Changes related to Meilisearch v1.16.0

[curquiza]

This issue gathers the changes related to the v1.16.0 of Meilisearch that will impact the integrations scope.

📅 Release date: 2025-08-04

Timelines & steps

Pre-release

• With the help of the changelog & this CI, define which integrations should be updated and how (New feature? Update README? Update tests?)
  • Fill in the "What to implement?" section below in this issue 👇. Minial implementation: PHP, JS, meilisearch-js-plugins.
  • Open implementation issues in repositories that need implementation (if necessary for developers who will work on the tasks).
  • Discuss with the Product team if needed. At least share this issue to let them know about the decisions.
• Create a branch by running Octopus script: only open branches for the integrations we choose to update (defined in the previous step) + Kubernetes repository + Cloud provider repository (changing the version)
• Update integrations according to the decisions (cf "What to implement?" section below in this issue 👇)
  ⚠️ If possible, this step is done before pre-release, once the feature is ready thanks to the prototype released by the engine team
  • JS: implementation + fix tests
  • PHP: implementation
  • Java: adapt tests
  • Dotnet: adapt tests
• Add code samples for the chosen up-to-date integrations with the new version of Meilisearch

Post-release

• Release the integrations or only merge the related PRs (sometimes a release is not needed) (by @Strift)
  • JS
  • PHP
  • meilisearch-js-plugins (at least update meilisearch-js version)
  • Java: Merge PR but no need to release
  • Dotnet: Merge PR but no need to release
• Merge the related PR in K8s repository (by @brunoocasali)
• Publish DevOps tools (by @brunoocasali)
  • create the git tag
  • publish images (steps are in CONTRIBUTING.md)
• Remove useless AWS images (by using our internal script) (by @brunoocasali)
• Open issues in the repositories that are not up-to-date with the latest version of Meilisearch (including code samples) (by @Strift)
  • Add support for /export API
  • Add support sort parameter in /documents route
  • Add support for chat completion API
  • Multi-modal search

What to implement?

Multi-modal search in images

Related issue in the engine: meilisearch/meilisearch#5501

Usage: https://meilisearch.notion.site/Multimodal-search-usage-1c14b06b651f80c1bf9effe56dbeef54

TODO:

• JS: [v1.16.0] Add support for multi-modal search meilisearch-js#1995
• PHP: [v1.16.0] Add support for multi-modal search meilisearch-php#775

Add default read-only API key

Issue: meilisearch/meilisearch#5711

Should not impact integration, but can break some tests

TODO:

• Fix Dotnet test
• Java Dotnet test

Add missing features from v1.15.1

In v1.15.1, we introduced the new chatCompletion experimental feature.

The tests of the JS SDK are failing because they are too "rigid" when something is added.

• Fix JS tests and, if possible, do not make them fail when an addition is done (I guess it's not possible easily because snapshot, let me know)
• JS: Add conversational search API meilisearch-js#1988
• PHP: Add conversational search meilisearch-php#774