Upgrade 16.5 to 16.6

Introduction

Goal

Upgrade a Bloomreach Experience Manager implementation project from version 16.5.x to 16.6.y.

Significant Changes

This minor release introduces a number of new features, technical stack upgrades, and product improvements. The most significant updates for developers and users moving from v16.5 to v16.6 include:

• The AI Content Assistant's capabilities have been significantly expanded. It now supports Expanded Contextual Awareness (allowing reference to multiple specified CMS documents) and retains Persistent Chat History.

• AI Content Assistant now also supports LiteLLM and all interactions with the AI are now logged, supporting essential auditing and compliance requirements.

• The LLms.txt plugin was introduced, adding a dedicated document type to the CMS that allows webmasters to manage the contents of llms.txt files, which are used to provide LLMs with human and LLM readable content.

• The launch of Homepage 2.0, built on the modern Angular framework, marks a key milestone in modernizing the BrXM UI and delivers a more responsive user interface. Administrators can control the rollout using the Apps 2.0 Configuration GUI (under the Setup menu) to run it concurrently with the legacy homepage.

See the 16.6.0 release notes for a full list.

Important Note on Incubating Features

Bloomreach is introducing a formal process for releasing some new functionalities as "Incubating Features" to accelerate innovation, particularly in rapidly evolving technologies. While these features are production-ready and tested, they may undergo significant changes (including backward-incompatible modifications or removal) outside of standard major releases. 

Such changes will not affect the out-of-the-box CMS experience but may require updates in custom integrations or extensions using these features.If you customize or extend an incubating feature, you may need to update your custom solution in subsequent minor or patch releases. All incubating features will be clearly documented and marked.

In v16.6.0:

Groupid: changed from com.bloomreach.brx.ai to com.bloomreach.xm.ai

Artifacts: The term 'incubating' was appended to two artifacts:

<dependency>

      <groupId>com.bloomreach.xm.ai</groupId>

      <artifactId>content-ai-service-impl-incubating</artifactId>

</dependency>

<dependency>

      <groupId>com.bloomreach.xm.ai</groupId>

      <artifactId>content-ai-service-rest-incubating</artifactId>

 </dependency>

The following only need the groupid change:

<dependency>

      <groupId>com.bloomreach.xm.ai</groupId>

      <artifactId>content-ai-service-client-bootstrap</artifactId>

</dependency>

<dependency>

      <groupId>com.bloomreach.xm.ai</groupId>

      <artifactId>content-ai-service-client-assistant-angular</artifactId>

</dependency>

Please refer to the Incubating Features Policy for more information.

Upgrade Steps

Perform Generic Minor Upgrade Steps

Follow the generic instructions for minor upgrades.

Check Custom Project Code for Incompatibilities With Upgraded Libraries

Because of third party library upgrades that may introduce backward compatibility issues, there's a chance that project code doesn't build or run well any more. In that case, look into the specifics and adjust the project code to use the latest library correctly.

Detailed Release Notes

See also the detailed release notes for more information.