prepared release of version 1.9.7

Author: erohmensing

CHANGELOG.rst

@@ -17,6 +17,30 @@ This project adheres to `Semantic Versioning`_ starting with version 1.0.
 
 .. towncrier release notes start
 
+[1.9.7] - 2020-04-23
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Improvements
+------------
+- `#4606 <https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/4606>`_: The stream reading timeout for ``rasa shell` is now configurable by using the
+  environment variable ``RASA_SHELL_STREAM_READING_TIMEOUT_IN_SECONDS``.
+  This can help to fix problems when using ``rasa shell`` with custom actions which run
+  10 seconds or longer.
+
+Bugfixes
+--------
+- `#5709 <https://github.com/rasahq/rasa/issues/5709>`_: Reverted changes in 1.9.6 that led to model incompatibility. Upgrade to 1.9.7 to fix 
+  ``self.sequence_lengths_for(tf_batch_data[TEXT_SEQ_LENGTH][0]) IndexError: list index out of range`` 
+  error without needing to retrain earlier 1.9 models.
+
+  Therefore, all 1.9 models `except for 1.9.6` will be compatible; a model trained on 1.9.6 will need
+  to be retrained on 1.9.7.
+
+Miscellaneous internal changes
+------------------------------
+- #5631
+
+
 [1.9.6] - 2020-04-15
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 

changelog/4606.improvement.rst

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ exclude = "((.eggs | .git | .pytype | .pytest_cache | build | dist))"
 
 [tool.poetry]
 name = "rasa"
-version = "1.9.6"
+version = "1.9.7"
 description = "Open source machine learning framework to automate text- and voice-based conversations: NLU, dialogue management, connect to Slack, Facebook, and more - Create chatbots and voice assistants"
 authors = [ "Rasa Technologies GmbH <[email protected]>",]
 maintainers = [ "Tom Bocklisch <[email protected]>",]

changelog/5631.misc.rst

@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 # this file will automatically be changed,
 # do not add anything but the version number here!
-__version__ = "1.9.6"
+__version__ = "1.9.7"