Experimental dumpless upgrade

[irevoire]

Feature name	Enable when launching	Description
Upgrade meilisearch without using dumps	./meilisearch --experimental-dumpless-upgrade	Meilisearch will try to start on an old database with as little read downtime as possible and upgrade itself in place

Meilisearch v1.13.0 (released on February 17, 2025) introduces a new way to upgrade meilisearch way more quickly.
Instead of exporting and rebuilding your whole database, meilisearch will simply patch the bits that must be updated between the two versions.

Usage

./meilisearch --experimental-dumpless-upgrade

See the following usage document for the complete usage: https://www.notion.so/meilisearch/Dumpless-upgrade-fff4b06b651f81f1acafe24d4687b3f7

Warning

Currently, the upgrade can fail, leaving your instance in an unrecoverable state. The Meilisearch team greatly encourages you to make a backup of your database before trying this new feature.

Stabilization

The feature will be stabilized once the team is 100% confident in this upgrade process.