This pull request introduces major improvements to the project’s infrastructure, configuration, and documentation, as well as a significant expansion of features and architectural changes. Key highlights include new CI workflows for deployment and Docker builds, a revamped .env.dist for environment configuration, a new Dockerfile for containerization, and a comprehensive update to the changelog detailing new chat-based features, tool registry systems, and UI enhancements.

Infrastructure and CI/CD:

• Added GitHub Actions workflows for deploying to Hugging Face Spaces (deploy-develop-to-hf.yml), building documentation with MkDocs (deploy_docs.yml), and building Docker images for pull requests (docker-build-pr.yml). [1] [2] [3]
• Introduced a new Dockerfile for containerized deployment, including a non-root user, dependency installation, and startup command for the chat agent.
• Added .dockerignore to exclude unnecessary files from Docker builds, improving build efficiency and security.

Configuration and Environment:

• Updated .env.dist with documentation and fields for API keys, model configuration, GraphDB, output paths, and support for a new config.yaml system. [1] [2]

Documentation and Project Structure:

• Expanded CHANGELOG.md with detailed descriptions of new features, architectural changes, and bug fixes, including the new chat interface, tool registry, UI redesign, and improved retrieval pipeline. [1] [2]
• Updated technical documentation in copilot-instructions.md to reflect new retriever modules and improved retrieval pipeline structure.

Summary of the most important changes:

Infrastructure & Deployment:

• Added GitHub Actions workflows for Hugging Face Space deployment, documentation build, and Docker build for PRs. [1] [2] [3]
• Introduced a new Dockerfile and .dockerignore for containerization and efficient Docker builds. [1] [2]

Configuration:

• Expanded .env.dist with new fields for API keys, model configuration, GraphDB, and support for config.yaml, improving environment setup and flexibility. [1] [2]

Features & Architecture:

• Comprehensive changelog update documenting new chat-based interface, tool registry, UI redesign, similarity-based query expansion, and multi-model support.
• Updated technical documentation to reflect refactored retriever modules and improved retrieval pipeline.

Bug Fixes & Maintenance:

• Fixed minor formatting and documentation issues in CHANGELOG.md.

These changes collectively modernize the project’s deployment, configuration, and documentation, while introducing a robust new feature set and architectural improvements.