What’s New in Registry v5.1.0

Released 27 May 2025

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Registry v5.1.0 is a feature release focused on bringing Enrollment Flows to v5 and introducing several new capabilities for managing identity records. This release was intended for early adopters with compatible use cases — Registry v5 was not yet at feature parity with Registry v4 at the time of this release. Full release notes and the complete changelog are available in the Release History.

1. New Capabilities

Identifier Mapper Pipeline Plugin

A new Pipeline Plugin is available for deployments that need to set the Registry login identifier for a person based on data arriving through a Pipeline. The Identifier Mapper Plugin maps a source attribute value to a specific Identifier type in Registry, allowing the login identifier to be derived from source data rather than assigned separately. See Pipelines.

Record Adoption

Administrators can now convert an External Identity record into a Registry-native record via Adoption. When a record is adopted, it is unlinked from its External Identity Source and the person’s attributes become directly managed within Registry — the source can no longer sync that record. Adoption is useful for data migration scenarios, such as moving people from a source-driven population into a directly managed one. Adoption can be reversed via Annulment. See External Identity Sources.

Relinking

An External Identity record can now be relinked to a different Person record when it has been matched to the wrong person. To relink, navigate to the External Identity’s gear menu and select Relink, then find the correct target Person. Relink moves the External Identity but does not resync — the Pipeline must be run afterward to apply the source data to the new person. See External Identity Sources.

Traffic Plugins

Traffic Plugins are a new plugin type that can intercept the platform’s authentication flow at specific points — before, during, or after login — enabling custom handling such as redirecting authentication events to external systems. See Plugins for the plugin type overview; individual Traffic Plugins are documented in the Technical Manual.

2. Capabilities Restored from v4

Enrollment Flows (redesigned)

Enrollment Flows are back in v5.1.0, rebuilt from the ground up. An Enrollment Flow defines a sequence of Steps that participants move through to join a CO. When someone begins a Flow, they create a Petition — the artifact that tracks their progress through the process. At the end of a successful Flow, the Petition is finalized and a Person record is created or updated.

Several Enrollment Flow Step Plugins are available at this release: the Identifier Collector, Basic Attribute Collector and Attribute Collector for gathering information from the enrollee; the Identifier Assignment Enroller for assigning identifiers during enrollment; and the Invitation Accepter for invitation-based flows. The Enrollment Flow implementation in v5.1.0 is focused on initial use cases; some v4 Enrollment Flow capabilities are planned for future releases. See Enrollment Flows.

Env Source Plugin

The Env Source Plugin reads identity attributes from environment variables — the variables set by a web server or identity provider at authentication time. This makes it straightforward to bring attributes like name, email, and affiliation directly from a SAML assertion or OIDC token into Registry without an intermediate directory or database. Env Source also restores Sync on Login behavior that was not available in v5.0.x — the plugin can be configured to sync a person’s record each time they log in. See External Identity Sources.

HTTP Servers and Match Servers

HTTP Servers define connections to resources accessed via HTTP or HTTPS, including authentication credentials and TLS configuration. Match Servers build on HTTP Servers to configure connections to servers implementing the COmanage Match API — used when a Pipeline’s External Match Strategy calls out to an external matching service to resolve identity matches. See Servers.

Mostly Static Pages

Mostly Static Pages — Registry’s mechanism for publishing simple HTML content pages within the Registry application — are now available as standard data model elements in v5.1.0. In v5.0.x, Mostly Static Pages required filesystem access to configure; in v5.1.0 they are managed entirely through the Registry administrative interface. See Mostly Static Pages and Resources.

3. Interface and Usability Improvements

Identifier Assignment: transliteration and minimum length

The Format Identifier Assignment Plugin has two new configuration options. Transliteration converts non-ASCII characters to their ASCII equivalents before generating the identifier — useful when identifiers must be ASCII-only but source name data may include accented or non-Latin characters. Minimum length sets a floor on the generated identifier length, with the plugin iterating until the candidate meets the minimum. See Identifier Assignment.

Person status badge

A person’s status is now shown as a badge in the supertitle bar across all Person canvas tabs, making it immediately visible without navigating to the Person record itself.

User display preferences

Registry v5.1.0 introduces persistent user display preferences: display density (compact vs. normal view) and a dark mode toggle independent of operating system settings. Preferences are stored per user and remembered across sessions. See The v5 Interface.

Accessibility improvements

A range of accessibility improvements to forms and data input fields were included in this release, including better handling of required field indicators, keyboard navigation, and label associations.

4. Looking Ahead

Registry v5.1.0 was the first feature release of Registry v5, intended for early adopters. Feature equivalency work continued in What’s New in Registry v5.2.0.

The COmanage Project’s monthly Open Office Hours is an open call where you can ask questions, share feedback, and hear how other organizations are using Registry. Subscribe to the COmanage Project calendar for dates and connection links.