Citrix Secure Developer Spaces™

What’s new in Citrix Secure Developer Spaces™

Citrix continuously delivers updates to enhance your Citrix Secure Developer Spaces™ experience. Each release introduces new features, improvements, and fixes to ensure you always have access to the latest innovations and performance enhancements. This article highlights the new and updated capabilities available in this release, as well as resolved issues.

To ensure compatibility and optimal performance, review the latest Technical Requirements for Citrix Secure Developer Spaces.

Citrix Secure Developer Spaces 2025.10

This release contains the following new features:

Renewal warning for CA certificates

SDS now displays a warning when a CA certificate is approaching expiration, enabling administrators to take timely action to renew certificates and prevent service disruptions.

Workspace resource usage insights

SDS now provides historic insights into workspace CPU and RAM consumption. This data is automatically collected and stored in the SDS database, and can be accessed via the workspace-measurements and workspace-measurement-samples APIs to support rightsizing analysis and long-term trending insights.

The system gathers the following information:

  • CPU usage over time
  • RAM usage over time

The data is retained for 7 days.

For more information, see Workspace resource usage insights

Enhanced idle detection for SSH sessions

When users connect to an SDS workspace via SSH with the SDS/Strong Network plugin, SDS can now monitor activity with greater precision. This will allow the system to pause idle workspaces more reliably, improving cost efficiency without disrupting active sessions. Users without the Citrix SDS/Strong Network plugin installed in their local IDE will be asked to install it via a notification within the SDS console. Administrators can use the SDS API /v1/metrics/ssh-workspaces-no-extension-usage to determine a list of users connecting via SSH without the plugin installed.

Note:

The initial version of this release will not change the behavior of the SDS scheduled to minimize the disruption to existing users. A future minor version will enable the scheduler changes.

Enhanced Quickstart workspace creation

The Quickstart interface, used when creating a new workspace via a Quickstart link, has been enhanced. Before provisioning, users can now review:

  • The image and template used to create the workspace
  • The organizational location where the workspace will be deployed

Additionally, users can select the template version and geographic deployment location, providing greater control and transparency during workspace setup.

For more information, see Quickstart

Support for Azure Cosmos DB

SDS now supports Azure Cosmos DB as a managed database option, in addition to MongoDB Atlas. This gives teams greater flexibility in choosing the database service that best fits their workloads and cloud environment.

Workspace template flow: Add draft & promote functionality

New Workspace template versions are now created in a draft state. Drafts can be modified and tested until they are explicitly promoted to the default version. This workflow simplifies the process of iterating on templates while preventing users from inadvertently using versions that are not production-ready.

For more information, see Create a new version of a Template

Template duplication in the SDS console

Project Owners can now duplicate existing Workspace templates directly within the SDS console. This makes it easier to create new templates that share the same toolstack and integrations as existing ones, while allowing for fine-tuned configuration to meet specific developer needs.

Workspace resource visibility and sorting

The Project/Workspace view now displays the full resource configuration (CPU, RAM, and storage) for every workspace in a project. Workspaces can also be sorted by these attributes, enabling Project Owners to quickly identify high-resource allocations and support rightsizing activities.

New filters in Project/Workspaces view

A new filter option has been added to the Project/Workspaces view, making it easier to identify workspaces with specific characteristics within large projects. Available filter criteria include:

  • Owner – workspace owner
  • Image – base image used for the workspace
  • Created On – creation date
  • Status – current workspace status
  • CPU, RAM, Storage – allocated resources

This enhancement streamlines workspace management and helps quickly locate relevant workspaces.

For more information, see Filtering Workspaces

Optimized Console Responsiveness

We have significantly optimized the way the SDS console loads data, resulting in a much more responsive and fluid user experience.

  • Near-instant navigation: Actions that previously had a short delay are now almost instant. For example, navigating from the platform level into a specific project is notably faster.
  • Improved workflow: This foundational enhancement minimizes wait times, improving your overall workflow and making the console feel smoother and more efficient.

Interactive onboarding guides

When accessing the SDS web console for the first time, users are now presented with interactive onboarding guides. These guides highlight key functionality and walk through important first steps, helping new users get up and running more quickly.

Updated Visual Studio Code version

SDS workspaces now include Visual Studio Code v1.105.1, providing the latest features, improvements, and fixes.

Improved workspace creation workflow

The input fields for creating a new workspace from a template have been reorganized to reduce the number of clicks required. Additionally, the proposed workspace name is now automatically generated using the format <First Name><First 3 letters of Surname>-<TemplateName>, streamlining the setup process and ensuring consistent naming.

For example: StevenGal-Frontend Workspace

Enhanced UX for workspaces without resource limits

SDS now allows customers to create workspaces without CPU or RAM limits, enabling fully elastic scalability. Workspaces configured with unlimited resources will display an infinity symbol for the affected resource, providing a clear visual indicator of this configuration.

Default selection of current user for resource ownership

Whenever SDS prompts for an owner of a newly created resource, the current user is now listed at the top of the user list. This change streamlines common workflows and speeds up the resource creation process.

Enhanced user details page

The user details page now displays user-configured workspace schedules and lists all workspaces with custom schedules. This page is also accessible to Project Owners, in addition to Security Officers. The enhanced view provides better visibility into a user’s context and special configurations, aiding troubleshooting and workspace management.

Backstage plugin for SDS

SDS now offers a plugin for Backstage, enabling users to list and access all workspaces associated with a specific software project, as well as create new workspaces directly from Backstage. For organizations using a Backstage-based Integrated Developer Portal, this integration streamlines developer workflows and simplifies workspace management.

For more information, see Citrix SDS Workspaces Plugin for Backstage

HashiCorp Vault integration for secret management

SDS now integrates with HashiCorp Vault, the leading secret management solution. When enabled, all secrets previously stored in the SDS database are securely stored in Vault. This includes:

  • Platform secrets: Platform SSH private key, OAuth app secrets, email gateway secrets, and workspace image registry credentials
  • User secrets: User SSH personal identity, private SSH keys, and GPG keys

This integration enhances security by centralizing secret management and leveraging Vault’s robust access controls and auditing capabilities.

For more information, see Use HashiCorp Vault as a Secret Manager

Usage Telemetry

SDS now collects usage telemetry to help improve the platform. This telemetry is used for understanding feature adoption and identifying areas for performance and usability improvements. No personal data is collected, and all information is handled in accordance with organizational privacy policies.

Pendo integration for in-app guidance and analytics

SDS now collects usage telemetry to help improve the platform. This telemetry is used for understanding feature adoption and identifying areas for performance and usability improvements. No personal data is collected, and all information is handled in accordance with organizational privacy policies. https://FQDN/platform/settings/analytics/usage_analytics

For more information, see Usage Analytics