docs: add news section to documentation site

Add a dedicated news section for release announcements with
auto-generated sidebar (sorted newest-first), content loader,
and redirect from /news/ to the latest article.

Author: d-biehl

docs/.vitepress/config.mts

@@ -60,6 +60,7 @@ export default defineConfig({
     },
     nav: [
       { text: "Home", link: "/" },
+      { text: "News", link: "/news/" },
       { text: "Documentation", link: "/01_about" },
       { text: "Support & Contribute", link: "/05_contributing" },
       { text: "Q&A", link: "https://github.com/robotcodedev/robotcode/discussions/categories/q-a" },
@@ -97,14 +98,29 @@ export default defineConfig({
     //     ]
     //   }
     // ],
-    sidebar: generateSidebar({
-      documentRootPath: ".",
-      collapsed: true,
-      useTitleFromFileHeading: true,
-      useTitleFromFrontmatter: true,
-      useFolderLinkFromIndexFile: true,
-      useFolderTitleFromIndexFile: true,
-    }),
+    sidebar: generateSidebar([
+      {
+        documentRootPath: ".",
+        collapsed: true,
+        useTitleFromFileHeading: true,
+        useTitleFromFrontmatter: true,
+        useFolderLinkFromIndexFile: true,
+        useFolderTitleFromIndexFile: true,
+        excludeByGlobPattern: ["news/**"],
+      },
+      {
+        documentRootPath: ".",
+        scanStartPath: "news",
+        resolvePath: "/news/",
+        collapsed: false,
+        useTitleFromFileHeading: true,
+        useTitleFromFrontmatter: true,
+        useFolderLinkFromIndexFile: true,
+        useFolderTitleFromIndexFile: true,
+        sortMenusByFrontmatterDate: true,
+        sortMenusOrderByDescending: true,
+      },
+    ]),
     socialLinks: [
       { icon: "github", link: "https://github.com/robotcodedev/robotcode" },
       { icon: { svg: python_svg }, link: "https://pypi.org/project/robotcode/" },

docs/news/2026-03-31-whats-new-v2.5.0.md

@@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
+---
+title: What's New in v2.5.0
+date: 2026-03-31
+---
+
+# What's New in RobotCode v2.5.0
+
+This release brings **major performance improvements**, a powerful new **SQLite-based cache system**, and smarter **code completion** — making RobotCode faster and more productive than ever, especially for large projects.
+
+## Highlights
+
+### Blazing-Fast Startup with Namespace Caching
+
+The biggest highlight of this release is the new **namespace disk cache**. RobotCode now caches fully resolved namespace data to a SQLite database, so on subsequent IDE starts cached namespaces are reused instead of re-analyzing every file from scratch. This dramatically reduces the time until diagnostics, code completion, and navigation become available — especially in large workspaces with hundreds of Robot files.
+
+- **Enabled by default** — no configuration needed; just enjoy faster startups.
+- **Automatic invalidation** — the cache is rebuilt when source files, library dependencies, environment variables, command-line variables, language settings, or the RobotCode version change.
+- **SQLite backend** — all cache entries are consolidated into a single SQLite database per workspace, replacing the old scattered `.pkl` files.
+- **Advisory file locking** — concurrent access from multiple processes (language server, CLI, analyze) is safe thanks to `fcntl.flock`-based locking.
+
+### Cache Management CLI
+
+A new `robotcode analyze cache` command group gives you full control over the cache:
+
+| Command | Description |
+|---------|-------------|
+| `path`  | Print the resolved cache directory |
+| `info`  | Show cache statistics with per-section breakdown |
+| `list`  | List cached entries with glob pattern filtering (`-p`) |
+| `clear` | Remove cached entries by section |
+| `prune` | Delete the entire cache database |
+
+You can also override the cache location via the `ROBOTCODE_CACHE_DIR` environment variable — the VS Code extension sets this automatically in the integrated terminal.
+
+### Code Completion for `Literal` Type Hints
+
+Keywords with `Literal["fast", "slow", "auto"]` type hints now show their allowed values directly in the completion list. No more switching to documentation just to find valid argument values. Supports `Union` types containing `Literal` as well.
+
+### Unused Keywords & Variables Detection on CLI
+
+The `robotcode analyze code` command now supports collecting unused keyword and variable diagnostics. Enable it in `robot.toml`:
+
+```toml
+[tool.robotcode-analyze.code]
+collect-unused = true
+```
+
+Or use the CLI flags directly:
+
+```bash
+robotcode analyze code --collect-unused
+robotcode analyze code --no-collect-unused
+```
+
+---
+
+## Performance
+
+This release includes a wave of performance optimizations that significantly reduce analysis time and memory usage:
+
+| Optimization | Impact |
+|---|---|
+| **Patch RF's `variable_not_found`** | Skips slow `RecommendationFinder` — fixes 30+ min hangs on large projects ([#587](https://github.com/robotcodedev/robotcode/issues/587)) |
+| **Replace pathlib with `os.path`** | Warm namespace-cache scenario: **-28.3%** wall time |
+| **Cache `KeywordMatcher` + dict-index** | Keyword matching: **-94%**, overall analysis: **-22%**, function calls: 118M → 81M |
+| **Fix `ArgumentSpec.resolve()` caching** | `RobotArgumentSpec.__init__` calls: 100K → 1.3K (**-98.7%**) |
+| **Single AST model per document** | Saves ~500 KB/doc (CLI) and ~200 KB/doc (Language Server) |
+| **Namespace cache source hints** | Skips expensive `find_resource()` filesystem searches on warm start |
+| **Lazy `CacheEntry` deserialization** | Data blobs are only unpickled on cache hit |
+| **Cache `get_module_spec` results** | Avoids repeated importlib lookups |
+
+---
+
+## Bug Fixes
+
+- **Relative library path resolution** — Namespace cache validation no longer fails for relative imports like `../../resources/libraries/common.py`, preventing unnecessary full rebuilds on every warm start.
+- **Variable name trailing `=`** — Variable names in resource builder now correctly strip trailing `=` ([#546](https://github.com/robotcodedev/robotcode/issues/546)).
+- **Model source field** — RobotCode no longer overrides the `source` field on AST blocks when newer Robot Framework versions already set it ([#588](https://github.com/robotcodedev/robotcode/issues/588)).
+- **`__init__.py` file check** — Corrected file type check in `_is_valid_file` function.
+- **Thread safety** — Added lock for `_workspace_languages` to prevent race conditions on concurrent access.
+
+---
+
+## Internal Improvements
+
+- **ProjectIndex** — New incrementally maintained inverse reference index for O(1) workspace-wide lookups of keywords, variables, namespace entries, tags, and metadata.
+- **Tag & metadata reference tracking** — Structured reference tracking for keyword tags, testcase tags, and metadata during analysis, enabling future features like tag-based navigation.
+- **`RF_VERSION` constant** — Replaced ~134 `get_robot_version()` call sites with a single module-level constant. Removed all dead code for Robot Framework < 5.0.
+- **Namespace refactoring** — Split the monolithic `Namespace` class into a pure DTO with event-driven invalidation, separate builder, and focused modules for import resolution, AST analysis, and variable scoping.
+- **JSON file watching** — `.json` files are now included in the watched file extensions for automatic workspace updates.
+- **Deprecated robocop options removed** — Legacy robocop configuration options have been removed.
+- **Resource lifecycle hardening** — Replaced fragile `__del__`-based cleanup in JSON-RPC layer with explicit `close`/`close_async` paths and best-effort weakref finalizers.
+
+---
+
+## Thank You
+
+Thanks to everyone who reported issues, contributed ideas, and tested pre-release builds. Your feedback drives every release.
+
+- [Report issues](https://github.com/robotcodedev/robotcode/issues)
+- [Discussions & Q&A](https://github.com/robotcodedev/robotcode/discussions)
+- [Sponsor RobotCode](https://opencollective.com/robotcode)

docs/news/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+---
+title: News
+---
+
+<script setup>
+import { data as posts } from './posts.data'
+import { useRouter } from 'vitepress'
+import { onMounted } from 'vue'
+
+const router = useRouter()
+
+onMounted(() => {
+  if (posts.length > 0) {
+    router.go(posts[0].url)
+  }
+})
+</script>
+
+# News
+
+Release announcements and news about RobotCode.
+
+<div v-for="post of posts" :key="post.url" class="blog-post">
+  <h2><a :href="post.url">{{ post.frontmatter.title }}</a></h2>
+  <p class="blog-date">{{ new Date(post.frontmatter.date).toLocaleDateString('en-US', { year: 'numeric', month: 'long', day: 'numeric' }) }}</p>
+</div>
+
+<style>
+.blog-post {
+  margin-bottom: 1.5rem;
+  padding-bottom: 1.5rem;
+  border-bottom: 1px solid var(--vp-c-divider);
+}
+.blog-post:last-child {
+  border-bottom: none;
+}
+.blog-post h2 {
+  margin-top: 0;
+  border-top: none;
+}
+.blog-date {
+  color: var(--vp-c-text-2);
+  font-size: 0.9rem;
+}
+</style>

docs/news/posts.data.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+import { createContentLoader } from "vitepress";
+
+export default createContentLoader("news/*.md", {
+  transform(raw) {
+    return raw
+      .filter((p) => p.url !== "/news/")
+      .sort((a, b) => {
+        return +new Date(b.frontmatter.date) - +new Date(a.frontmatter.date);
+      });
+  },
+});