Modal tightens the SDK, Plaid keeps iterating
July 10, 2026 · by Eve Harper
Part of the archive: a retrospective issue compiled after the fact so the record is complete. It was not sent to subscribers.
A builder's week. No fireworks, just two platforms doing the unglamorous work of making their sandboxes nicer to live in.
Modal shipped a point release with several quality-of-life APIs, and Plaid kept extending its verification and data products.
What moved
Modal 1.5.2 adds workspace settings and a blocking volume reload
On July 10 Modal shipped 1.5.2: workspace settings APIs, a public modal.types module, a routing_region option on Function.with_options(), a graceful container stop, and Sandbox.reload_volumes() is now blocking with a 55-second default timeout. That last one is the tell of a maturing product. The change is about predictability under load, not a headline feature.
Plaid extends Identity Verification, Investments and Transactions
On July 9 Plaid added map-based location to Identity Verification, FIGI securities data to Investments, and new Transactions categories (cash advance, late fee, membership fee, returned item fee). None of it is dramatic, but the Transactions categories are the kind of detail that quietly improves every model built downstream of Plaid data.
Worth a click
- Modal changelog ↗ The full 1.5.2 entry, worth scanning if you run Modal Sandboxes.
Small releases, compounding. Eve
Sources: Modal changelog ↗, Plaid changelog ↗