Preview of KNIME Analytics Platform 5.5.0

Node Development
1

Dear community developers,

A preview of KNIME Analytics Platform 5.5.0 is now available for testing. If you have any feedback, please let us know by Monday, June 23. The tentative release date is July 02. Please note that this is a preview build and not recommended for production.

Relevant updates include:

  • Revamped agents and tools

    • Building agents is much more straightforward with the new Agent Prompter node. We’ve folded all the complexity of extracting tools, selecting them, calling them, and iterating into a single node.
    • You can build tool workflows from scratch or turn existing workflows into agent tools using a combination of existing and new nodes.
    • Parameterise your tool workflows with configuration nodes, and define how agents and tools communicate using the Tool Message Output node.
    • Use workflow I/O nodes to handle data transfer in your agent workflows. Agents can now pass large data tables to and from tools.
    • Use the new Workflow to Tool node to read your tool workflows and connect them directly to agents via the Agent Prompter or Agent Chat View nodes.
    • The new Agent Chat View node lets you interact with your AI agents conversationally and provides a ready-to-use chat interface for data apps.
    • A new Message data type lets you analyze conversations, with clear role labeling and a visual renderer. Use utility nodes like Message Creator and Message Part Extractor to build and parse messages, no scripting needed.

  • Connect to more AI models

    • You can easily connect to models from Anthropic, Google AI Studio, Google Vertex AI, and IBM watsonx.ai with new connector nodes.

  • Improved workflow rendering

    • We rebuilt how the workflow canvas renders. Large workflows should load and respond much faster. Please note that this is still experimental and needs to be enabled via Preferences → KNIME → KNIME Modern UI → Canvas renderer → Experimental.

  • Improved date and time handling

    • Expression nodes now work with date and time data types directly. Parse dates, calculate time differences, and manipulate timestamps without jumping between multiple nodes.
    • We modernized all our existing Date & Time nodes to improve usability.

  • Node configuration dialogs in the side panel by default

    • Node configuration dialogs are now accessible in the side panel by default. You can disable them via preferences. We’ve also updated dialogs for common nodes like Variable Creator, DB Query Extractor, and more (complete list here).
    • Component configuration dialogs have also been modernized and can be accessed in the side panel. Enable them via Preferences → KNIME → KNIME Modern UI → Enable modern component dialogs.

  • Version workflows in KNIME Analytics Platform

    • You can version workflows uploaded to KNIME Community Hub directly in KNIME Analytics Platform. You can easily switch between versions, restore old versions, or create new versions without the need to go to KNIME Community Hub.

  • Other improvements

    • You can now reorder tabs in KNIME Analytics Platform to arrange your open workflows in the order that works best for you.
    • You can now align nodes horizontally or vertically in your workflows for cleaner, more organized layouts.
    • REST Client nodes use multiple CPU cores better, especially on systems with fewer cores.
    • Bar and pie charts accept binary and integer columns as categories.
    • Data type names are clearer. For e.g., “Number (double)” is now “Number (Floating Decimal)”.

The full (but still preliminary) changelog is available on our website.

Download links for the AP 5.5.0 can be found below:

Your KNIME Team