Artifact retention

Artifact retention controls how long artifacts remain available after upload to Buildkite-managed storage. Organization administrators can choose a shorter retention period to reduce storage usage and charges.

The setting applies to every pipeline in your organization and is separate from build retention. No pipeline or agent configuration changes are needed.

Retention periods

Available retention periods are 7, 30, or 90 days, depending on your plan. See Buildkite plans for plan details. Unless you choose a shorter period, artifacts follow your plan's default retention period.

Changing your retention period

Organization administrators on plans with a maximum retention period of 90 days or less can choose a shorter period:

  1. Select Settings > Pipelines > Storage.
  2. Choose a Retention period, then select Save artifact retention.
Storage settings showing the artifact retention period and what happens when it changes

Choose your plan's maximum to use its default retention period.

If Buildkite has set a fixed retention period for your organization, the Storage page is read-only. Contact support at support@buildkite.com to request a change.

Changes take effect at 00:00 UTC the following day and apply to existing and new artifacts. Retention is measured from each artifact's upload date:

  • Shortening retention expires artifacts older than the new period when the change takes effect.
  • Increasing retention keeps unexpired artifacts available for longer. Expired artifacts can't be downloaded or restored.

Example

On October 19, you change retention from 30 days to 7 days. The change takes effect at 00:00 UTC on October 20:

  • Artifact A, uploaded on October 10, is older than 7 days. It expires when the change takes effect and can no longer be downloaded.
  • Artifact B, uploaded on October 18, is less than 7 days old. It remains available under the new 7-day retention period.

Expired artifacts no longer count toward storage usage or charges. Physical deletion from storage may happen later. See Artifacts billing for usage calculations.

Retaining artifacts for longer

To keep artifacts for longer, use your own private Amazon S3 bucket or another self-managed storage provider. You manage retention for artifacts stored there; Buildkite-managed retention periods don't apply.