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v1.1 Release: Sim AI tools and a rebuilt UI

Illinois Chat v1.1 switches custom tools from n8n to Sim AI, rebuilds the interface on one component library, and fixes a set of chat, tools, and ingest bugs.

Sim AI is the new tool platform

Your assistants can call tools mid-conversation. The builder behind those tools is now Sim instead of n8n: you design a workflow in Sim, connect it to a project, and the chatbot uses it when a question calls for it. Illinois Chat offers Sim at sim.chat.illinois.edu. Sign in with the same Keycloak account you use for chat. New users wait for a platform admin to approve them.

  • On the project's Tools page, paste a Sim API key and workspace ID. Only deployed workflows become tools; keys are stored encrypted.
  • Existing n8n tools will not work after this upgrade.
  • Details can be found at: Sim user guide and developer guide.

A rebuilt UI

The app should feel like one product: the same buttons, dialogs, tables, and toasts on every page, instead of a mix of older design systems.

  • Mantine and DaisyUI are gone.
  • Pages use shadcn/ui (Base UI) and Tailwind 4, on React 19 and Next.js 16.
  • Navbar, hub, course dashboard, notifications, and project/tools screens share that set.

Bugfixes

Everyday rough edges in chat, tools, and ingest are cleaned up so the new UI and Sim path behave the way they look.

  • Citation toggle stays in sync with the system prompt.
  • Model picker no longer clips on small screens.
  • Tool results keep both structured data and images.
  • Deleting a document updates document-group counts.
  • Disabled models on the LLM admin page no longer look enabled.
  • Countries-of-concern warning no longer lets chat continue anyway.
  • Heavy or faulty PDFs fail that one file instead of taking down the ingest worker.

Breaking changes for self-hosted deployments

If you use the hosted site, you can skip this section. If you run the whole stack yourself, tools and the Postgres volume work differently than they did in v1.0.

  • n8n is removed. Recreate tools in Sim.
  • The stack starts Sim with the app. stop-all.sh --no-sim / stop-dev.sh --no-sim leave Sim running.
  • ENCRYPTION_MASTER_KEY encrypts per-project Sim API keys (same key as external connections).
  • SIM_* secrets are generated on first start and have no published defaults.
  • SIM_APPROVAL_ADMIN_EMAIL is required or the Sim stack will not start.
  • SIM_SSO_DOMAIN must be a single domain; a comma-separated list denies every sign-in.
  • Postgres volume mount moved to /var/lib/postgresql/data. Old postgres-illinois-chat volumes will not start; reset with --wipe_data / --clean, or follow the README copy recipe.
  • Drizzle migration 0016 (and 0011-0015 if skipped) must run so projects.sim_api_key is stored encrypted. Both start scripts apply this on boot.
  • Frontend Node image is 22. Contributors should use Node 20.19+ or 22.12+.

Upgrade

Pull the new tag and start the stack. If you already have a local database from v1.0, check the Postgres mount note above before you boot.

git fetch origin
git checkout v1.1   # or the tag you publish
bash infra/scripts/start-all.sh
  • Open Sim and approve builders under Settings → Admin.
  • Reconnect each project's Tools page with a Sim API key and workspace ID.

Full changelog: v1.0...v1.1.