Release Notes 0.5.40

This page summarizes the product and engineering changes included in 0.5.40, following v0.5.35.

Summary

Release 0.5.40 is a broad workflow release. It adds Chronicle desktop screen context, reframes the always-on learning system as Workflow Intelligence, introduces routines as the primary saved-automation surface, expands Inbox Agent into a more complete email workspace, adds AgentMail support, improves Managed Agents, and upgrades output artifacts with rich PPTX previews and source-first LaTeX/PDF workflows. It also adds multi-provider image generation, new bundled skills, safer computer-use defaults, and several mailbox, image, runtime, and developer-startup fixes.

New Features

• Chronicle Desktop Research Preview: opt-in desktop screen context resolves vague on-screen references such as this, the right side, or the latest draft, with Memory Hub controls, pause/resume, per-task toggles, observation management, and promoted screen_context evidence. Learn more
• Workflow Intelligence: the former Subconscious product framing is now Memory + Heartbeat + internal Reflection + reviewable Suggestions, with user response feedback from act, edit, snooze, dismiss, and ignore behavior. Learn more
• Routines: saved automations now have a first-class product surface with schedule, API, connector, channel, mailbox, GitHub, and manual triggers; run history; outputs; approval policy; connector allowlists; and token regeneration. Learn more
• AgentMail integration: CoWork can configure AgentMail settings, pods, workspace bindings, inboxes, domains, allow/block lists, API keys, and realtime mailbox streaming.
• Expanded Inbox Agent: Inbox Agent now includes Classic and Today modes, Mailbox Ask, attachment-aware search, manual reply/reply-all/forward, editable AI drafts, sender cleanup, commitments, provider-backed read/unread, and Gmail forwarding automations. Learn more
• Managed Agents Hub improvements: reusable managed agents now include templates, conversions from agent roles or automation profiles, governance settings, runtime tool catalogs, routines, insights, audit history, Slack health, workpapers, and image-generation profiles.
• Multi-provider image generation: image settings now support OpenAI, OpenAI Codex/OAuth, Azure, OpenRouter, and Gemini paths with default/backup providers, model selection, per-provider timeouts, and provider-attempt progress.
• Rich PPTX previews: generated PowerPoint artifacts open in an in-app viewer with slide thumbnails, navigation, zoom, extracted text, and speaker notes. Slide images are best-effort via local soffice and pdftoppm.
• LaTeX/PDF artifact workflow: explicit LaTeX/TikZ tasks can write .tex, compile with an installed TeX engine, and show paired source/PDF artifacts in the task UI. Learn more
• Bundled kami skill: a new editorial-document workflow for resumes, one-pagers, white papers, letters, portfolios, diagrams, and slide decks. Learn more
• Bundled taste-skill workflow: CoWork now ships a high-agency frontend design skill with stricter layout, typography, motion, dependency, and responsive-implementation rules.
• Additional bundled workflow resources: new architecture-diagram, GSAP, Hyperframes, Hyperframes CLI, and Hyperframes registry skill resources are included.

Enhancements

• Built-in skills count: docs and product copy now reflect 140 built-in skills.
• Computer use runtime: macOS desktop control now uses helper-targeted Accessibility and Screen Recording permissions, screenshot-relative coordinates, fresh captureId validation, single-session sequential execution, Esc abort, and normalized tools such as screenshot, click, type_text, and keypress. Learn more
• Chronicle and memory integration: promoted screen observations stay provenance-rich, screen-derived text is marked untrusted, and optional linked screen_context memories flow through the normal memory service instead of creating a parallel memory lane. Learn more
• Automation onboarding: Getting Started, Core Automation, Mission Control, and related docs now guide users toward routines first, with Scheduled Tasks, Webhooks, and Event Triggers documented as lower-level engines.
• Artifact surfaces: completion cards, timeline details, Files, presentation previews, markdown image previews, HTML previews, video previews, and LaTeX source/PDF pairs share richer output metadata.
• Settings surfaces: AI model settings now separate LLM, Image, Video, and Search configuration; Automations emphasizes routines; Chronicle appears in Memory Hub and Tools; and AgentMail settings appear under integrations.
• Runtime visibility and tool policy: executor visibility, destination hints, task pause messaging, awaiting-input messages, screen-context routing, private workspace path exclusions, and native-GUI tool policy were refined.
• LLM/provider behavior: Azure OpenAI streaming, streamed tool calls, Responses API fallback handling, provider factory behavior, and reasoning-effort metadata were tightened.
• Developer and packaging docs: build, setup, QA, skills-check, format, lint, type-check, dev logging, Kami validation, PPTX preview dependencies, and LaTeX compile troubleshooting guidance were expanded.
• Packaging: packaged builds now include skill asset folders, computer-use helper resources, and refreshed app icons from build/icon.png and build/icon.ico. macOS fallback builds can now be produced explicitly with npm run package:mac:unsigned, which disables accidental Developer ID auto-discovery.

Fixes

• Mailbox autosync: autosync is scoped to the singleton IPC service instead of starting from every MailboxService instance.
• Mailbox search upgrades: mailbox FTS is backfilled before being trusted so upgraded users can still search existing synced mail.
• Attachment filtering: attachment-content filters now work with decrypted extracted attachment text.
• Welcome suggestions: suggestions are marked acted-on only after prompt submission, not when a suggestion is merely copied into the composer.
• Image generation dedupe: duplicate protection now blocks identical duplicate requests without preventing distinct image generations in the same task.
• OpenAI OAuth images: OAuth image generation now uses the derived Codex API key path correctly.
• Managed routines: managed routine lifecycle changes now sync through the routines service.
• Hook mappings: same-path mapping tokens are scoped to the matched source.
• Workflow Intelligence noise control: reflection evidence gating, restart/catch-up behavior, and low-signal heartbeat filtering reduce duplicate or noisy proactive work.
• Dev startup: npm run dev:start can repair a missing Electron binary by running native driver setup before launching.
• Renderer reliability: sidebar navigation, session filters, initial session loading, task replay snapshots, task pause banners, notification panels, Inbox Agent UI, voice input, and task-event visibility were refined and covered by tests.

Upgrade Notes

• Chronicle is opt-in, desktop-only, and should be paused or disabled when viewing sensitive or untrusted screen content.
• Screen-derived Chronicle text is untrusted context. Prefer direct source tools when CoWork can read the actual file, URL, PR, or thread.
• Computer-use permissions now target the bundled helper path shown in Settings, not Terminal or the main app alone.
• PPTX slide thumbnails require local soffice and pdftoppm; without them, CoWork still shows extracted text and speaker notes.
• LaTeX/PDF compilation requires an installed TeX engine such as tectonic, latexmk, xelatex, lualatex, or pdflatex; failed compiles keep the editable .tex source.
• Routines are now the preferred saved-automation surface. Use Scheduled Tasks, Webhooks, and Event Triggers directly only when you need the lower-level engine.
• Inbox Agent has a replacement-client foundation, but native new-mail compose, provider draft save/update, attachment upload, full outgoing queue draining, Microsoft Graph mail execution, folder/label navigation, and notification preferences remain future work.
• The bundled Kami port ships open English font assets, but it does not ship the proprietary Chinese serif font used by upstream Kami.
• macOS release artifacts are still distributed as unsigned fallback builds unless a release maintainer supplies an explicit Developer ID signing identity in .env.mac; first launch may require Open Anyway in System Settings.

References

• Changelog - full version history
• Chronicle - desktop screen context
• Workflow Intelligence - memory, heartbeat, reflection, suggestions, and feedback learning
• Inbox Agent - email workspace, Mailbox Ask, attachments, compose, and forwarding
• Core Automation - routines and automation runtime boundaries
• Computer use - macOS desktop GUI control
• Kami Skill - editorial documents and slide decks

This page is the canonical high-level summary for the changes included in 0.5.40.