- News and Events
- Announcing Hyku 7.0
Announcing Hyku 7.0
The Hyku community is proud to announce the release of Hyku 7.0. This milestone represents the continued collaboration of developers, institutions, and service providers across the Samvera ecosystem.
Hyku is a multi-tenant repository platform built on Hyrax that enables institutions and consortia to manage digital collections at scale. With each release, the community continues to strengthen the platform's flexibility, administrative tooling, and operational stability.
Hyku 7.0 builds on that foundation with improvements that make it easier to adapt metadata models, manage repository configuration, and maintain production environments.
What's New in Hyku 7
Flexible Metadata
Hyku 7 takes support for flexible metadata out of preview and improves and stabilizes the work found in Hyku 6.2. This support for flexible metadata is enabled through Hyrax's dynamic metadata framework. This capability allows repository administrators to configure metadata fields with greater flexibility and evolve metadata models without extensive code changes.
Flexible metadata can be enabled through the HYRAX_FLEXIBLE environment variable and provides a foundation for repositories to adapt their metadata schemas over time.
Ingest and Import Improvements
Hyku 7 introduces dynamically generated importer templates for Bulkrax. CSV templates are generated from active M3 profiles, custom mappings, and work types, which cuts manual setup and simplifies ingest for administrators.
Accessibility Improvements
Hyku 7 includes updates aligned with WCAG 2.1, including stronger ARIA labeling, improved keyboard navigation for complex UI, and better default-theme color contrast so repository content is easier to use for more people.
Ecosystem Upgrades
Hyku 7 aligns the platform with updated components across the Samvera ecosystem, including Hyrax, the underlying Rails framework, and related integrations such as Bulkrax, WillowSword, and hyrax-doi.
These updates help ensure compatibility with the latest community developments, availability of security patches, and maintain a healthy ecosystem of interoperable tools.
Administrative Improvements
Hyku 7 expands administrative configuration options for repository maintainers.
Exclude specific metadata fields from search result displays
Improve validation of metadata configurations
Strengthen handling of configuration errors for work types
These enhancements give repository administrators more control when managing complex metadata and repository configurations.
Stability and Maintenance Improvements
Improvements to derivative processing
Enhancements to advanced search behavior
Fixes for A/V streaming, collection-level permissions, and background job processing
General bug fixes and reliability improvements
Together these improvements contribute to a more stable and maintainable platform for digital repositories.
Why This Matters
For repository administrators:
More flexibility when configuring metadata
Improved tools for managing repository configuration
Greater stability in day-to-day operations
For institutions:
A repository platform that can evolve alongside institutional metadata needs
Continued investment in open-source infrastructure
Improved compatibility across the Samvera ecosystem
For consortia:
Better support for multi-tenant repository deployments
Greater flexibility for different tenants' metadata models
A stronger foundation for collaborative repository platforms
Community Contributions
Hyku 7.0 reflects contributions from developers, maintainers, and institutions across the Hyku and Samvera communities. The release represents ongoing collaboration to advance open, community-driven digital repository infrastructure.
Special thanks to everyone who helped to build and test Hyku 7 and especially to the following community members for their leadership and coordination of this release:
Rob Kaufman, community-supported Technical Coordinator for Hyku and Hyrax
Nic Don Stanton-Roark, community-supported Product Owner for Hyku
West Virginia University Libraries Staff
Release Notes
Full release notes, upgrade guidance, and technical details are available in the Hyku GitHub repository.
What can Hyku 7.0 enable for your project? Interested in learning more about Hyku?
Join us for the next Hyku Interest Group call! All are welcome to attend. You can also ask questions in the Hyku channel on the Samvera Slack workspace, and check out videos of Hyku in action on the Hyku YouTube channel.