Notes:

We added a function to periodically check version information on ti.init to remind users if a new version has been released. However, this function is not fully tested when 0.8.6 is released, and the error handling is not well-implemented. Taichi crashes when it fails to check the version (maybe due to network issues). For this reason, 0.8.6 is removed from the official releases in PyPI. Please upgrade to a newer version if you are on this version. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Full changelog:

• [Lang] Check version when importing taichi instead of when using ti (#3598) (by Jiasheng Zhang)
• [Lang] Add ti.round op (#3541) (by gaoxinge)
• [Bug] [ir] Fix the IdentifyValuesUsedInOtherOffloads pass (#3597) (by Yi Xu)
• [ci] Fix release (#3594) (by Jiasheng Zhang)
• [perf] Add async_mode restriction to ti.sync() of external_arrays in class Kernel (#3535) (by rocket)
• [Lang] Add time check before performing version check (#3589) (by Jiasheng Zhang)
• [Doc] Fix example link in README. (#3584) (by egolearner)
• [gui] GGUI initial alpha transparency support (#3592) (by Bob Cao)
• [ci] Turn off vulkan build on macos (#3591) (by Jiasheng Zhang)
• [ci] Fix release bug (#3585) (by Jiasheng Zhang)
• [misc] Update documentations after the examples directory changed (#3587) (by Velaciela)
• [bug] Fix missing tests/ folder in postsubmit & release workflows. (#3583) (by Ailing)
• [refactor] Avoid copying examples/ folder when building taichi. (by Ailing Zhang)
• [Test] Remove ti test from taichi package. (by Ailing Zhang)
• [ci] Fix postsubmit mac build failure (#3579) (by Jiasheng Zhang)
• [misc] MoltenVK dynamic library & allow overriding CLANG_EXECUTABLE (#3565) (by Bob Cao)
• [Lang] Add get_element_size for ndarray (#3576) (by Bo Qiao)
• [ci] Remove usage of build.py in favor of setup.py (#3537) (by Frost Ming)
• [Bug] [llvm] Fix FP<->UInt castings (#3560) (by Yi Xu)
• [Bug] [vulkan] Fix data type alignment for arguments and return values (#3571) (by Yi Xu)
• ci (#3569) (by Tianshu Xu)
• [Bug] [metal] Fix data type alignment for arguments and return values (#3564) (by Yi Xu)
• [Mesh] [opt] Support mesh-for for multi-CPUs & demote atomic stmts in BLS for x64 (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] Remove Matrix.with_entries() & support ti.mesh_patch_idx() (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] Support mesh-for for CPU backend (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] [refactor] Migrate ti.Mesh to refactored frontend (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] Add type_check for ti.Mesh frontend (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Add CI tests for ti.Mesh (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] Decouple metadata (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] Fix misc & restore code formatter (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Reduce SNode trees allocation for ti.Mesh (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] Refactor serialize() for frontend IR (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] Fix bugs to enable reordered mesh attribute (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] Fix bugs to enable nested relation access (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] [refactor] Refactor frontend (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] [opt] Demote no relation access mesh-for to range-for (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] Quick fix bugs after rebase (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Fix Layout.AOS (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] Quick fix bugs after rebase (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] [fix] Fix failed caching mapping only (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] Add experimental compile configs (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] [refactor] Remove MeshAttribute in mesh class (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] [opt] Make mesh attribute local (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] [Lang] Quick fix rebase conflicts (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Add analyzer to determine which mapping should be cache (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Clean MeshAttributeSet in DecoratorRecorder (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] [refactor] Add global to reordered index mapping type (by Chang Yu)
• [Mesh] [refactor] Unified MeshRelationAccessStmt and MeshRelationSizeStmt (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] [refactor] Rename to_string functions (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Use ti.axes instead of ti.indices (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Add ti.mesh_local() (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] [refactor] Divide make_mesh_index_mapping_local pass into multiple functions (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] [test] Delete outdated mesh-for test (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] [opt] Optimize reordered index mapping case (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] [refactor] from_type() as statement attribute (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Add optimization pass to make index mapping local (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Set MeshTaichi as extension (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] [refactor] Rename make_mesh_attribute_local to demote_mesh_statements (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Support low-to-high and same-order relation access (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Add analysis pass to gather mesh thread local variables (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Add analysis pass to gather mesh_for relation types (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Clean up field template based residual & fix bugs (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Id property to interact with non-mesh field (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] MeshRelationAccessStmt & MeshIndexConversionStmt backend implementation (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Frontend Impl (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Fix code format (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] [IR] Add MeshRelationAccessStmt & MeshIndexConversionStmt (by g1n0st)
• [IR] Quick fix rebase conflict (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] [Lang] New ti.Mesh frontend class prototype & MeshRelationSize statement and expression (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Fix mesh-for in multiple passes (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Fix type_check pass for body_prologue in OffloadedStmt (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Add make_mesh_thread_local pass (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Make the type of loop in MeshPatchIndexStmt explicit (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Make get num_patches behavior correctly (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Removed wildcard import in python (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Add MeshPatchIndexStmt statement (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Add a backend Mesh class prototype & relation based mesh_for (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] [refactor] Create a new pass called make_mesh_attribute_local (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] A simple BLS pass to do the local to global mapping (by bx2k)
• [Mesh] A Frontend ti.Mesh class prototype (by g1n0st)
• [Mesh] Fix meshfor at simplify pass (by bx2k)
• [Mesh] A simple meshfor frontend enable to print index (by bx2k)
• [Mesh] Add Meshfor prototype with dirty hacks (by bx2k)
• [LLVM] Fix casting f64 to f16 (#3561) (by Tianshu Xu)
• [misc] Improve the mechanism to find clang (#3379) (by Tianshu Xu)
• [CI] Add version database update in CD (#3540) (by Jiasheng Zhang)
• [Doc] Move build Taichi from source one level up (#3551) (by tison)
• [Misc] [refactor] Move symbol versioning to a new file (#3426) (by Bo Qiao)
• [misc] Fix redefined reset function (#3227) (#3521) (by u2386)
• [ci] Dockerfile for CPU manylinux2014 compliant (#3542) (by Bo Qiao)
• [Lang] [bug] Fix numpy from and to ndarray matrix (#3549) (by Bo Qiao)
• [Lang] Remove disable_local_tensor and empty() from Matrix (#3546) (by Yi Xu)
• [refactor] Remove with_entries() and keep_raw from Matrix (#3539) (by Yi Xu)
• [lang] Limit torch based ndarray to cpu/cuda backend. (#3545) (by Ailing)
• [Refactor] Fix typo and type in docstring, and format too long string (#3530) (by gaoxinge)
• [Lang] Add check version function to taichi main (#3526) (by Jiasheng Zhang)
• [bug] Remove fallback in C++ code (#3538) (by lin-hitonami)
• [refactor] Remove empty_copy() and copy() from Matrix/Struct (#3536) (by Yi Xu)
• [misc] Reorg CI stages (#3525) (by Tianshu Xu)
• [ci] Remove build_and_test_cpu_required from CI to save time (#3534) (by lin-hitonami)
• [refactor] Remove variable() of Matrix/Struct and empty() of Matrix/StructType (#3531) (by Yi Xu)
• [ci] Disable arch fallback on CI (#3474) (by lin-hitonami)
• [refactor] Decouple KernelProfilerBase::sync() from Program::synchronize() (#3504) (by rocket)
• [Lang] Add deepcopy for ndarray (#3473) (by Bo Qiao)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule E1101 (#3500) (by DeepDuke)
• [Lang] Implement ti.global_thread_idx (#3319) (by Shay P.C)
• [refactor] Remove the old AST builder from python frontend (#3527) (by lin-hitonami)
• [Lang] Remove disable_local_tensor in most cases (#3524) (by Yi Xu)
• [opengl] Use separate ssbo for external arrays. (by Ailing Zhang)
• [refactor] Rename Context to RuntimeContext. (by Ailing Zhang)
• [Lang] Enable local tensors as writeback binary operation results (#3517) (by Yi Xu)
• fix (#3523) (by Dunfan Lu)
• [metal] Add a TI_WITH_METAL option (#3510) (by Dunfan Lu)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule W0621 (#3498) (by ZONEPG)
• [refactor] Enable the new ast builder by default (#3516) (by lin-hitonami)
• [ci] Add a helper script for Dockerfile generation. (#3509) (by Chengchen(Rex) Wang)
• [ci] Fix release action now being able to be triggered manually (#3520) (by Jiasheng Zhang)
• Create CONTRIBUTING.md (#3518) (by Tianshu Xu)
• Update unix_build.sh (#3511) (by Bob Cao)
• [ci] Minor fix for windows release upload. (#3513) (by Ailing)
• [llvm] Add a TI_WITH_LLVM option (#3507) (by Dunfan Lu)
• [CUDA] Fix a misuse of std::move: address of stack memory associated with temporary object of type std::lock_guardstd::mutex returned to caller (#3502) (by Twice)
• [Lang] Add W0101 rule for pylint (#3497) (by Ligeng Zhu)
• Add PEP 517 build specification (#3495) (by Frost Ming)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule W0622 (#3501) (by Mark Huang)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule R1710 (#3496) (by licktion)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule W0612 (#3151) (#3488) (by klein)
• [ci] Fix pylint conflicts (#3503) (by Ye Kuang)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule C0209 (#3489) (by zstone12)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule W0404 (#3477) (by Dustyposa)
• fix pylint W0235 (#3486) (by ImPerat0R_)
• [IR] Enforce type check for all expressions (#3461) (by Yi Xu)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule W0101 (#3493) (by darkSheep)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule W0108 (#3482) (by Isaac)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule R0201 (#3494) (by Alex Chi)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule C0200 (#3480) (by Keming)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule R1705 (#3491) (by IceCodeNew)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule R1732 (#3490) (by IceCodeNew)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule R1703 (#3472) (by HHHJH)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule R0205 (#3487) (by Isaac)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule R0402 (#3483) (by Yu Dou)
• [misc] Enable clang-tidy check in CI (#3475) (by Tianshu Xu)
• [Doc] Fix wrong example about TAICHI_CMAKE_ARGS (#3485) (by Jun)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule W0201 (#3476) (by Dustyposa)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule W0611 (#3478) (by ZHANG Zhi)
• [docs] Remove ti format in doc. (#3479) (by Ailing)
• [Lang] Enable local tensors as arithmetic operation results (#3468) (by Yi Xu)
• [Lang] Fix pylint rule W0401 (#3471) (by Alkaid)
• [Lang] Change the type error to a real exception (#3439) (by Frost Ming)
• Report error if upload fails (#3462) (by Frost Ming)
• [opengl] Unify windows path to posix format in python. (#3470) (by Ailing)
• [Bug] [opt] Visit RangeForStmt in IdentifyValuesUsedInOtherOffloads (#3466) (by Yi Xu)
• [vulkan] Link to MoltenVK on macOS (#3445) (by Bob Cao)
• [vulkan] Basic Bitmasked support (#3412) (by Bob Cao)
• [opengl] Make windows path in saved aot json human readable. (#3460) (by Ailing)
• [refactor] [bug] Eliminate failing tests on the new AST builder (#3441) (by lin-hitonami)
• [misc] Add default values of TI_VERSION (#3459) (by Tianshu Xu)
• [misc] Temporarily disable clang-tidy check. (#3458) (by Ailing)
• [misc] Remove regex in TextSerializer. (#3454) (by Ailing)
• [IR] Add type_check for Atomic/SNodeOpExpression (#3444) (by Yi Xu)
• [IR] Remove EvalExpression (#3448) (by Yi Xu)
• [misc] Version bump: v0.8.5->v0.8.6. (#3457) (by Ailing)