Release v0.14.5

[0.14.5] — 2026-07-10

Revision of 0.14.0 — the review release. A hard audit of what 0.14.0 shipped found three real defects, all fixed here: the devtools overlay froze the page (its own MutationObserver re-triggered on its own panel writes — infinite microtask loop), '' catalog entries were treated inconsistently across the toolchain (the runtime rendered them as blank holes while extract/check/render call them untranslated — and render's '' handling silently did nothing for nested catalogs), and the new hreflang alternates were being voided by cross-locale canonicals (mirrored pages kept the source page's <link rel="canonical">, which search engines prefer over hreflang). Ready to publish. One behavior change ('' now falls back — see Changed), no API removals, no new dependencies.

Fixed

• Devtools freeze (verbaly/devtools): attachDevtools's MutationObserver re-fired on its own panel.innerHTML/tooltip writes — in a real browser the microtask queue never drained and the tab hung the moment the overlay mounted. The observer now ignores mutations originating inside its own panel/tip. Regression test drains the observer microtasks and asserts the scan count settles (the 0.14.0 tests were synchronous and couldn't see the loop).
• renderHtml '' handling with nested catalogs (@verbaly/compiler): the "'' counts as untranslated → fall back" cleanup iterated only top-level entries, so with nested catalogs (verbaly-web's shape) it silently kept '' and the static output diverged from the runtime. The cleanup is deleted — the core lookup now implements the semantics (see Changed), nested or flat, and render output == post-hydration output is guaranteed again. RenderHtmlOptions.catalogs is officially widened to accept nested trees (Catalogs | Record<string, MessageTree>).
• Cross-locale canonical voided hreflang (@verbaly/compiler): mirrored locale pages carried the source page's <link rel="canonical"> (and og:url) — a canonical pointing at another locale tells search engines to fold the page into it, neutralizing the hreflang set 0.14.0 introduced. renderHtml now rewrites rel="canonical" hrefs and og:url content to the locale's own URL when they match the source URL (alternates present). A canonical deliberately pointing elsewhere is left untouched; source-locale pass and re-runs are no-ops (idempotent).

Changed

• '' = untranslated, now everywhere (verbaly core — behavior change, call it out): the lookup chain skips empty-string entries and keeps falling back (es: '' → en source text; '' in every locale of the chain → miss: warn + key). Why: extract scaffolds new keys as '' and check counts '' as missing — the runtime was the one place that treated '' as a valid message and rendered a blank hole in the UI. Standard i18n behavior (source text beats invisible content) and the render/runtime FOUC divergence disappears. If you relied on '' to intentionally render nothing, use a single space ' ' or restructure the key (verbaly-web does exactly this — see Docs impact). has()/inspect() follow the same rule.
• packages/core/src/types.ts is a text file again (internal, no API change): the type-level message parser used two raw NUL bytes as its escape sentinel, which made git treat the file as binary since the initial commit (no reviewable diffs — how the audit had to find this the hard way). The raw bytes are now the \u0000 escape sequence — identical type semantics, verified by typecheck + the full suite.

Notes

• 359 tests (core 146 · compiler 144 · svelte 22 · vue 12 · react 11 · unplugin 9 · vite 15) — was 353; +3 core ('' fallback ×2, devtools loop regression), +3 compiler (nested '', canonical/og:url rewrite ×2).
• Bench re-run (ritual): lookup 31.2×, interpolation 10.6×, plural 4.3×, currency 4.5× vs i18next 26 — in family with 0.14.0 (27.9×/11.0×/5.0×/5.1×; machine variance). The '' check (if (msg) vs !== undefined) costs nothing on the hot path.
• Bundle check: tree-shaken createVerbaly runtime 3.28 KB min+gzip (flat), full core surface 4.61 KB (was 4.63), verbaly/devtools 1.62 KB (was 1.58 — the observer guard).
• publint All good ×7 + arethetypeswrong core/react/vue node16 CJS/ESM 🟢 (known-OK: verbaly/devtools node10 view, predates subpath exports). Tarballs verified (core ships dist/devtools.*; @verbaly/vite workspace:* → 0.14.5, peer verbaly → ^0.14.5).
• API surface: no additions, no removals. RenderHtmlOptions.catalogs type widened (accepts what already worked at runtime). No new dependencies.