Open WebUI v0.5.0 — Release Notes & Engineering Impact

## [0.5.0] - 2024-12-25 🎄🎅 _Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!_ This festive season, we're bringing you our most exciting updates yet, unlocking powerful new possibilities for your workflows. Here's to a smarter, more collaborative future with Open WebUI! 🚀 ### Added - **💬 True Asynchronous Chat Support**: Create chats, navigate away, and return anytime with responses ready. Ideal for reasoning models and multi-agent workflows, enhancing multitasking like never before. - **🔔 Chat Completion Notifications**: Never miss a completed response. Receive instant in-UI notifications when a chat finishes in a non-active tab, keeping you updated while you work elsewhere. - **🌐 Notification Webhook Integration**: Get alerts via webhooks even when your tab is closed! Configure your webhook URL in Settings > Account and receive timely updates for long-running chats or external integration needs. - **📚 Channels (Beta)**: Explore Discord/Slack-style chat rooms designed for real-time collaboration between users and AIs. Build bots for channels and unlock asynchronous communication for proactive multi-agent workflows. Opt-in via Admin Settings > General. A Comprehensive Bot SDK tutorial (https://github.com/open-webui/bot) is incoming, so stay tuned! - **🖼️ Client-Side Image Compression**: Now compress images before upload (Settings > Interface), saving bandwidth and improving performance seamlessly. - **🛠️ OAuth Management for User Groups**: Enable group-level management via OAuth integration for enhanced control and scalability in collaborative environments. - **✅ Structured Output for Ollama**: Pass structured data output directly to Ollama, unlocking new possibilities for streamlined automation and precise data handling. - **📜 Offline Swagger Documentation**: Developer-friendly Swagger API docs are now available offline, ensuring full accessibility wherever you are. - **📸 Quick Screen Capture Button**: Effortlessly capture your screen with a single click from the message input menu. - **🌍 i18n Updates**: Improved and refined translations across several languages, including Ukrainian, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, and more, ensuring a seamless global user experience. ### Fixed - **📋 Table Export to CSV**: Resolved issues with CSV export where headers were missing or errors occurred due to values with commas, ensuring smooth and reliable data handling. - **🔓 BYPASS_MODEL_ACCESS_CONTROL**: Fixed an issue where users could see models but couldn’t use them with 'BYPASS_MODEL_ACCESS_CONTROL=True', restoring proper functionality for environments leveraging this setting. ### Changed - **💡 API Key Authentication Restriction**: Narrowed API key auth permissions to '/api/models' and '/api/chat/completions' for enhanced security and better API governance. - **⚙️ Backend Overhaul for Performance**: Major backend restructuring; a heads-up that some "Functions" using internal variables may face compatibility issues. Moving forward, websocket support is mandatory to ensure Open WebUI operates seamlessly. ### Removed - **⚠️ Legacy Functionality Clean-Up**: Deprecated outdated backend systems that were non-essential or overlapped with newer implementations, allowing for a leaner, more efficient platform. A heartfelt thank you to everyone—our users, contributors, developers, translators, and dreamers—who have made Open WebUI what it is today. Your passion, ideas, and hard work inspire us every day to push the boundaries of what’s possible. Together, we’ve built not just a platform, but a community that’s shaping the future of AI-powered collaboration and creativity. As we look ahead to 2025, we remain ambitious—committed to empowering innovation, breaking new ground in AI workflows, and delivering tools that elevate everyone. Here’s to dreaming big, achieving more, and building the future together. Thank you for being a part of this journey. 🚀 👏 Massive thanks to our incredible contributors for their hard work and dedication to making this release possible: @silentoplayz, @tarmst, @devdev999, @aleixdorca, @panda44312, @Adhithya03, @gabriel-ecegi, @OriginalSimon, @matthewdtwo, @envision3d, @denispol, @short-circuit, @TiancongLx, @MooreDerek, @jk-f5 🚀 We'd like to extend a heartfelt thank you to our amazing sponsors for their generous support (Note: We've excluded private sponsors from this list. If you'd like to get featured here, feel free to reach out to us!): @digitalbrainowners, @ModonHolding, @roosi-gmbh, @mushmax, @rndmcnlly, @icanbwell, @fabioFrei, @GenieDev101, @PortlandKyGuy, @sushibait, @CubicleGangster, @GitDatamind