Flower 1.16.0

Thanks to our contributors

We would like to give our special thanks to all the contributors who made the new version of Flower possible (in git shortlog order):

Alan Silva, Andrej Jovanović, Charles Beauville, Chong Shen Ng, Daniel J. Beutel, Dimitris Stripelis, Heng Pan, Javier, Kevin Ta, Li Shaoyu, Mohammad Naseri, Taner Topal, Yan Gao

What's new?

• Enhance RecordSet and Array for improved usability (#4963, #4980, #4918)

  RecordSet now supports dictionary-like access, allowing interactions similar to built-in Python dictionaries. For example, instead of recordset.parameters_records["model"], users can simply use recordset["model"]. This enhancement maintains backward compatibility with existing recordset.*_records properties.

  Additionally, the Array class now accepts numpy.ndarray instances directly in its constructor, enabling instantiation with a NumPy array via Array(your_numpy_ndarray).

• Support function-specific Flower Mods for ClientApp (#4954, #4962)

  Flower Mods can now be applied to individual functions within the ClientApp rather than affecting the entire application. This allows for more granular control. The documentation has been updated to reflect these changes — please refer to How to Use Built-in Mods for details.

• Introduce @app.lifespan() for lifecycle management (#4929, #4986)

  ServerApp and ClientApp now support @app.lifespan(), enabling custom enter/exit handlers for resource setup and cleanup. Throughout the entire FL training, these handlers in ClientApp may run multiple times as instances are dynamically managed.

• Add FedRAG example (#4955, #5036, #5042)

  Adds a FedRAG example, integrating Federated Learning with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). This approach allows Large Language Models (LLMs) to query distributed data silos without centrally aggregating the corpora, enhancing performance while preserving data privacy.

• Upgrade FedProx baseline to a Flower App (#4937)

  Updates FedProx to the a Flower App by removing Hydra, migrating configs to pyproject.toml, using ClientApp and ServerApp, integrating flwr-datasets with DistributionPartitioner, enabling result saving, and updating README.md. This baseline now supports flwr run.

• Migrate framework to Message-based system (#4959, #4993, #4979, #4999)

  The Flower framework has been fully migrated from a TaskIns/TaskRes-based system to a Message-based system, aligning with the user-facing Message class. This includes adding validator functions for Message, introducing LinkState methods that operate on Message, updating LinkState to use Message-only methods, and removing the Task-related code entirely.

• Introduce event logging extension points (#4948, #5013)

  Begins implementing an event logging system for SuperLink, allowing RPC calls to be logged when enabled. These changes introduce initial extension points.

• Increase default TTL and message size (#5011, #5028)

  The default TTL for messages is now 12 hours (up from 1 hour), and the gRPC message size limit has increased from 512MB to 2GB. TTL sets a hard limit on the time between the ServerApp sending an instruction and receiving a reply from the ClientApp.

• Improve documentation (#4945, #4965, #4994, #4964, #4991, #5014, #4970, #4990, #4978, #4944, #5022, #5007, #4988, #5053)

• Update CI/CD (#4943, #4942, #4953, #4985, #4984, #5025, #4987, #4912, #5049)

• Bugfixes (#4969, #4974, #5017, #4995, #4971, #5037, #5038)

• General Improvements (#4947, #4972, #4992, #5020, #5018, #4989, #4957, #5000, #5012, #5001)

  As always, many parts of the Flower framework and quality infrastructure were improved and updated.

Incompatible changes

• Remove deprecated CLI commands (#4855)

  Removes deprecated CLI commands: flower-server-app, flower-superexec, and flower-client-app. These commands are no longer available in the framework.

• Bump minimum Python and cryptography versions (#4946)

  Bumps the minimum Python version from 3.9 to 3.9.2 and updates the cryptography package from 43.0.1 to 44.0.1. This change ensures compatibility with the latest security updates and features.

Flower 1.15.2

Thanks to our contributors

We would like to give our special thanks to all the contributors who made the new version of Flower possible (in git shortlog order):

Charles Beauville, Heng Pan, Javier, Leandro Collier, Stephane Moroso, Yan Gao

What's new?

Free processed messages in LinkState (#4934)

When the ServerApp pulls the replies the SuperNodes sent to the SuperLink, these should be removed from the LinkState. In some situations, these weren't erased, which could lead to high memory utilization by the SuperLink.

Introduce Windows CI tests (#4908)

We continue improving the experience of running Flower on Windows. Now, an automated CI test is run to ensure compatibility.

Update Ray version (Simulation Engine) (#4926)

The Simulation Engine has been upgraded to a version of Ray that is compatible with Python 3.12.

• Update Documentation (#4915, #4914)

• Other quality improvements (#4935, #4936, #4928, #4924, #4939)

Flower 1.15.1

Thanks to our contributors

We would like to give our special thanks to all the contributors who made the new version of Flower possible (in git shortlog order):

Dimitris Stripelis, Heng Pan, Javier, Taner Topal, Yan Gao

What's new?

• Improve time drift compensation in automatic SuperNode authentication (#4899)

  In addition to allowing for a time delay (positive time difference), SuperLink now also accounts for time drift, which might result in negative time differences between timestamps in SuperLink and SuperNode during authentication.

• Rename constants for gRPC metadata (#4902)

  All metadata keys in gRPC messages that previously used underscores (_) have been replaced with hyphens (-). Using underscores is not recommended in setups where SuperLink may be deployed behind load balancers or reverse proxies.

• Filtering out non-Fleet API requests at the FleetServicer (#4900)

  The Fleet API endpoint will now reject gRPC requests that are not part of its API.

• Fix exit handlers mechanism for Windows (#4907)

  The SIGQUIT Python signal is not supported on Windows. This signal is now excluded when Flower is executed on Windows.

• Updated Examples (#4895, #4158, #4879)

  Examples have been updated to the latest version of Flower. Some examples have also had their dependencies upgraded. The Federated Finetuning of a Whisper model example has been updated to use the new Flower execution method: flwr run.

• Update FlowerTuneLLM Leaderboard evaluation scripts (#4919)

  We have updated the package versions used in the evaluation scripts. There is still time to participate in the Flower LLM Leaderboard!

• Update Documentation (#4897, #4896, #4898, #4909)

Flower 1.15.0

Thanks to our contributors

We would like to give our special thanks to all the contributors who made the new version of Flower possible (in git shortlog order):

Charles Beauville, Chong Shen Ng, Daniel J. Beutel, Daniel Nata Nugraha, Haoran Jie, Heng Pan, Ivelin Ivanov, Javier, Kevin Patel, Mohammad Naseri, Pavlos Bouzinis, Robert Steiner

What's new?

• Enhance SuperNode authentication (#4767, #4791, #4765, #4857, #4867)

  Enhances the SuperNode authentication system, making it more efficient and resilient against replay attacks. There's no longer a need to pass --auth-superlink-private-key and --auth-superlink-public-key when running the SuperLink. Additionally, Flower now enables automatic node authentication by default, preventing impersonation even when node authentication is not explicitly used. For more details, see the documentation.

• Add guide for running Flower with Deployment Engine (#4811, #4733)

  Introduces the How to run Flower with Deployment Engine guide, providing detailed instructions on deploying Federated Learning in production environments using the Flower Deployment Engine.

• Add Flower Network Communication reference documentation (#4805)

  Introduces the Flower Network Communication documentation, which details the network connections used in a deployed Flower federated AI system.

• Add LeRobot quickstart example (#4607, #4816)

  Introduces an example demonstrating federated training of a Diffusion policy on the PushT dataset using LeRobot and Flower. The dataset is partitioned with Flower Datasets, and the example runs best with a GPU. More details: Flower LeRobot Example.

• Add video tutorial to simulation documentation (#4768)

  The Flower AI Simulation 2025 tutorial series is now available on YouTube. You can watch all the videos here or via the embedded previews in the documentation. The accompanying code for the tutorial can be found in the Flower GitHub repository.

• Introduce StatAvg baseline (#3921)

  StatAvg mitigates non-IID feature distributions in federated learning by sharing and aggregating data statistics before training. It is compatible with any FL aggregation strategy. More details: StatAvg baseline.

• Allow setting log level via environment variable (#4860, #4880, #4886)

  Log level can now be configured using the FLWR_LOG_LEVEL environment variable. For example, running FLWR_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG flower-superlink --insecure will set the log level to DEBUG. For more details, see the guide.

• Enable dynamic overrides for federation configuration in CLI (#4841, #4843, #4838)

  Similar to how the --run-config flag allows overriding the run configuration in flwr run, the new --federation-config flag enables dynamic overrides for federation configurations. This flag is supported in all flwr CLI commands except flwr build, flwr install, and flwr new.

• Migrate TaskIns/TaskRes to Message-based communication (#4311, #4310, #4849, #4308, #4307, #4800, #4309, #4875, #4874, #4877, #4876)

  The Fleet API and the ServerAppIO API (formerly known as the Driver API) now use message-based communication instead of TaskIns/TaskRes, making interactions more intuitive and better aligned with their Python counterparts. This migration introduces new RPCs, such as PullMessages, PushMessages, and other message-based operations in the gRPC stack.

• Introduce exit codes (#4801, #4845)

  Improves system error and help messages by introducing a dedicated flwr_exit function with standardized exit codes.

• Update gRPC-related dependencies (#4833, #4836, #4887)

  Increases the version numbers of gRPC-related dependencies. In rare cases, if you encounter pip warnings about unresolved gRPC dependencies, it may be due to residual dependencies from older Flower versions.

• Update app-pytorch example (#4842)

  The app-pytorch example is revamped to use the low-level API.

• Improve CLI-side user authentication (#4862, #4861, #4832, #4850, #4703, #4885)

  User authentication in the CLI is enhanced with better handling, configuration options, and security enforcement.

• Ensure graceful exit for SuperLink and SuperNode (#4829, #4846, #4798, #4826, #4881, #4797)

  Ensures proper resource cleanup and prevents zombie subprocesses during SuperLink and SuperNode shutdown.

• Improve documentation (#4380, #4853, #4214, #4215, #4863, #4825, #4759, #4851, #4779, #4813, #4812, #4761, #4859, #4754, #4839, #4216, #4852, #4869)

  Updates PyTorch device selection in the tutorial series notebook and adds two molecular datasets to the recommended-fl-datasets table. Additional improvements include metadata updates, translation updates, and refinements to various documentation sections.

• Update Docker dependencies and documentation (#4763, #4804, #4762, #4803, #4753)

• Update CI/CD (#4756, #4834, #4824, #3493, #4096, #4807, #3956, #3168, #4835, #4884)

• Bugfixes (#4766, #4764, #4795, #4840, #4868, #4872, #4890)

• General improvements (#4748, #4799, #4645, #4819, #4755, #4789, [#4771](...

Flower 1.14.0

Thanks to our contributors

We would like to give our special thanks to all the contributors who made the new version of Flower possible (in git shortlog order):

Adam Narozniak, Charles Beauville, Chong Shen Ng, Daniel Nata Nugraha, Dimitris Stripelis, Heng Pan, Javier, Meng Yan, Mohammad Naseri, Robert Steiner, Taner Topal, Vidit Khandelwal, Yan Gao

What's new?

• Introduce flwr stop command (#4647, #4629, #4694, #4646, #4634, #4700, #4684, #4642, #4682, #4683, #4639, #4668, #4658, #4693, #4704, #4729)

  The flwr stop command is now available to stop a submitted run. You can use it as follows:

  • flwr stop <run-id>
  • flwr stop <run-id> [<app>] [<federation>]

  This command instructs the SuperLink to terminate the specified run. While the execution of ServerApp and ClientApp processes will not be interrupted instantly, they will be informed of the stopped run and will gracefully terminate when they next communicate with the SuperLink.

• Add JSON format output for CLI commands (#4610, #4613, #4710, #4621, #4612, #4619, #4611, #4620, #4712, #4633, #4632, #4711, #4714, #4734, #4738)

  The flwr run, flwr ls, and flwr stop commands now support JSON-formatted output using the --format json flag. This makes it easier to parse and integrate CLI output with other tools. Feel free to check the "How to Use CLI JSON output" guide for details!

• Document Microsoft Azure deployment (#4625)

  A new how-to guide shows a simple Flower deployment for federated learning on Microsoft Azure VM instances.

• Introduce OIDC user authentication infrastructure (#4630, #4244, #4602, #4618, #4717, #4719, #4745)

  Flower has supported SuperNode authentication since Flower 1.9. This release adds initial extension points for user authentication via OpenID Connect (OIDC).

• Update FedRep baseline (#4681)

  We have started the process of migrating some baselines from using start_simulation to be launched via flwr run. We chose FedRep as the first baseline to migrate due to its very impressive results. New baselines can be created following a flwr run-compatible format by starting from the flwr new template for baselines. We welcome contributions! Read more in the how to contribute a baseline documentation.

• Revamp simulation series tutorial (#4663, #4696)

  We have updated the Step-by-step Tutorial Series for Simulations. It now shows how to create and run Flower Apps via flwr run. The videos walk you through the process of creating custom strategies, effectively make use of metrics between ClientApp and ServerApp, create global model checkpoints, log metrics to Weights & Biases, and more.

• Improve connection reliability (#4649, #4636, #4637)

  Connections between ServerApp<>SuperLink, ClientApp<>SuperNode, and SuperLink<>Simulation are now more robust against network issues.

• Fix flwr new issue on Windows (#4653)

  The flwr new command now works correctly on Windows by setting UTF-8 encoding, ensuring compatibility across all platforms when creating and transferring files.

• Update examples and flwr new templates (#4725, #4724, #4589, #4690, #4708, #4689, #4740, #4741, #4744)

  Code examples and flwr new templates have been updated to improve compatibility and usability. Notable changes include removing unnecessary numpy dependencies, upgrading the mlx version, and enhancing the authentication example. A link to previous tutorial versions has also been added for reference.

• Improve documentation (#4713, #4624, #4606, #4596, #4695, #4654, #4656, #4603, #4727, #4723, #4598, #4661, #4655, #4659)

  Documentation has been improved with updated docstrings, typo fixes, and new contributions guidance. Automated updates ensure source texts for translations stay current.

• Update infrastructure and CI/CD (#4614, #4686, #4587, #4715, #4728, #4679, #4675, #4680, #4676)

• Bugfixes (#4677, #4671, #4670, #4674, #4687, #4605, #4736)

• General improvements (#4631, #4660, #4599, #4672, #4705, #4688, #4691, #4706, #4709, #4623, #4697, #4597, #4721, #4730, #4720, #4747, #4716, #4752)

  As always, many parts of the Flower framework and quality infrastructure were improved and updated.

Incompatible changes

• Remove context property from Client and NumPyClient (#4652)

  Now that Context is available as an argument in client_fn and server_fn, the context property is removed from Client and NumPyClient. This feature has been deprecated for several releases and is now removed.

Flower 1.13.1

Thanks to our contributors

We would like to give our special thanks to all the contributors who made the new version of Flower possible (in git shortlog order):

Adam Narozniak, Charles Beauville, Heng Pan, Javier, Robert Steiner

What's new?

• Fix SimulationEngine Executor for SuperLink (#4563, #4568, #4570)

  Resolved an issue that prevented SuperLink from functioning correctly when using the SimulationEngine executor.

• Improve FAB build and install (#4571)

  An updated FAB build and install process produces smaller FAB files and doesn't rely on pip install any more. It also resolves an issue where all files were unnecessarily included in the FAB file. The flwr CLI commands now correctly pack only the necessary files, such as .md, .toml and .py, ensuring more efficient and accurate packaging.

• Update embedded-devices example (#4381)

  The example now uses the flwr run command and the Deployment Engine.

• Update Documentation (#4566, #4569, #4560, #4556, #4581, #4537, #4562, #4582)

  Enhanced documentation across various aspects, including updates to translation workflows, Docker-related READMEs, and recommended datasets. Improvements also include formatting fixes for dataset partitioning docs and better references to resources in the datasets documentation index.

• Update Infrastructure and CI/CD (#4577, #4578, #4558, #4551, #3356, #4559, #4575)

• General improvements (#4557, #4564, #4573, #4561, #4579, #4572)

  As always, many parts of the Flower framework and quality infrastructure were improved and updated.

Flower 1.13.0

Thanks to our contributors

We would like to give our special thanks to all the contributors who made the new version of Flower possible (in git shortlog order):

Adam Narozniak, Charles Beauville, Chong Shen Ng, Daniel J. Beutel, Daniel Nata Nugraha, Dimitris Stripelis, Heng Pan, Javier, Mohammad Naseri, Robert Steiner, Waris Gill, William Lindskog, Yan Gao, Yao Xu, wwjang

What's new?

• Introduce flwr ls command (#4460, #4459, #4477)

  The flwr ls command is now available to display details about all runs (or one specific run). It supports the following usage options:

  • flwr ls --runs [<app>] [<federation>]: Lists all runs.
  • flwr ls --run-id <run-id> [<app>] [<federation>]: Displays details for a specific run.

  This command provides information including the run ID, FAB ID and version, run status, elapsed time, and timestamps for when the run was created, started running, and finished.

• Fuse SuperLink and SuperExec (#4358, #4403, #4406, #4357, #4359, #4354, #4229, #4283, #4352)

  SuperExec has been integrated into SuperLink, enabling SuperLink to directly manage ServerApp processes (flwr-serverapp). The flwr CLI now targets SuperLink's Exec API. Additionally, SuperLink introduces two isolation modes for running ServerApps: subprocess (default) and process, which can be specified using the --isolation {subprocess,process} flag.

• Introduce flwr-serverapp command (#4394, #4370, #4367, #4350, #4364, #4400, #4363, #4401, #4388, #4402)

  The flwr-serverapp command has been introduced as a CLI entry point that runs a ServerApp process. This process communicates with SuperLink to load and execute the ServerApp object, enabling isolated execution and more flexible deployment.

• Improve simulation engine and introduce flwr-simulation command (#4433, #4486, #4448, #4427, #4438, #4421, #4430, #4462)

  The simulation engine has been significantly improved, resulting in dramatically faster simulations. Additionally, the flwr-simulation command has been introduced to enhance maintainability and provide a dedicated entry point for running simulations.

• Improve SuperLink message management (#4378, #4369)

  SuperLink now validates the destination node ID of instruction messages and checks the TTL (time-to-live) for reply messages. When pulling reply messages, an error reply will be generated and returned if the corresponding instruction message does not exist, has expired, or if the reply message exists but has expired.

• Introduce FedDebug baseline (#3783)

  FedDebug is a framework that enhances debugging in Federated Learning by enabling interactive inspection of the training process and automatically identifying clients responsible for degrading the global model's performance—all without requiring testing data or labels. Learn more in the FedDebug baseline documentation.

• Update documentation (#4511, #4010, #4396, #4499, #4269, #3340, #4482, #4387, #4342, #4492, #4474, #4500, #4514, #4236, #4112, #3367, #4501, #4373, #4409, #4356, #4520, #4524, #4525, #4526, #4527, #4528, #4545, #4522, #4534, #4513, #4529, #4441, #4530, #4470, #4553, #4531, #4554, #4555, #4552, #4533)

  Many documentation pages and tutorials have been updated to improve clarity, fix typos, incorporate user feedback, and stay aligned with the latest features in the framework. Key updates include adding a guide for designing stateful ClientApp objects, updating the comprehensive guide for setting up and running Flower's Simulation Engine, updating the XGBoost, scikit-learn, and JAX quickstart tutorials to use flwr run, updating DP guide, removing outdated pages, updating Docker docs, and marking legacy functions as deprecated. The Secure Aggregation Protocols page has also been updated.

• Update examples and templates (#4510, #4368, #4121, #4329, #4382, #4248, #4395, #4386, #4408)

  Multiple examples and templates have been updated to enhance usability and correctness. The updates include the 30-minute-tutorial, quickstart-jax, quickstart-pytorch, advanced-tensorflow examples, and the FlowerTune template.

• Improve Docker support (#4506, #4424, #4224, #4413, #4414, #4336, #4420, #4407, #4422, #4532, #4540)

  Docker images and configurations have been updated, including updating Docker Compose files to version 1.13.0, refactoring the Docker build matrix for better maintainability, updating docker/build-push-action to 6.9.0, and improving Docker documentation.

• Allow app installation without internet access (#4479, #4475)

  The flwr build command now includes a wheel file in the FAB, enabling Flower app installation in environments without internet access via flwr install.

• Improve flwr log command (#4391, #4411, #4390, #4397)

• Refactor SuperNode for better maintainability and efficiency (#4439, #4348, #4512, #4485)

• Support NumPy 2.0 (#4440)

• Update infrastructure and CI/CD (#4466, #4419, #4338, #4334, [#4456](https:...

Flower 1.12.0

Thanks to our contributors

We would like to give our special thanks to all the contributors who made the new version of Flower possible (in git shortlog order):

Adam Narozniak, Audris, Charles Beauville, Chong Shen Ng, Daniel J. Beutel, Daniel Nata Nugraha, Heng Pan, Javier, Jiahao Tan, Julian Rußmeyer, Mohammad Naseri, Ray Sun, Robert Steiner, Yan Gao, xiliguguagua

What's new?

• Introduce SuperExec log streaming (#3577, #3584, #4242, #3611, #3613)

  Flower now supports log streaming from a remote SuperExec using the flwr log command. This new feature allows you to monitor logs from SuperExec in real time via flwr log <run-id> (or flwr log <run-id> <app-dir> <federation>).

• Improve flwr new templates (#4291, #4292, #4293, #4294, #4295)

  The flwr new command templates for MLX, NumPy, sklearn, JAX, and PyTorch have been updated to improve usability and consistency across frameworks.

• Migrate ID handling to use unsigned 64-bit integers (#4170, #4237, #4243)

  Node IDs, run IDs, and related fields have been migrated from signed 64-bit integers (sint64) to unsigned 64-bit integers (uint64). To support this change, the uint64 type is fully supported in all communications. You may now use uint64 values in config and metric dictionaries. For Python users, that means using int values larger than the maximum value of sint64 but less than the maximum value of uint64.

• Add Flower architecture explanation (#3270)

  A new Flower architecture explainer page introduces Flower components step-by-step. Check out the EXPLANATIONS section of the Flower documentation if you're interested.

• Introduce FedRep baseline (#3790)

  FedRep is a federated learning algorithm that learns shared data representations across clients while allowing each to maintain personalized local models, balancing collaboration and individual adaptation. Read all the details in the paper: "Exploiting Shared Representations for Personalized Federated Learning" (arxiv)

• Improve FlowerTune template and LLM evaluation pipelines (#4286, #3769, #4272, #4257, #4220, #4282, #4171, #4228, #4258, #4296, #4287, #4217, #4249, #4324, #4219, #4327)

  Refined evaluation pipelines, metrics, and documentation for the upcoming FlowerTune LLM Leaderboard across multiple domains including Finance, Medical, and general NLP. Stay tuned for the official launch—we welcome all federated learning and LLM enthusiasts to participate in this exciting challenge!

• Enhance Docker Support and Documentation (#4191, #4251, #4190, #3928, #4298, #4192, #4136, #4187, #4261, #4177, #4176, #4189, #4297, #4226)

  Upgraded Ubuntu base image to 24.04, added SBOM and gcc to Docker images, and comprehensively updated Docker documentation including quickstart guides and distributed Docker Compose instructions.

• Introduce Flower glossary (#4165, #4235)

  Added the Federated Learning glossary to the Flower repository, located under the flower/glossary/ directory. This resource aims to provide clear definitions and explanations of key FL concepts. Community contributions are highly welcomed to help expand and refine this knowledge base — this is probably the easiest way to become a Flower contributor!

• Implement Message Time-to-Live (TTL) (#3620, #3596, #3615, #3609, #3635)

  Added comprehensive TTL support for messages in Flower's SuperLink. Messages are now automatically expired and cleaned up based on configurable TTL values, available through the low-level API (and used by default in the high-level API).

• Improve FAB handling (#4303, #4264, #4305, #4304)

  An 8-character hash is now appended to the FAB file name. The flwr install command installs FABs with a more flattened folder structure, reducing it from 3 levels to 1.

• Update documentation (#3341, #3338, #3927, #4152, #4151, #3993)

  Updated quickstart tutorials (PyTorch Lightning, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, Fastai) to use the new flwr run command and removed default title from documentation base template. A new blockchain example has been added to FAQ.

• Update example projects (#3716, #4007, #4130, #4234, #4206, #4188, #4247, #4331)

  Refreshed multiple example projects including vertical FL, PyTorch (advanced), Pandas, Secure Aggregation, and XGBoost examples. Optimized Hugging Face quickstart with a smaller language model and removed legacy simulation examples.

• Update translations (#4070, #4316, #4252, #4256, #4210, #4263, #4259)

• General improvements (#4239, 4276, 4204, 4184, 4227, 4183, 4202, 4250, 4267, 4246, 4240, 4265, 4238, 4275, 4318, #4178, #4315, #4241, #4289, #4290, #4181, #4208, #4225, #4314, #4174, #4203, #4274, #3154, #4201, #4268, #4254, #3990, #4212, #2938, #4205, [#4222](https:/...

Flower 1.11.1

Thanks to our contributors

We would like to give our special thanks to all the contributors who made the new version of Flower possible (in git shortlog order):

Charles Beauville, Chong Shen Ng, Daniel J. Beutel, Heng Pan, Javier, Robert Steiner, Yan Gao

Improvements

• Implement keys/values/items methods for TypedDict (#4146)

• Fix parsing of --executor-config if present (#4125)

• Adjust framework name in templates docstrings (#4127)

• Update flwr new Hugging Face template (#4169)

• Fix flwr new FlowerTune template (#4123)

• Add buffer time after ServerApp thread initialization (#4119)

• Handle unsuitable resources for simulation (#4143)

• Update example READMEs (#4117)

• Update SuperNode authentication docs (#4160)

Incompatible changes

None

Flower 1.11.0

Thanks to our contributors

We would like to give our special thanks to all the contributors who made the new version of Flower possible (in git shortlog order):

Adam Narozniak, Charles Beauville, Chong Shen Ng, Daniel J. Beutel, Daniel Nata Nugraha, Danny, Edoardo Gabrielli, Heng Pan, Javier, Meng Yan, Michal Danilowski, Mohammad Naseri, Robert Steiner, Steve Laskaridis, Taner Topal, Yan Gao

What's new?

• Deliver Flower App Bundle (FAB) to SuperLink and SuperNodes (#4006, #3945, #3999, #4027, #3851, #3946, #4003, #4029, #3942, #3957, #4020, #4044, #3852, #4019, #4031, #4036, #4049, #4017, #3943, #3944, #4011, #3619)

  Dynamic code updates are here! flwr run can now ship and install the latest version of your ServerApp and ClientApp to an already-running federation (SuperLink and SuperNodes).

  How does it work? flwr run bundles your Flower app into a single FAB (Flower App Bundle) file. It then ships this FAB file, via the SuperExec, to both the SuperLink and those SuperNodes that need it. This allows you to keep SuperExec, SuperLink and SuperNodes running as permanent infrastructure, and then ship code updates (including completely new projects!) dynamically.

  flwr run is all you need.

• Introduce isolated ClientApp execution (#3970, #3976, #4002, #4001, #4034, #4037, #3977, #4042, #3978, #4039, #4033, #3971, #4035, #3973, #4032)

  The SuperNode can now run your ClientApp in a fully isolated way. In an enterprise deployment, this allows you to set strict limits on what the ClientApp can and cannot do.

  flower-supernode supports three --isolation modes:

  • Unset: The SuperNode runs the ClientApp in the same process (as in previous versions of Flower). This is the default mode.
  • --isolation=subprocess: The SuperNode starts a subprocess to run the ClientApp.
  • --isolation=process: The SuperNode expects an externally-managed process to run the ClientApp. This external process is not managed by the SuperNode, so it has to be started beforehand and terminated manually. The common way to use this isolation mode is via the new flwr/clientapp Docker image.

• Improve Docker support for enterprise deployments (#4050, #4090, #3784, #3998, #4094, #3722)

  Flower 1.11 ships many Docker improvements that are especially useful for enterprise deployments:

  • flwr/supernode comes with a new Alpine Docker image.
  • flwr/clientapp is a new image to be used with the --isolation=process option. In this mode, SuperNode and ClientApp run in two different Docker containers. flwr/supernode (preferably the Alpine version) runs the long-running SuperNode with --isolation=process. flwr/clientapp runs the ClientApp. This is the recommended way to deploy Flower in enterprise settings.
  • New all-in-one Docker Compose enables you to easily start a full Flower Deployment Engine on a single machine.
  • Completely new Docker documentation: https://flower.ai/docs/framework/docker/index.html

• Improve SuperNode authentication (#4043, #4047, #4074)

  SuperNode auth has been improved in several ways, including improved logging, improved testing, and improved error handling.

• Update flwr new templates (#3933, #3894, #3930, #3931, #3997, #3979, #3965, #4013, #4064)

  All flwr new templates have been updated to show the latest recommended use of Flower APIs.

• Improve Simulation Engine (#4095, #3913, #4059, #3954, #4071, #3985, #3988)

  The Flower Simulation Engine comes with several updates, including improved run config support, verbose logging, simulation backend configuration via flwr run, and more.

• Improve RecordSet (#4052, #3218, #4016)

  RecordSet is the core object to exchange model parameters, configuration values and metrics between ClientApp and ServerApp. This release ships several smaller improvements to RecordSet and related *Record types.

• Update documentation (#3972, #3925, #4061, #3984, #3917, #3900, #4066, #3765, #4021, #3906, #4063, #4076, #3920, #3916)

  Many parts of the documentation, including the main tutorial, have been migrated to show new Flower APIs and other new Flower features like the improved Docker support.

• Migrate code example to use new Flower APIs (#3758, #3701, #3919, #3918, #3934, #3893, #3833, #3922, #3846, #3777, #3874, #3873, #3935, #3754, #3980, #4089, #4046, #3314, #3316, #3295, #3313)

  Many code examples have been migrated to use new Flower APIs.

• Update Flower framework, framework internals and quality infrastructure (#4018, #4053, #4098, #4067, #4105, #4048, #4107, #4069, #3915, #4101, #4108, #3914, #4068, #4041, #4040, #3986, #4026, #3961, [#3975](http...