medcat/v2.6.0

🩺 MedCAT v2.6 Release Notes

This release focuses on plugin ecosystem maturity, distribution clean-up, and improved usability around plugins and scripts, alongside a small number of bug fixes and documentation updates.

🚀 New Features & Enhancements

• Plugin Catalogue & Auto-Installation – Introduced a plugin catalogue that defines known plugins and how they are distributed.
  MedCAT can now automatically install missing plugins via:

python -m medcat install-plugins <plugin_name>

This significantly simplifies setup when loading models that depend on external plugins.

• Missing Plugin Download Support – When loading a model that requires plugins not currently installed, MedCAT can now offer a command for the user to use to download / install them.
• Embedding Linker as a Standalone Plugin – The embedding-based linker has been extracted from the core library and released as a separate PyPI project.
  This reduces core dependencies and aligns with the new plugin-first architecture.
• GLiNER Plugin Public Release – The GLiNER-based NER implementation has been migrated into a publicly available standalone plugin and added to the plugin catalogue.

⚠️ Breaking / Behavioural Changes

• Embedding Linker & GLiNER Removed from Core –
  Both the embedding linker and GLiNER are no longer shipped as part of the MedCAT core package:
  • They must now be installed explicitly as plugins

This is technically a breaking change, but is unlikely to affect users as v2 adoption is still limited and this was an optional extra.

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Embedding Linker Disambiguation – Fixed an issue in embedding linker disambiguation logic that could lead to incorrect candidate selection.
• Improved Stability on Windows & macOS – Addressed platform-specific stability issues uncovered in CI.

🧰 Other Improvements

• Documentation Updates
• Added a dedicated section describing key differences between MedCAT v1 and v2
• Documented script downloads via the MedCAT library
• Added links to medcat-scripts in tutorials
• Removed references to v1 models from the README
• medcat-scripts UX Improvements – Improved messaging during script installation, including clearer dependency installation instructions.
• Release & Packaging Cleanups
• Migrated internal GLiNER implementation to a public project
• Updated internal version references
• CI & Stability Improvements – Additional fixes to ensure stable behaviour across platforms and environments.

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This release continues the transition toward a modular, plugin-driven MedCAT v2 ecosystem, with clearer separation of concerns, leaner core dependencies, and better tooling for managing optional components.

What's Changed

• CU-869bxf6ht: Add a paragraph on v2 differences in the docs by @mart-r in #310
• feat(medcat): CU-869bydfx8 Allow downloading missing plugins by @mart-r in #311
• bug(medcat): CU-869c0g9f7 Fix embedding linker disambiguation by @mart-r in #314
• Update medcat version to 2.5.0 in requirements by @mart-r in #318
• cocs(medcat-scripts): CU-869c25ux2 Document scripts download through medcat lib by @mart-r in #320
• docs(medcat-tutorials): CU-869c25t6a Add link to medcat scripts by @mart-r in #319
• CU-869c3t2kk: Remove v1 models from README by @mart-r in #330
• chore(medcat-gliner): CU-869c3bvm0 Migrate gliner implementation to public by @mart-r in #328
• issue(medcat): CU-869c43hgw Show requirement installation message upon scripts install by @mart-r in #332
• chore(medcat-plugin-embedding-linker): CU-869c36ruk Separate embedding linker to its own project by @mart-r in #327
• Fix medcat-gliner release in plugin catalog by @mart-r in #339
• Issue(medcat):CU-869c570zv stability on windows and macos by @mart-r in #338

Full Changelog: medcat/v2.5.3...MedCAT/v2.6.0