I recently discovered a scenario where Sophie couldn’t enforce the /welcomecaptcha in some chats. This happens when Telegram doesn’t send updates to bots about new members joining.

[New Feature: Telegram’s "Approve new users" support]
To address this, we’ve added support for Telegram’s "approve new users" feature. When enabled in your chat settings, Sophie will now automatically send a captcha message to the private chat of users requesting to join. Once the user completes the captcha, Sophie will approve their request.

[Automatic Handling of Incomplete Captchas]
But that’s not all! Users who fail to complete the captcha within 48 hours will now be automatically banned or rejected from the chat, even if the "approve new users" setting isn’t enabled.

[Federation Module Modernization]
We’ve also introduced a new Federation module in the /help menu, featuring the new /finfo command. This is the first step in modernizing the existing Federations module, with more improvements on the way. I’ll be rolling out new commands and features gradually, using feature flags to ensure the best possible experience.

🗓 This update is rolling out first to users with Beta mode enabled and will gradually reach more users in the coming weeks through an A/B and feature-flags release process, ensuring a seamless experience.

[Introducing AI Filter Handlers]!

We’re excited to announce a powerful new feature: AI Filter Handlers. Powered by Mistral AI, an industry-leading AI provider known for its commitment to data privacy, this feature allows you to intelligently determine whether a filter should be triggered based on the content of any message, whether it’s text, stickers, videos, GIFs, or pictures.

[How to Use It]:
Simply use the following pattern when adding your filters:
/addfilter ai:Your prompt

[Example]:
/addfilter ai:Has anything regarding money or cryptocurrency

Of course, you can choose and combine a wide range of actions for your filters, such as:
- Sending an AI-generated reply
- Deleting the message
- Warning the user
- Banning the user

The Filter's wiki page was updated with even more information about this new feature!

🗓 As always, this update is rolling out first to users with Beta mode enabled and will gradually reach more users in the coming weeks through an A/B release process, ensuring the seamless experience.

The maintenance is finished.
ℹ️ Sophie has been migrated to the dedicated server, so she should be more responsive.

Additionally, she received one of the biggest updates in recent years.

✏️ The changelog:
✨ AI
You can now use the z.ai provider, with GLM models.
We improved automatic language detection for the AI Auto Translator.
After starting the /ai mode in direct message, Sophie will show a "Change AI Provider" button so you can quickly switch providers.
We fixed an issue where Sophie ignored your /aienable setting when other users replied to AI-generated messages.

🔗 Connections
We rewrote this module from legacy code.
After connecting to the chat, Sophie will automatically drop /ai chat-mode and show you a "Disconnect" button.
We fixed an annoying issue: if Sophie couldn’t find the chat you were connected to, she would automatically disconnect you.
Connections are now time-limited and will be automatically dropped after 48 hours.

✉️ Notes
- The Saveables* button parser now uses the ASS library, which supports highlighting wrong button syntax, instructing you, and providing examples.
*Saveables is a term used for saving content for notes, welcomes, rules, and filter's "answer with" action.

🔒 Welcome Captcha
Sophie will not enforce captcha for new users who joined up to 15 minutes before she notices them. This means Sophie won’t restrict people who joined while she was down.

🖥 Help
The /start and /help commands now have colored buttons with animated emojis. We’ll update more buttons in Sophie in future updates.

🚩 Antiflood
We rewrote this module from legacy code.
The antiflood action system is now merged with the filter system, giving you a much broader selection of actions. For example, you can now set to reply with chat rules, custom replies, reply with a note, and apply temporary restrictions.
We’re excited to update more modules with this merged action system soon.

🎮 Federations
We rewrote this module from legacy code.
Sophie now imports and exports Federations using a background scheduler to improve responsiveness.
You can now transfer a federation to another user.
We improved handling of subscribed federations.
You can now /fban users Sophie doesn’t know yet, using their user ID.

🌐 Languages
We rewrote this module from legacy code.
We completely removed the old YAML translation system.

⚠️ Warnings
We rewrote this module from legacy code.
When you use /warns in Sophie’s PM and aren’t connected to any chat, Sophie will show you all warnings you’ve collected across all chats.

⚙️ Technical Changes
- We moved the project from Poetry, flake8 and Mypy to uv, Ruff and ty.
- We completely overhauled the database structure. Sophie now uses database references instead of storing data with plain chat_id. This will be important for future updates.
- We added a database migration system, so we can iterate more quickly.
- We added initial REST API support for Sophie. This will be important for future updates.
- We added a bunch of end-to-end tests to ensure Sophie’s quality.
- We added development documentation for self-hosting, using database migrations, and the ASS and STFU libraries.
- Many modules were rewritten from the legacy code
- We deleted all legacy modules and legacy utilities, removing a huge technical debt baggage.

Because of the complicated data migration process, we couldn't have a beta-first release process, so the update is released to all users as of now.
⚠️ Due to the update's complexity, some issues are expected. We're committed to resolving all of them as soon as possible; please help us by reporting them to @SophieSupport.

Lastly, the wiki has not yet been upgraded; please check /help instead.