🚀 DeepTutor v0.4.0 Release Notes

Release Date: 2026.01.09

We're excited to announce DeepTutor v0.4.0! This release brings New home page, Expanded provider support for LLM & Embeddings provider, RAG module decoupling, Web improvement, and a bunch of minor improvements.

🚧 Possible Issues: Docker deployment and local LLM/Embeddings setup (Ollama, LM Studio) may still have compatibility issues. We're actively working on improvements. Issues and PRs are welcome! → Open an Issue | Contributing Guide

⚠️ Breaking Changes: Environment Configuration

Environment variable names have been updated. Please update your .env file based on .env.example.

Old Variable	New Variable	Notes
`OPENAI_API_KEY`	`LLM_API_KEY`	Now provider-agnostic
`OPENAI_API_BASE`	`LLM_HOST`	Renamed for clarity
`OPENAI_MODEL`	`LLM_MODEL`	Renamed for clarity
`EMBEDDING_DIM`	`EMBEDDING_DIMENSION`	Full word naming
(hardcoded)	`BACKEND_PORT`	Now configurable in `.env` (default: 8001)
(hardcoded)	`FRONTEND_PORT`	Now configurable in `.env` (default: 3782)

New required variables:

LLM_BINDING — Provider type: openai, ollama, azure_openai, anthropic, etc.
EMBEDDING_BINDING — Provider type: openai, ollama, jina, cohere, etc.

New optional variables:

SEARCH_PROVIDER — Web search provider: perplexity (default) or baidu
BAIDU_API_KEY — For Baidu AI Search (百度AI搜索)
NEXT_PUBLIC_API_BASE — Frontend API URL for remote/LAN access (e.g., http://192.168.1.100:8001)

💡 Remote Access: If accessing DeepTutor from another device on your network, set NEXT_PUBLIC_API_BASE to your server's IP. If not set, defaults to http://localhost:8001 (local machine only).

📌 Action Required: Copy .env.example to .env and update your configuration before upgrading.

✨ Highlights

🔌 Multi-Provider LLM & Embedding Support

Expanded from local-only to a full provider ecosystem:

LLM Providers	Embedding Providers
OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI	OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Jina AI
Ollama, Ollama Cloud, LM Studio	Cohere, Ollama, LM Studio
Groq, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Gemini	HuggingFace (OpenAI-compatible)

New adapter-based architecture in src/services/embedding/adapters/ enables easy addition of new providers.

🧩 RAG Module Decoupling

New RAGService class provides a unified, provider-agnostic interface:

from src.services.rag import RAGService

service = RAGService()  # Uses RAG_PROVIDER env var (default: raganything)
await service.initialize("my_kb", ["doc.pdf"])
result = await service.search("query", "my_kb")

📌 Currently supports RAG-Anything (MinerU + LightRAG). More backends coming soon!

🌙 Dark Mode & UI Overhaul

Theme toggle with system preference detection & localStorage persistence
Collapsible sidebar with icon-only compact mode
Settings page rebuild: Environment variable management with category-based organization
Consistent dark mode styling across all pages

⚙️ Centralized Configuration

New settings.py using pydantic-settings for unified configuration:

Category	Environment Variables
LLM	`LLM_BINDING`, `LLM_MODEL`, `LLM_HOST`, `LLM_API_KEY`
Embedding	`EMBEDDING_BINDING`, `EMBEDDING_MODEL`, `EMBEDDING_HOST`, `EMBEDDING_API_KEY`, `EMBEDDING_DIMENSION`
RAG	`RAG_PROVIDER`
TTS	`TTS_MODEL`, `TTS_URL`, `TTS_API_KEY`, `TTS_VOICE`
Search	`PERPLEXITY_API_KEY`

Runtime updates via /api/settings/env with automatic .env persistence.

📦 What's Changed

Core Infrastructure

Added settings.py with pydantic-settings for centralized config management
Added src/core/llm_factory.py with unified llm_complete() function
Added /api/embedding-providers router for embedding configuration CRUD
Added /api/settings/env endpoints for runtime environment management

Services Module Restructure (`src/services/`)

services/
├── embedding/          # 🆕 Adapter-based embedding providers
│   ├── adapters/       # Provider implementations
│   │   ├── base.py, openai_compatible.py, jina.py, cohere.py, ollama.py
│   ├── client.py       # Unified embedding client
│   ├── provider.py     # Provider manager (singleton)
│   └── provider_config.py  # Multi-provider config persistence
├── llm/                # LLM configuration & client
├── rag/                # 🆕 Decoupled RAG system
│   ├── service.py      # Unified RAGService entry point
│   ├── factory.py      # Pipeline factory
│   ├── pipelines/      # Backend implementations
│   │   └── raganything.py, lightrag.py, llamaindex.py, academic.py
│   └── components/     # Modular RAG components
│       ├── chunkers/   # Text chunking strategies
│       ├── parsers/    # Document parsers (PDF, Markdown, Text)
│       ├── embedders/  # Embedding wrappers
│       ├── indexers/   # Vector & Graph indexers
│       └── retrievers/ # Dense & Hybrid retrieval
├── prompt/             # PromptManager singleton
├── tts/                # TTS configuration
└── setup/              # Initialization utilities

Frontend Updates

🆕 Added Home page (web/app/page.tsx) with feature overview
🆕 Rebuilt History page (web/app/history/page.tsx) with improved activity views
Added web/lib/theme.ts with theme utilities (initializeTheme(), setTheme())
Added web/hooks/useTheme.ts for React theme hook
Added web/components/ThemeScript.tsx for SSR theme hydration
Added web/components/ChatSessionDetail.tsx for history page
Refactored Sidebar.tsx with collapsible mode
Rebuilt settings/page.tsx with environment variable management

IdeaGen Improvements

Enhanced 4-stage workflow: Loose Filter → Explore Ideas → Strict Filter → Generate Statement

🐳 Docker

Streamlined single-container deployment:

docker compose up -d
# Exposes: backend (8001), frontend (3782)
# Volumes: ./config (ro), ./data/user, ./data/knowledge_bases

Cloud deployment supported via NEXT_PUBLIC_API_BASE_EXTERNAL.

⬆️ Upgrade

git pull origin main
docker compose build && docker compose up -d

Migration Notes:

Rename EMBEDDING_DIM → EMBEDDING_DIMENSION
Default RAG provider changed to raganything

What's Changed

chore(deps): bump actions/checkout from 4 to 6 by @dependabot in #39
chore(deps): bump actions/configure-pages from 4 to 5 by @dependabot in #40
chore(deps): bump lucide-react from 0.460.0 to 0.562.0 in /web by @dependabot in #43
chore(deps): bump react-markdown from 9.1.0 to 10.1.0 in /web by @dependabot in #47
chore(deps): bump node from 20-slim to 25-slim by @dependabot in #42
chore(deps): bump actions/upload-pages-artifact from 3 to 4 by @dependabot in #38
chore(deps): bump framer-motion from 11.18.2 to 12.24.0 in /web by @dependabot in #44
chore(deps): bump tailwind-merge from 2.6.0 to 3.4.0 in /web by @dependabot in #45
chore(deps): bump @types/node from 22.19.3 to 25.0.3 in /web by @dependabot in #48
fix(ci): Resolve linting and formatting issues by @ahmedjawedaj in #50
Feature/rag plugin system by @tusharkhatriofficial in #57
fix: resolve double decoration in embedding functions for OpenRouter by @Laksh-star in #64
Fix critical jspdf vuln and clean up pre-commit hooks by @RinZ27 in #62
UI/theme by @tusharkhatriofficial in #51
feat: support baidu ai search by @yugasun in #55
Cleanup: address reviewer feedback on PR #62 (Final) by @RinZ27 in #67
provides more llm providers supports, UI updates by @kushalgarg101 in #77
Dev embeddings providers by @FacundoMajda in #79

🤝 New Contributors

@dependabot made their first contribution in #39
@Laksh-star made their first contribution in #64
@yugasun made their first contribution in #55
@kushalgarg101 made their first contribution in #77
@FacundoMajda made their first contribution in #79

Full Changelog: v0.3.0...v0.4.0

HKUDS/DeepTutor v0.4.0 Release ver0.4.0 on GitHub