Grafana Labs just unveiled the latest update to its log aggregation system, Loki 3.7, which includes Helm chart management updates, feature enhancements, and several breaking changes and deprecations that affect current deployments.
A key change is the transition of the Loki Helm chart to community maintenance. As of March 16, 2026, the chart resides in a separate repository managed by the community. Grafana Labs will continue to maintain the Helm chart for Grafana Enterprise Logs.
This version introduces internal improvements across core components such as the distributor, compactor, ingester, and query path. Enhancements include better tracking of in-flight data, refined request distribution, more configuration options, a built-in loki health command, and expanded filtering capabilities.
Importantly, Loki 3.7 includes several breaking changes. The query engine now calculates scheduler capacity differently and shares worker threads across connections. Additionally, parsed labels no longer override structured metadata.
The release also includes some deprecations. The Promtail agent is now deprecated, with its functionality integrated into Grafana Alloy, an open-source observability data collector. Further deprecations affect storage backends like BoltDB, as well as certain configuration options and API endpoints.
Due to these changes, it is important to review the upgrade guidance, especially regarding scheduler behavior and label processing, before deploying Loki 3.7 in production. Finally, the release expands the documentation with a troubleshooting section that catalogs Loki error messages.
For more information, see the release notes or refer to GitHub’s changelog. The release follows the 3.6 branch, which continues to receive maintenance updates.
