Accent CMS v0.23.1

A bugfix release for the v0.23 static-build and deployment surface. The
unifying theme is serve/build parity: several links and assets that worked
under accent serve were missing from accent build output and 404ed only
on deployed sites, invisibly to accent validate.

Added

• accent build --strict-links: a build-output link sweep resolves every
  emitted internal href against the output tree (at any base_path,
  including none). It warns by default and fails the build under the flag;
  the docs and website deploy workflows now build with it, so a broken-link
  regression fails the deploy instead of shipping 404s.

Fixed

• Default theme under site.base_path: the top menu and the docs sidebar
  (both its versioned and non-versioned branches) rendered empty on every
  sub-path deployment, because the templates encoded root-relative URL
  shape in their depth heuristics and the version.root template context
  value never carried the base path. Nav depth is now measured against
  url('/') and version.root is prefixed like every other context URL;
  a regression fixture builds the embedded docs theme with and without a
  base path.
• Static-build link parity for three link classes that worked in serve
  and 404ed on deployed sites: versionless URLs now get a meta-refresh stub
  at every default-version page (previously only the versioning root);
  internal relative links are absolutized at render time against both
  authoring bases, so emitted hrefs no longer depend on the host's
  trailing-slash behavior; and accent validate now flags all unresolvable
  relative links, not just .md-suffixed ones (page-local file references
  stay exempt). One long-broken source-tree-path link in the docs was
  corrected across buckets, with frozen-bucket errata.
• Page-local media in static builds: accent build now emits page-local
  media files at their bare page URLs, mirroring the serve-time alias
  exactly -- rendered pages win collisions, per-page media.expose: false
  is honoured, sectioning directories and root-level orphan files are
  covered, and media.serve_at_page_url: false disables both surfaces
  consistently. The static-asset resolver now also rejects dot-prefixed
  path components on both surfaces, and serve and build share a single
  extension allowlist.
• Copy-code button: copying a code block no longer prepends the button's
  own label (Copy/Copied!) to the copied text.
• install.sh now warns when a stale accent earlier in PATH shadows the
  freshly installed binary, naming both paths and the remediation.
• Release/deploy pipeline, no released-binary impact: the site deploy
  workflows no longer race the release binary after a tag, and the release
  publish job survives partial re-runs of the build matrix.

Verifying your download

curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AccentCMS/accent/main/release-signing-key.asc
gpg --import release-signing-key.asc
gpg --verify checksums-v0.23.1.txt.asc checksums-v0.23.1.txt
sha256sum -c --ignore-missing checksums-v0.23.1.txt

Accent CMS v0.23.0

Sub-path deployment support lands: a static build (or a proxied accent serve) now works correctly when the site lives under a path prefix
such as a GitHub Pages project site or a reverse-proxy mount point.
Alongside it, the two-release-old docs promotion checklist becomes a
tool with a fail-closed release gate behind it, and the workspace picks
up a Rust toolchain bump plus the CI/dependency fixes that came with
validating it.

Added

• Base path support for sub-path deployments (f255): site.base_path
  config field plus --base-path on accent build and
  accent serve-static. Every internal URL (page links, theme assets,
  media, search fetch paths and result URLs, llms.txt links, .md
  redirect stubs, pagination, tag links) is emitted under the prefix, so a
  static build works when served from a sub-path such as a GitHub Pages
  project site. The prefix auto-derives from the path component of
  site.url/--base-url, making the documented
  accent build --base-url https://user.github.io/repo recipe work as
  written; an explicit base_path wins, and if it diverges from the
  URL's own path a startup/build warning names both values and the
  affected absolute-URL surfaces (sitemap, feeds, canonicals, JSON-LD).
  Absolute artifacts compose the prefix exactly once. New url(path)
  template function/filter for themes; in-tree themes no longer hardcode
  root-absolute paths, and accent build warns about hardcoded
  root-absolute URLs in theme templates and fails the build if any
  emitted file still contains an unprefixed internal URL. accent serve
  and accent serve-static serve the site under the prefix -- reserved
  infrastructure routes, now including /_health and /.well-known,
  stay at the server root -- so local serving reproduces the deployed URL
  space. Post-review hardening: DocFind's native search index (the JSON
  API/MCP consumers) is built from its own root-relative document set
  instead of reusing prefixed browser-index bytes, so startup search
  under a base path returns results again; the version-scoped-search
  (f225) "/" catch-all is preserved instead of being joined into the
  prefix; and font_css_url() now joins the prefix like cdn_url(),
  with proxied font CSS emitting relative ../files/ references so
  cached stylesheets stay correct under any mount prefix.
• Docs promotion tool and fail-closed release gate (f254): cargo run -p docs-promote -- promote --release X.Y executes the versioned-docs
  release promotion (freeze the vX.Y-dev bucket to vX.Y, relabel both
  bucket roots, seed vX.(Y+1)-dev, regenerate the frozen-content
  manifest) as a single idempotent, non-committing tool instead of a
  manual checklist -- closing both the omission failure class (b101:
  v0.22.0 shipped without the docs ever being promoted) and the
  incompleteness failure class (b108: the stale "0.22-dev" breadcrumb).
  scripts/check-docs-promotion.sh backs it with an independent gate
  wired into both scripts/release.sh and release.yml: a stable-tag
  release now fails closed if the docs corpus was never promoted,
  matching the existing LICENSE_PUBLIC_KEY_PEM fail-closed precedent
  (pre-release tags are exempt). Repo-internal tooling with no render
  surface or product-facing behavior. This release's own docs were
  promoted with it: v0.23 is now the frozen release bucket and
  v0.24-dev the writable one.

Fixed

• Frontmatter redirects no longer poison browser redirect caches
  (b107): a simple redirect: /target (and the detailed form without
  an explicit code:) now emits 302 Found with Cache-Control: no-cache instead of a permanent 301. An author-editable "moving
  pointer" redirect cached as permanent by the browser was surviving
  server restarts and content changes, producing convincing
  "the docs are broken" reports on shared dev ports. code: 301 remains
  the explicit opt-in for deliberate permanent migrations;
  canonicalization redirects (trailing slash, .md cleanup,
  permalink-pattern maps) are unaffected and stay 301.
• Version-bucket breadcrumb showed the wrong version after promotion
  (b108): a released version bucket's menu.title frontmatter kept
  reading "X.Y-dev" after promotion, so the breadcrumb and prev/next
  navigation disagreed with the version switcher. Fixed for the shipped
  v0.22 docs and closed permanently going forward by the docs-promote
  tool's relabel step (f254).
• Mermaid diagram layout: the vendored accent-mmdr renderer
  advanced through three patch releases (0.3.0 -> 0.3.2), fixing edges
  that crossed through subgraph titles, edges into adjacent terminal
  markers (flowchart ((Done)) circles, state [*] end rings) that
  routed as clipped hooks or squeezed diagonal staircases, and terminal
  markers that overlapped their source node.
• Fresh dependency resolution could fail the build: lightningcss
  bumped to 1.0.0-alpha.72 -- the previous pin's loose
  parcel_selectors requirement let any build that re-resolves
  dependencies instead of honoring Cargo.lock (cargo install without
  --locked, a build after cargo update) pick an incompatible
  parcel_selectors/cssparser pair and fail to compile inside
  lightningcss. Locked and fresh resolutions now agree.
• Toolchain and CI hardening, no released-binary impact: the
  workspace toolchain moved to Rust 1.97.1 (rust-toolchain.toml), which
  also made an unattributed clippy --lib --tests false positive on the
  lib test target stop reproducing (b110); every test-side git fixture
  helper now disables commit signing, so the integration-test suite no
  longer fails on a developer machine with a locked signing agent (b111);
  and the Windows CI runner's persistent target directory now self-cleans
  below 40 GB free, fixing a disk-exhaustion failure that the
  toolchain/dependency bump triggered (b112).

Verifying your download

curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AccentCMS/accent/main/release-signing-key.asc
gpg --import release-signing-key.asc
gpg --verify checksums-v0.23.0.txt.asc checksums-v0.23.0.txt
sha256sum -c --ignore-missing checksums-v0.23.0.txt

Accent CMS v0.22.1

A bugfix release. It completes the trial-license code removal that 0.22.0
announced at the policy level, corrects how an expired legacy trial key is
reported at startup, and folds in two developer-profile fixes that no
released binary was ever affected by.

Removed

• accent license trial subcommand (f249): the code removal that the
  0.22.0 "Trial licenses" note forward-referenced. The subcommand, its
  dispatch wiring, and the TRIAL_DAYS constant are gone, and no upsell,
  startup banner, or accent license status line references trials anymore.
  Evaluation remains the free build/dev-serve tier (Policy A2) or a
  low-commitment monthly license. Previously issued kind: "trial" keys
  still validate and expire under the time-constrained (monthly/rental)
  rules -- there is no retroactive invalidation -- so a legacy trial key now
  renders as Monthly (rental).

Fixed

• Expired legacy trial key mislabelled at serve --production startup
  (f249): the expired-license nudge now branches on the owned-vs-rental
  lifecycle rather than the raw cadence claim, so a legacy trial key
  (which carries no cadence) is correctly treated as time-constrained -- it
  is reported as running as Core instead of falsely claiming perpetual
  ownership, and the spurious "Trial license active" banner is gone.
• Developer-profile only, no released-binary impact: the plugin-runtime
  fuel-cap test no longer flakes under host CPU load (b096), and ad-hoc
  single-file serving under the edition-core compile profile (media
  compiled out -- never a released build) no longer 404s sibling static
  assets (b100). Every released binary compiles media in and already
  served these correctly.

Verifying your download

curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AccentCMS/accent/main/release-signing-key.asc
gpg --import release-signing-key.asc
gpg --verify checksums-v0.22.1.txt.asc checksums-v0.22.1.txt
sha256sum -c --ignore-missing checksums-v0.22.1.txt

Accent CMS v0.22.0

The launch release: Accent CMS becomes publicly downloadable. One
license-unlocked binary per platform, published with mandatory signing to
github.com/AccentCMS/accent, plus
the first release of the built-in content agent.

Added

• Public single-binary distribution (f247): releases are now published
  to the public download repository AccentCMS/accent -- six platform
  archives (accent-v<version>-<target>), a SHA-256 checksums file, and a
  mandatory GPG signature (checksums-v<version>.txt.asc; the release
  signing key is published as release-signing-key.asc). Install scripts
  (install.sh / install.ps1) download, checksum-verify, and (with gpg
  present) signature-verify automatically; every release additionally
  receives a publication attestation in the Sigstore transparency log.
  There are no per-edition artifacts: every download contains the full
  feature set and the license key sets the runtime tier.
• Content agent (f242, free in every edition): accent agent runs a
  budgeted, human-in-the-loop LLM session over the site's content with
  explicit provider/endpoint/model arguments and stdin approval for
  writes.
• Agent admin chat (f244, f246): the admin UI gains a chat panel
  driving the same agent over /_admin/agent/* SSE with approval and
  steering; flipping agent.enabled changes nothing but the agent routes
  and panel markup.
• Agent audit stamping (f245): agent sessions stamp an audit hash that
  cross-references the session log with git history.
• Public plugin registry: github.com/AccentCMS/plugin-registry is
  live (empty for now); default-config accent plugin install resolves it
  and reports missing plugins cleanly (b099).
• Relative markdown links now just work (b092): intra-site links written
  the portable, GitHub-compatible way -- [E001](e001-example.md),
  [up](../guide/setup.md) -- are rewritten at render time to the target
  page's clean URL, resolved against the linking page's source file exactly
  as GitHub and IDE previews resolve them. Applies to accent serve and
  accent build alike; unresolvable destinations are left untouched, and
  accent validate now flags them (new BrokenRelativeLink warning) instead
  of letting them ship as silent 404s. Absolute .md links to existing pages
  are rewritten too (skipping the redirect hop) and are no longer
  false-positived by accent validate.

Changed

• Version output drops the compile-time edition tag (f247): accent --version now prints <version> (<hash>) [license: <tier>] and the page
  footer's accent.version_string prints <version> (<hash>). Under
  single-binary distribution every release binary compiles the same feature
  superset, so the old [edition: ...] tag would have read pro on every
  installation regardless of license. The admin Settings "Edition" row now
  shows the runtime license tier (Core (free) / Core+ / Standard / Pro).
• Feature-invariant config schema (f234): the config.yaml schema is now
  identical in every build of Accent CMS. Config sections for subsystems that
  are not compiled into a binary (for example cdn: or mcp: on a Standard
  binary) are now parsed, type-checked, and retained instead of being silently
  ignored, and a startup warning names each such section so the omission is
  visible. As a consequence, a malformed section for a compiled-out
  subsystem now fails config load with a parse error (previously it was
  skipped as an unknown key). Well-formed configs are unaffected.
• Canonical URLs without trailing slashes (b092): /section/ now 301s to
  /section in accent serve and accent serve-static (the redirect fires
  only for URLs that actually serve; unknown paths stay single-request 404s),
  and sitemap.xml emits the same canonical no-slash form as every other URL
  surface instead of appending a trailing slash.
• Shared content kernel (f231): the content-critical state (index,
  cache, config) moved into a ContentKernel shared by the server and the
  MCP command, unifying the two content indexes.

Removed

• Trial licenses: the 10-day per-edition trial is withdrawn. Evaluation
  is the free build/dev tier (no key, no time limit) plus a low-commitment
  monthly license for production. Documentation no longer offers trials;
  removal of the accent license trial command is tracked as f249.

Fixed

• Static builds of versioning roots (b098): accent build rendered a
  versioning root's shell page (for example /docs) as a dead-end page,
  while accent serve 302s it to the default version; the build now emits
  the equivalent redirect stub.
• accent validate file-serving-route false positives (b094): absolute
  links under /media/, /content-media/, /theme/assets/,
  /.well-known/, and /assets/plugins/ are no longer reported as broken
  pages.
• Agent hangs (b090, b091): accent agent no longer hangs on exit when
  stdin never EOFs, and an approval pause can no longer outlive the session
  budget when the requesting client disconnects.
• Serve-spawn test flakes on macOS (b095) and the 500-line rule breach
  that turned CI red for unrelated PRs (b097).

Security

• CDN license gate now covers config reload and live requests (f247):
  the Pro-only CDN integration was license-checked only at serve startup, so
  a SIGHUP or POST /_admin/reload with cdn.enabled: true could activate
  asset rewriting, outbound cache purges, and the proxied-font routes
  without a Pro key. Reloads now re-gate cdn.enabled (mirroring the admin
  UI re-gate), and the /_fonts/* and purge-webhook handlers re-check it
  per request. Groundwork for single-binary distribution, where MCP and CDN
  are compiled into every release binary and the license key alone unlocks
  them.
• Release supply chain: GPG signing of the release checksums is now
  mandatory (publishing fails without a verified signature), third-party
  deploy tooling was removed from the release path, and every published
  release is attested at publication time.
• Bumped crossbeam-epoch 0.9.18 -> 0.9.20 (RUSTSEC-2026-0204: invalid
  pointer dereference in the fmt::Pointer impl for Atomic/Shared).
  Transitive dependency; lockfile-only patch bump.

Verifying your download

curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AccentCMS/accent/main/release-signing-key.asc
gpg --import release-signing-key.asc
gpg --verify checksums-v0.22.0.txt.asc checksums-v0.22.0.txt
sha256sum -c --ignore-missing checksums-v0.22.0.txt

Accent CMS v0.22.0-rc.1

Pre-release for testing. See CHANGELOG.md on the upcoming stable release.

Verifying your download

curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AccentCMS/accent/main/release-signing-key.asc
gpg --import release-signing-key.asc
gpg --verify checksums-v0.22.0-rc.1.txt.asc checksums-v0.22.0-rc.1.txt
sha256sum -c --ignore-missing checksums-v0.22.0-rc.1.txt