Pathfinder for Orchestration, Pathfinder Automapping for Sections and Platform API for automatic integration setup

Pathfinder for Orchestration – Ask Pathfinder to build it

Setting up a new orchestration process means defining type definitions, laying out forms, and building the profile that ties it together. Each step uses a different screen, and each one is a manual configuration task, even for standard, repeatable work.

Pathfinder now extends into Orchestration. You can ask it to generate custom type definitions, organize form layouts, or automatically build a full profile, using the same conversational interface you already use for SQL, crontab, and RegEx.

Key capabilities:

• Type definition generation: Describe the data you need, and Pathfinder generates the custom type definition.
• Form layout assistance: Organize form layout structure through Pathfinder.
• Automatic profile creation: Once a custom type definition exists, Pathfinder builds the complete profile for you automatically, instead of you creating it by hand.

Why it matters: Pathfinder started as a tool for writing queries and expressions. Now it helps you build and enhance the Orchestration components you use every day. It’s a bigger step toward opening the whole platform to Pathfinder.

Platform API – Build Partners, Channels, and Profiles automatically

Setting up integrations often starts the same way: create a partner, configure the channels they use to communicate, then define the profiles that move data from one side to the other. That works when you do it once. It becomes much harder when you’re onboarding many partners, standardizing repeated setups, or trying to manage platform configuration through automation instead of the UI.

With this release, partners, channels, and profiles become first-class API resources. You can create them with POST, update them with PATCH, and list or filter them with pagination built in. This makes it possible to manage integration setup the same way you manage the rest of your infrastructure: through code, pipelines, and repeatable processes.

Key capabilities:

• Create partners, channels, and profiles via API: Use POST to create the core building blocks of your integrations directly through the API. Start with partners, add the channels they use, and create profiles to define how data moves and transforms.
• Partial updates with JSON Merge Patch: Use PATCH to update only the fields that changed. With JSON Merge Patch, you don’t need to resend an entire partner, channel, or profile definition just to adjust one part of it.
• Paginate and filter large GET result sets: List and filter partners, channels, and profiles without loading everything at once. Pagination support makes it easier to work with larger environments and build tooling that scales cleanly.

Why it matters: Partner, channel, and profile management stops being something you can only do by hand in the UI. Provision partner onboarding at scale, manage profiles from your own tooling, and fold Data Platform changes into the same pipelines you use for the rest of your infrastructure.

Quality of Life Improvements

The three headline features are only part of 26.4. The release also includes many smaller improvements, and for anyone working in the platform daily, they quickly add up.

Templates & Compliance

• Expanded Template Gallery: New validation templates for XRechnung, ZUGFeRD, and BIS Billing help you process e-invoices reliably and in compliance with official standards.
• KSeF XAdES Signature Support: SignXMLPostExecutor now supports XAdES signatures for Poland’s KSeF e-invoicing system.
• Peppol Message Level Status: Track delivery status for Peppol messages through Message Level Status (MLS) reporting.

Pathfinder

• Generate JSONPath and XPath: Describe what you want to match or extract, and Pathfinder generates the JSONPath or XPath expression for you, the same way it already handles SQL, crontab, and RegEx.

Trading Partner Manager

• Channel-to-Profile Integration: Connect a Trading Partner Manager channel directly into an existing profile and preselect the target profile, so partners using a standardized interface and message type onboard without any manual connection step.
• Pathfinder in Trading Partner Manager: Pathfinder now helps interpret error messages inside Trading Partner Manager connection tests, so you don’t have to decode them yourself when onboarding fails.

API & Messaging

• Message Bus Retry Mechanism: Failed messages to Kafka, Google Pub/Sub, and other message buses are now retried automatically, and the platform’s watchdog uses exponential back-off across all integrations, reducing manual intervention after a transient outage.
• AMQP via Azure Service Bus: AMQP connections to Azure Service Bus now support claim-based security.

Performance & Platform

• Bridge JDBC Driver: Bridge now uses a new JDBC driver based on Apache Avatica, improving performance.
• Parquet File Support: Profiles can now read and write Parquet files alongside the platform’s other supported formats.
• Standardized Role Templates: Manage access more consistently with predefined role templates and more clearly separated permissions, making it easier to assign the right level of access across modules.

Deprecations

• Legacy AMQP Connector: All AMQP connections should use the AMQP 2.0 connector introduced in 26.3. We will remove the legacy connector in 27.4-LTS.
• We are revisiting Admin Console in 2027. The most used capabilities will become available as native capability in the Lobster Data Platform itself. Other capabilities may be removed before 27.4-LTS in 2027.

Breaking Change

• Java 11 Support: Starting with 26.4-LTS java 11 support is dropped. With 26.2.0 we’ve introduced Java 21 as optional. Upgrade your Java runtime before installing this release. You can validate your java installation in 26.2 or 26.3. For instructions on how upgrade java, please review our documentation.
• Jakarta EE Namespace Migration (javax.* → jakarta.*): Custom extensions, plugins, and Java mapping or print classes compiled against javax.* namespaces will no longer load in release 26.4.0 and must be recompiled against jakarta.* prior to upgrading. Customers on the 25.1.x LTS line are not affected.
• AMQP Library Upgrade Security Hardening: As part of an underlying RabbitMQ client library upgrade (v5.35.0), TLS connections on the legacy AMQP 0.9.1 connector now strictly enforce broker hostname verification alongside certificate trust chain validation.

Autumn Release 26.4 is available to all Lobster Data Platform customers from October 27, 2026. Lobster Cloud installations are upgraded automatically as part of the regular upgrade cycle. For self-managed installations, we recommend upgrading your test environment before production.

Release notes