Release 4.0.0

[lissy93]

This is a big one! I'm sorry this one has taken so long to get released. It turned out to be a much bigger task than I first expected.

Changes

For the full list of changes, see: #2002

Many of the biggest changes have been under the hood, rather than user-facing features. A large portion of Dashy has been pretty much re-written from scratch, in order to be compatible with the newer Vue version and modern web standards, and clean and maintainable going forwards. While doing this, we've also included loads of improvements in terms of performance, robustness, security, responsiveness, accessibility and UX, as well as a ton of bug fixes.

Highlights:

• Compiled app 25% smaller, and Docker image 80% smaller
• Rebuilding no longer required after making changes
• Sections now follow a responsive masonry layout
• Full, built-in multi-page YAML editor with inline completion and validation
• Simplified settings menu, added simple widget editing
• Canonical /<view>/<page>/<section> URLs across views/configs/sections, with proper deep-linking and auth controls
• Per-page config: theme, language, layout, icon size, favicon and address-bar colour
• No unexpected crashes, reboot loops or excess mem/resource usage
• Lazy-loaded everything that doesn't need to ship up front: translations, icons, schemas, editor forms
• Fully upgraded and migrated to Vue 3 and Node 24. Plus Vuex 4, Vue Router 4 and vue-i18n 9 and all other deps

Is it backwards compatible with older versions of Dashy?

I hope so, yes!

There's a few small things, as documents in the PR. Mostly around client-side env vars no longer being needed, and the Dockerfile now being non-root and without rebuild.

I've tested everything for backward compatibility as much as I can, but so much has been re-written that it's hard to give guarantees.

What's next?

Going forwards, I'll work hard to continue to keep Dashy well maintained and running smoothly. But please do be patient, I have other projects which also need attention, and I also need to pay my rent this month 😬

Here's the biggest things which are upcoming:

• Widgets
  • Many widgets are out-dated, and no longer working well (due to upstream API changes)
  • I need to also build a UI widget editor, so you can add/move/edit widgets more easily
  • And a new widget SDK, to make building your own custom widgets possible
• Code improvements
  • Typescript end full type safety
  • More complete test E2E suite
• API
  • For accessing Dashy programmatically

Thanks :)

This has been a massive task, pretty much a month of solid work. So I am really hoping you guys like it! If you have any feedback/comments, this would really help me, so pop them in the comments below :)

I don't like asking this, but if you are enjoying Dashy, and want to help me out, a sponsoring me on GitHub is the biggest way you can support. Everything I do is funded by my sponsors, and I am super grateful for their contributions 💕

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This discussion was created from the release Release 4.0.0.

[SkunkGuru]

just updated, but don't restart, keep crashing; in docker logs I find:

2026-04-26T17:01:12.265953365Z error Command "build-and-start" not found.
[Dashy] 2026-04-26T16:53:44.816234657Z yarn run v1.22.22
[Dashy] 2026-04-26T16:53:44.877052283Z error Command "build-and-start" not found.
[Dashy] 2026-04-26T16:53:44.880657229Z info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/run for documentation about this command.

[lissy93]

build-and-start is removed, the entrypoint has changed so that it is just start.

I guess you've got a compose/run config that overrides CMD? Just update it to node server.js and it should work for ya.

[SkunkGuru]

I use dockhand to create, manage and update everything, and I cant find where to change that build/start

dashy:
container_name: Dashy
image: lissy93/dashy
volumes:
- /home/deb/dashy/my-config.yml:/app/user-data/conf.yml
ports:
- 8585:8080
environment:
- NODE_ENV=production
- UID=1000
- GID=1000
# Specify restart policy
restart: unless-stopped

[lissy93]

check dockhand docs then. it's a different project, unrelated to Dashy.

[te0203]

[lissy93]

I can add an option back in, to allow you to use the old style layout? The new masonry version should be better all around, so i'm curious what's not working well for you with it?

Otherwise, yeah you can downgrade back or switch to something else.

[lissy93]

I've reverted the default layout in #2095 - will be released shortly in 4.0.2

[mr-f0xx]

This update completely killed my setup, thanks.
Tried to go back to an older version, and of course it doesn't work anymore.
Time for me to find an alternative.... I'm so frustrated, i've been trying to fix my issue for an hour without success.
Logs show nothing at all. Tried with a new config file, same issue. I give up.

[lissy93]

Logs should show something? And rolling back will certainly work.
If you can say what the issue actually is, then I can try and help, it's probably something simple like broken file permissions on the config file (the container is now a no root container)

Otherwise there are simpler alternatives to consider, maybe Homer?
https://awesome-selfhosted.net/tags/personal-dashboards.html

[OmegaRa]

my setup is still working, and in fact it fixed my widget issues, but it is giving errors when I try to save to disk.

[OmegaRa]

it just says an error occurred saving config. I have this install on ZimaOS, so not a standard Linux distro. I just attempted to toggle the privileges toggle in the container settings to see if that works. Also, is the NODE_ENV=Production, what is that about? Is that why I can't see subfolders in the AppData folder? I had to add user-data to be able to keep my settings and be able to access the yml

[OmegaRa]

Also, is there a way to edit the splash screen that I am missing?

[OmegaRa]

Do you get an error message? Maybe something in the browser console or server logs? The only thing I can think of, is that it's a file write permission error, since the container is now non-root.

I tried chmod -R 775 /path/to/your/folder
chgrp -R 1001 /path/to/your/folder

for Both the main appdata folder and the user-data folder inside it and still get the same error

[lissy93]

Have you seen this entry in the troubleshooting docs?
That's the only possible thing I can think of (UID mismatch).
Dashy's container runs USER node, which is UID 1000 / GID 1000.
But you chgrp'd to 1001 (wrong UID), so node user still can't write.
The fix is just chown -R 1000:1000 /path/to/user-data on host.
But you could confirm this, with chmod -R 777.

However, I can't look into this further without any logs or more info.
But, I have submited a PR in #2098, which adds clearer error messaging around save config fails, as well as clearer troubleshooting docs for Config save errors.

[OmegaRa]

the 1000:1000 fixed it! Thanks!

[minooch]

Thanks for your hard work Lissy, loving Dashy v4!

The masonry layout makes it look neat and clean 👍

[lissy93]

Thank you @minooch 😊

[xMdb]

i thought my dashy was broken but it was my browser.

for those who are having issue with dashy no longer loading, clear the site's data/cookies. works fine after refreshing