TeamCity pipelines exit EAP with branch controls and failure resilience

TeamCity 2026.2 transitions pipelines from Early Access Program to general availability across both On-Premises and Cloud deployments, enabling unified CI/CD workflow design regardless of project complexity. The update introduces protected branch safeguards with explicit UI warnings when edits conflict with repository rules, plus flexible run-through failure options to maintain critical post-failure jobs like cleanup tasks. Pipeline enhancements now support unbound workflows without VCS roots and individual job debugging during editing. The Promote function extends to pipelines, allowing partial chain execution for redeploying artifacts like Docker images without full rebuilds. For AI integration, Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) supports Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google Gemini models via developer API keys, while MCP toolset expansions enable pipeline management through three new TeamCity-server-based tools restricted to Brave mode for safety. IDE plugins gain CLI bundling and MCP registration, with Kotlin Multiplatform developers receiving free-tier Cloud access for iOS pipeline testing. GitHub pull request matching by source branch now chains related changes across repositories. Versioned Kotlin DSL settings add agent-side compilation for security-sensitive environments. Concurrent maintenance updates address bugs in TeamCity 2025.11.8 and 2026.1.4 installations. JetBrains maintains pipeline development momentum with roadmap commits beyond this release.