🚀 v0.8.8

[danny-avila]

Summary

Prepare the stable LibreChat v0.8.8 release from dev at 14f7b2865692d27364c934ecb9912496371018bb. Application manifests, Docker markers, Jest/E2E markers, and lockfile workspace versions advance from v0.8.8-rc4 to v0.8.8. The README links to the stable changelog and preserves cumulative release highlights, including public API docs, the Trace Viewer, and GPT-6.1 Sol.

Each publishable package advances exactly one patch from the current base; refreshing this PR does not add another increment:

Surface	Base	Release
Application	v0.8.8-rc4	v0.8.8
@librechat/api	1.7.49	1.7.50
@librechat/client	0.4.79	0.4.80
librechat-data-provider	0.8.524	0.8.525
@librechat/data-schemas	0.0.71	0.0.72
LibreChat Helm chart	2.0.14	2.0.15
Config schema	1.3.17	unchanged

The Helm chart's appVersion becomes v0.8.8; the RAG chart and chart dependencies are unchanged. Existing stable-release documentation is in docs PR #786, which supersedes the older #763 draft. No documentation-repository files, tags, releases, or publications are changed here.

Type of change

• Documentation
• Chore

Verification

• npm install --package-lock-only --ignore-scripts --no-audit --no-fund with npm 11.13.0.
• bun install --lockfile-only --ignore-scripts with Bun 1.4.2; inspected the regenerated output and retained only workspace-version changes. Current dev's Bun lockfile already has dependency drift; the unrelated resolution/schema migration is deliberately excluded.
• Parsed both lockfiles and asserted every workspace version matches its manifest. Structural comparison to the base proves no unrelated lockfile changes.
• Verified application release markers, package base-plus-one patches, unchanged Config 1.3.17, and Helm 2.0.15 / v0.8.8.
• helm dependency build helm/librechat and helm lint helm/librechat pass with Helm 3.19.0 (existing MongoDB initContainers coalescing warning).
• helm template librechat helm/librechat --namespace release-validation --set-json 'librechat.configEnv={}' passes and renders the application image registry.librechat.ai/librechat-ai/librechat:v0.8.8.
• Existing chart issue: bare helm template fails on null librechat.configEnv in configmap-env.yaml. Reproduced the same failure on unmodified dev; this version-only chart change does not fix it. Explicit {} is the validation workaround.
• Release skill coverage audit: v0.8.7..14f7b2865692d27364c934ecb9912496371018bb against docs PR chore: un-expose mongodb ports in compose files #786 accounts for all 1,230 PR references and all direct commits (no missing entries).
• git diff --check passes; the final diff contains only the 15 release surfaces.
• Runtime tests, TypeScript workspace checks, and Lighthouse were not run: no runtime code, TypeScript source, configuration behavior, or frontend behavior is changed in this PR.

Checklist

• Followed repository conventions and targeted dev
• Inspected the scoped diff and release-version invariants
• Checked the latest written documentation against the exact release base
• Preserved existing author and backed up the prior release head before rebasing
• No tag, GitHub release, package publication, or chart publication performed

[lia-by-librechat]

Refreshed release head: 5d952cdf7506ef529c571a83c50f503d9691b9b6, rebased onto dev at 14f7b2865692d27364c934ecb9912496371018bb.

This head prepares stable v0.8.8, bumps the four publishable packages exactly once from the current base, sets Helm to 2.0.15 / v0.8.8, preserves Config 1.3.17, and refreshes the cumulative README highlights. npm/Bun workspace-version and no-churn assertions, release-marker checks, Helm dependency build/lint, explicit-empty-config Helm render, changelog coverage against docs #786, and git diff --check passed.

For exact-head review: bare Helm rendering already fails on unmodified dev because librechat.configEnv defaults to null; explicit {} renders correctly. Bun regeneration also exposes existing base dependency drift, so only release-version deltas are retained. Both are documented in the PR description; no runtime/template fix or dependency update is bundled. No review of an earlier head is treated as covering this one.