Manticore Search released version 27.1.5, introducing built-in authentication and authorization alongside sharded tables and conversational search capabilities. The update addresses security gaps that previously required external handling, while adding native support for user management, bearer tokens, and fine-grained permissions across MySQL and HTTP protocols.

Sharded tables represent a significant operational improvement for write-heavy deployments. Previously, sharding logic lived outside the engine, requiring custom management. Now operators can distribute inserts across shards and handle lifecycle operations within Manticore itself, reducing external complexity. This follows the addition of replication storage layout changes in version 26.0.0, which moved replicated tables to a standard directory structure.

Conversational search arrives through CREATE CHAT MODEL and CALL CHAT commands, enabling document Q&A without separate retrieval layers. The feature runs KNN on FLOAT_VECTOR fields and builds LLM context from source columns while maintaining conversation history. Vector performance improvements throughout the release cycle include multithreaded HNSW builds and local ONNX embeddings support.

The release includes 65 bug fixes addressing crashes in columnar float_vector attributes, KNN rescoring issues, and MySQL protocol compatibility. Notable additions include facet_filter_mode for e-commerce filtering, statistical aggregations, and native Ukrainian lemmatizer support. Organizations using Manticore for search infrastructure gain both security controls and AI-powered features without external dependencies.