Chaskiq 2.0.0: A Migration from Dante2 to Dante3, An Epic Sprint.

We are thrilled to announce the release of Chaskiq 2.0, a major milestone for our open-source live chat and messaging system. This update marks the successful migration of our text editor, Dante, from Dante2 to Dante3 on the Chaskiq platform. The text editor is a central component of the platform, as it serves as the input for creating messages, articles, bot tasks, and quick replies. This epic sprint involved transferring data from over 1 million messages and adapting the configurations of bots and plugins. Guess what? We achieved this incredible feat just 3 weeks after we released our version 1.0.0. As a side note the version 1.0.0 took us 3 years!

The Chaskiq 2.0 release comes shortly after the launch of our 1.0 version, which introduced our SaaS offering. The 1.1.x version brought with it the plugin system, further enhancing our platform's capabilities.

The decision to migrate to Dante3 was made because Dante2 relies on DraftJS, a now deprecated text engine from Meta (formerly Facebook). Although there is another interesting editor called Lexical, which also belongs to Meta and appears quite promising, we prefer not to rely on a technology that could suddenly be abandoned. Consequently, we opted for Tiptap/ProseMirror, the engine used by Dante3. This choice is based on ProseMirror's robust open-source community and the compatibility it offers.

This migration has been particularly sensitive and challenging, as it not only involved changing the UI but also migrating the serialized text format of each message, article, bot, and more than 30 plugins that enable Chaskiq to communicate with multiple channels such as Slack, GPT Messenger, and others.

Despite the complexity of the migration, the process has been successful and the whole migration was reduced to a single command line:

rails packages:migrate:app['1, '1000']

This command efficiently carried out the transition across Chaskiq's 1,000 accounts ❤️.

We understand that some users may not be ready to migrate to the new version at this time. If this is the case for you, we recommend using tag 1.2.0, as this is the last available version with Dante2. The production image with that tag will allow you to continue using Chaskiq with the previous editor while you prepare for the transition to Dante3.

Plugin Marketplace

Introducing the plugin marketplace, which enables simplified creation and management of messages across various channels, further enhances the improvements achieved through the migration to Dante3 while maintaining full compatibility. In addition, we have developed a comprehensive node processing system that transitions from one format to another, ensuring compatibility and functionality across version from v1.0.0 to v2.0.0.

Plugins will get sync to your instance with the magic `packages:attach` command.

HelpCenter

The HelpCenter has been updated to match the new text format. Chaskiq features a built-in HelpCenter that can be activated through subdomains. Additionally, we offer an option to detach the HelpCenter sites and deploy them independently from the Chaskiq instance. This standalone version is a Next.js app that can be deployed to Vercel.

We have updated the standalone HelpCenter to the latest Next.js version, v13. For those who are not ready to upgrade, you can continue using the 1.1.2 version

In summary, the migration from Dante2 to Dante3 in Chaskiq has been an epic sprint that required the joint effort of our team distributed in open source collaborators, and companies that build on top of Chaskiq. We are proud of the results achieved and trust that the new features and enhancements offered by Dante3 will enrich our users' experience and empower their projects.

Once again, we are excited to share the Chaskiq 2.0 release with you, and we couldn't be prouder of our team for achieving this incredible milestone in just one month. We can't wait to see what our users will create using the powerful new features that Chaskiq 2.0 offers.