[Enhancement]: Stable, Beta, and Alpha channels + Date-versioned Docker Tags

[hopeseekr]

What features would you like to see added?

The UI refresh has numerous bugs, particularly that code syntax highlighting is not fully visible (#6535) and custom LLMs (DeepSeek, Minstral, Perplexity and others) are no longer accessible (#6539).

This shows rank defects in the quality control process of this project.

There is ZERO mention on the README that main can be unstable... Therefore, when this code dropped, it should have gone through a thorough testing process.

The testing obviously isn't enough, in the UI refresh case.

Solutions:

Stability Channels:

• This project needs alpha and beta channels like all good well-used products.
• The main branch should always be stable.
• There should be clear instructions for the user on how to join alpha and beta channels, if they so wish.

Tagged Docker Versions
The docker versions should definitely be tagged.

Version Tags:
First, they should be tagged per version release. I should be able to say librechat:0.7.7.

Date Tags:
I should be able to say librechat:2025-03-24 to easily go back to yesterdays' latest build. Right now, i seemingly have to rebuild the docker image from scratch...

Published Docker Tags:
Since this project uses Google Container Registry and not the far more popular Docker Hub, it is unknown what tagged versions are available, if any. Thus, an automated process should publish the tags somewhere, with either recent tags themselves or a link to them (like the GCR project page) should be in the README.

How To Revert Back To Previous Versions

Do you want to get back to a working Docker image of LibreChat?

Well, unfortunately, the project doesn't seemingly do docker version tagging, apparently and it isn't using Docker Hub, so I don't even know if there is a past version. So we need to build things manually:

1. [important] Stash any uncommitted content: git stash
2. Revert to the last-known good commit: git reset --hard c4fea9
3. Shutdown Librechat: docker compose down
4. Remove the current docker image: docker rmi --force $(docker images | grep librechat | awk '{print $3}')
5. Rebuild the docker image: docker build . --tag=ghcr.io/danny-avila/librechat-dev:latest
6. Restore any git edits: git stash pop
7. Start librechat again: docker compose up -d
   Now you'll have the old interface back.

More details

N/A

Which components are impacted by your request?

General

Pictures

No response

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[danny-avila]

Thank you for your detailed feedback. I genuinely appreciate when users help identify issues, as it ultimately improves LibreChat for everyone. Let me address your concerns:

Bug Fixes

The UI refresh has numerous bugs, particularly that code syntax highlighting is not fully visible (#6535)

This issue has been fixed. I became aware of it shortly after merging but couldn't complete the fix immediately. The update is now available in the latest commit.

custom LLMs (DeepSeek, Minstral, Perplexity and others) are no longer accessible (#6539)

I've provided details on this in discussion #6545.

Versioning and Stability

You raise some points about versioning, but I should clarify that we already implement Docker tagging:

1. We do tag Docker versions with each release (e.g., librechat:0.7.7)
2. Our GitHub Container Registry includes these tagged versions
3. You can find these at ghcr.io/danny-avila/librechat:0.7.7 (or other version numbers)
4. We use GitHub Container Registry, you can find the stable releases here: https://github.com/danny-avila/LibreChat/pkgs/container/librechat

Information about our versioning practices is available in our documentation, but I agree it could be more prominent in the README.

Development Process

Myself and one other worked on this UI refresh for over a week, catching many issues but inevitably missing some. We manually test and use automation and unit tests, but they can't catch every edge case.

Your Other Suggestions

Your suggestions about implementing clearer alpha/beta channels and better documentation about available tags are valuable. I'll be looking into how we can improve in these areas.

Moving Forward

The main branch does intentionally track the latest updates, which helps us discover issues more quickly. This is common practice in open-source projects, but I understand it can be frustrating when it affects your usage.

As an open-source project with limited resources, we rely on community feedback like yours to improve. While we don't have a dedicated QA team, we're committed to making LibreChat more stable and user-friendly.

Thank you for taking the time to provide such detailed feedback.