where the tenant-owned control lives.
- Integration updates. Entries name the integration and link the app directory or the connector's own surface in the dashboard.
- Pricing and fee changes. Entries restate the carrier-fee math in customer terms and link the pricing page or the relevant calculator when one exists.
- Channel expansion. Entries link the channel guide (for example WhatsApp or RCS) plus the changelog line the capability shipped on.
- Industry shifts. Entries give market context first, then the readiness checklist or runbook the shift implies.
Onboarding and announcements share a history
Onboarding fixes and improvements are announced the same way as product capability: a changelog entry first, then the weekly series. Three August examples, each linked to its own entry in the canonical changelog: the onboarding plan features list fix, the signup organization seating fix, and the WhatsApp connect CTA visibility fix. Every entry in a weekly installment links back to the canonical page, so a first-run improvement is traceable from the series to its source entry.
Read the cadence in the index
Posts are listed newest-first, so the entries since your last visit sit together at the top of the blog index. Skim the dated weekly installments, fall back to the monthly recap for one page per month, or take the quarterly review for the whole quarter in one longer pass. Any one of the three is a five-minute habit that keeps you current on what shipped.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I see what actually shipped this week?
The weekly This week in Orbit — <date> installment. It covers only what shipped that week, newest first, and every entry links back to the dated source line in the canonical changelog — so the weekly series is a reading window over one history, not a second source of truth.
How is the weekly series different from the changelog?
The changelog is the canonical, dated history of everything that ships — one entry per change, as it happens. The weekly series is the editorial layer on top: it collects that week's entries into one dated post, groups them into the six topical lanes (AI agents, compliance reminders, integration updates, pricing and fee changes, channel expansion, industry shifts), and links each one back to its changelog line. The monthly Orbit release notes recap and the quarterly review are the same mirroring at longer windows.
Do the announcements ever promise capability before it ships?
No. The series mirrors what is already live — entries are written after the changelog entry exists, and the series never announces anything that has not shipped. If a capability is not yet in the canonical changelog, it is not yet in the series.
Where do I go from an announcement to actually use the feature?
Two places, both linked from the entries. The dashboard surface the feature lives in — for example, Agents for the AI-agent controls a guardrail entry names — and the docs guide behind it when one exists: an onboarding announcement points into the onboarding status timeline guide, and a compliance reminder points into the tenant-owned control it names. The resources hub holds the evergreen foundational explainers, so a reader landing on either surface can reach the larger category guides behind the announcements.