The Companion broker, two new cloud sources, headless hooks for all four major frameworks, and a content-aware image editor with AVIF/WebP output. All additive - no breaking changes from 5.1.
Headline
Companion broker
A self-hosted Node/Express OAuth and file-proxy broker (multipleupload/server/companion), modeled on Uppy Companion, with zero new dependencies. Provider client secrets and access tokens stay server-side and never reach the browser. Built-in Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, OneDrive. HMAC-signed OAuth state for CSRF, pluggable token store.
Companion
Two transfer modes
proxy streams broker to browser to upload; server-to-destination streams remote to broker to S3 or disk so the bytes never touch the browser. Built-in fileSystemDestination.
Cloud sources
6 built-in sources
Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box (now first-class), Unsplash (search and import, no OAuth popup), and the Companion broker. Each routes into the existing URL-import pipeline.
Headless
Framework hooks
useUploader() for React and Vue, a use:uploader action for Svelte, and an UploaderService for Angular return { files, progress, status, addFiles, upload } so teams build a fully custom UI.
Image editor
Smart-crop, overlays, filters
Content-aware smart-crop (edge-energy focal point, no ML), draggable text and sticker overlays, brightness/contrast/saturation/sepia/grayscale sliders with presets (Mono, Sepia, Warm, Cool, Vivid), an EXIF info panel, and crop-ratio quick-pick chips.
Image output
AVIF + WebP output
Export to AVIF or WebP with a quality slider and graceful AVIF to WebP to JPEG fallback. Plus EXIF auto-rotate on upload, PDF poster thumbnails in the queue, HEIC decode, and URL-based transforms via transformUrl().
UX
Rename, restore, full-page drop
Per-file rename UI (click a filename to edit), a restore prompt that offers to resume incomplete uploads, a whole-page drop target with form auto-attach, and locale auto-detect from navigator.language.
Accessibility
ARIA live regions + WCAG
ARIA live-region announcements for file added, uploaded, and error events, reduced-motion CSS, and modal focus traps. New standalone aspectRatio validator.
.NET
IImageTransformer extension point
URL-based transforms are honored server-side: in the Web Forms handler via GDI+, and in CoreUpload via a pluggable IImageTransformer. Reflective IS3Signer / IAzureSigner / IGcsSigner DI unchanged.