---
title: "Cluster management API, ALTER operations in deployments, and UI polish"
seo_title: "Cluster API, ALTER Operations and UI Polish"
excerpt: "Manage dedicated cluster replicas via API, apply schema changes with ALTER during deployments, and a batch of UI and CLI improvements."
date: "2026-03-20"
---

## Cluster management API

Dedicated cluster management is now available via API. Three new endpoints let you rebalance traffic weights, add replicas, and remove replicas, all scriptable.

- `PUT /v0/organizations/{org_id}/clusters/{cluster_id}/weights` to rebalance traffic.
- `POST /v0/organizations/{org_id}/clusters/{cluster_id}/replicas` to add a replica.
- `DELETE /v0/organizations/{org_id}/clusters/{cluster_id}/replicas/{replica_name}` to remove a replica.

Wire cluster scaling into your runbooks, automate from your own control plane, or standardize changes across organizations.

Available for dedicated infrastructure where self-serve replica management is active. Read the [blog post](https://www.tinybird.co/blog-posts/cluster-management-api) or the [cluster management docs](https://www.tinybird.co/docs/forward/guides/cluster-management).

## ALTER operations in Forward deployments

Deployments can now apply schema changes to Data Sources using `ALTER` instead of rewriting and backfilling the entire table. This means faster deployments with no data movement for the following operations:

- **Add a column** to a Data Source.
- **Drop a column** from a Data Source.
- **Make a column Nullable**.
- **Modify TTLs**.
- **Add or drop an index**.

Update your datafile, deploy, and Tinybird applies the change almost instantly when promoting the deployment without any data movement. Read more about [ALTER operations in Forward deployments](/forward/guides/evolve-data-source#automatic-alter-operations).

### Branch limit increased to 6

Workspaces now support up to 6 branches, doubled from the previous limit of 3. Useful for teams running multiple preview environments or feature branches in parallel.

### UI improvements

- **Resources table performance.** Row virtualization and loading optimizations make the Resources page faster, especially for Workspaces with many resources.
- **Polling stops when the tab is hidden.** Pipe detail pages were firing queries even when the browser tab wasn't visible. Polling now pauses automatically and refreshes when you return.
- **Playground loading.** Nodes load lazily with better loading state visuals. Default query limit is now 50 rows.
- **Error visibility.** Time series charts group errors, the results bar shows on error, and the side panel shows an error indicator when a resource fails.
- **Resource actions moved to the top bar** for easier access in split-screen view.
- **No changelog popup for new users.** New users no longer see the changelog on first visit.

### CLI updates

**CLI 4.3.0**: `tb deploy --auto/--no-auto` keeps the same behavior (default `--auto`) while using server-side deployment `auto_promote` under the hood.

**CLI 4.2.2**: Improved the `max-depth` warning message to clarify when the warning can be safely ignored.

Also fixed: `tb deploy` now prints the deployment URL consistently, warns if you cancel after a deployment has been sent, and correctly handles cancellation.

### Bug fixes and improvements

- [All]: Fixed double `Nullable` wrapping for `LowCardinality(Nullable())` columns that caused schema issues.
- [All]: Fixed `EXPLAIN JSON` parsing crash on invalid UTF-8 from `unhex()` in FixedString values.
- [All]: Fixed CSV column name mapping where headers with spaces or special characters didn't match normalized Data Source column names.
- [All]: POST request bodies are now encoded as UTF-8 instead of Latin-1, fixing potential corruption of non-ASCII characters.
- [All]: Sending an empty file body for a replace operation now returns a proper 400 error instead of silently creating issues.
- [All]: Improved S3 connector error message when using deprecated settings.
- [All]: Increased CSV importer queue wait timeout to 240 seconds.

### From the blog

**[Cluster management is now scriptable](https://www.tinybird.co/blog-posts/cluster-management-api)**: Replica management in dedicated clusters is now available via API. Rebalance weights, add replicas, remove replicas.

{% callout type="info" %}
Still on Tinybird Classic? [Migrate to Forward](https://www.tinybird.co/docs/forward/migrations/migrate-from-classic).
{% /callout %}