Strata 2.0.0

Downloads

Platform	File
macOS 11+, any Mac (Apple silicon + Intel)	Strata-2.0.0-universal.dmg
macOS, Apple silicon only (smaller)	Strata-2.0.0-arm64.dmg
Windows 10/11, x64 (portable)	Strata-2.0.0-windows-x64.zip

Already using Strata? It offers this update by itself (or choose Help ▸ Check for Updates…).
macOS builds are signed and notarized. The Windows exe isn't code-signed yet: if SmartScreen appears, choose More info ▸ Run anyway.
Every file has a .sha256; the .app.zip files and latest.json are for the built-in updater.

What's changed

This release adds Obsidian-compatible notes (with runnable code blocks
and optional Git sync), Review Changes, language servers, clickable file
locations and Send to Terminal in the terminal, optional AI helpers, plugins,
and markers for hidden and direction-changing characters. Everything that
runs other programs or reaches the network is off, or asks, until you turn it
on; see Security below.

Added

• Notes: Obsidian-compatible notes on plain Markdown files. Open your notes
  folder (an Obsidian vault or any folder of Markdown files) and
  [[wikilinks]] work as in Obsidian, with headings, block references,
  aliases and embeds, and ordinary Markdown links to notes too. Links are
  underlined in the editor (dashed for a note that doesn't exist yet), and
  ⌘-click (Ctrl+click) or Notes: Follow Link opens them, offering to
  create a missing note where Obsidian would put it. Strata reads the vault's
  .obsidian settings but never writes them, and notes use the network
  only through Git sync, which you turn on per vault. See the new Notes page
  in the manual.
• Notes: typing [[ completes note names, aliases, headings and block ids,
  and writes the link the way the vault's Obsidian settings ask.
• Notes: a backlinks panel under each note lists the notes linking to it,
  with the line that holds each link, and the note's tags. It's kept up to
  date as Obsidian, a sync tool or Git changes files, and counts notes open
  in tabs as they are, saved or not; notes_backlinks chooses when it
  shows. #tags and frontmatter tags are tinted, and Notes: Find Tag…
  lists every tag with its notes.
• Notes: Notes: Open Daily Note, Notes: New Note… and Notes: New
  Note from Template… follow Obsidian's Daily notes and Templates settings,
  filling in {{date}}, {{time}} and {{title}}.
• Notes: Notes: Rename Note… (also Rename… in the side bar) offers to
  update every link to the note, showing each changed line first. Notes:
  Undo Rename puts the links and the name back, all or nothing, and never
  overwrites a file written meanwhile.
• Notes: sync conflict copies (Syncthing, Dropbox, Nextcloud and ownCloud)
  get a notice above the note with Compare, Open Copy and Move Copy
  to Trash…; Notes: Compare with Conflict Copy does the same from the
  keyboard.
• Notes: the Markdown preview shows wikilinks you can click, tags,
  frontmatter as a block of properties, and embedded images, notes, sections
  and blocks (one level deep, images only from the vault).
• Notes: runbooks you can click through. In the Markdown preview, fenced
  bash, sh, zsh, fish, pwsh, powershell, cmd, python, node
  (js) and ruby blocks have a ▶ Run button. Shell blocks go to the
  current terminal tab the way Send to Terminal sends text; language blocks
  start their REPL in a terminal tab of their own. Notes: Run Code Block
  does the same for the block at the cursor, and Notes: Run Code Block and
  Capture Output runs it in a separate process and puts what it prints in
  an output block under the code, as one edit Undo takes back (stopped
  after code_block_timeout_seconds, 60 by default). Nothing runs when a
  file opens or the preview draws. Before a file's first block runs, Strata
  shows exactly what will run and where, and asks; Don't ask again for
  this file is remembered in Strata's settings folder, never in the file,
  and a different file at the same path, or a change made outside Strata,
  asks again. Files outside the open folders ask every time, and a block
  with invisible or text-reordering characters never runs. See Notes ▸ Running code blocks in the manual.
• Notes: optional Git sync, off until you turn it on for a vault with
  Notes: Enable Git Sync for This Vault… (which says first that the
  repository's hooks, filters and credential helpers will run). Notes: Sync
  Notes saves the vault's notes, commits what changed in the vault
  (respecting .gitignore, with a message from notes_sync_message),
  rebases onto the remote and pushes, never forced; an optional timer does the
  same every few minutes and skips a vault with unsaved notes. Strata never
  asks for a password: Git uses your credential helper or SSH agent. When a
  note changed on both sides, nothing is pulled or pushed and your files stay
  as they were; the notes in conflict are listed with Compare with
  origin/main and Keep My Versions and Sync. No upstream, offline, a
  refused sign-in or a replaced remote history change nothing and say so in
  the status bar, which also shows the last sync. Turning sync on is tied to
  that repository: a different one later at the same path is asked about
  again before anything runs. Before Strata ever undoes a rebase Git
  started, it backs up every file it touched (on disk and staged) to
  sync-backups in its settings folder, kept 30 days (Notes: Show Sync
  Backups); a sync interrupted by quitting is only undone when you say so.
  See Notes ▸ Git sync in the manual.
• Optional AI helpers with a model you choose (Tools ▸ AI and the command
  palette): Summarize Changes (the whole review or one file), Explain
  Change, Flag Risks, Draft Commit Message and Explain
  Selection. Providers: any OpenAI-compatible server (Ollama and LM Studio
  on your computer or network, OpenRouter, OpenAI…), the Anthropic API, or
  the claude and codex command-line tools with your own login. Answers
  stream into a panel as Markdown, can be cancelled, copied or opened in a new
  tab, and never hold up the editor. See the new AI Helpers page in the
  manual.
• AI helpers are off until you turn them on in Settings ▸ AI Helpers
  (ai_enabled). Local providers are used without asking. Before the first
  request to any other provider, Strata shows exactly what it will send and
  to which host, and asks (Allow Once, Always for This Provider,
  Cancel); AI: Forget Allowed Providers asks again. Test
  Connection checks a provider without sending any of your text.
• AI helpers send only what they're about. Files that look like secrets
  (.env, keys, anything in folders like .ssh or secrets), files Git
  ignores, binary files and symbolic links are never sent, and a size limit
  (ai_max_prompt_kb) says what was left out. API keys live in the macOS
  Keychain or Windows Credential Manager, are only sent to the address they
  were saved for, and never touch settings.json or the log.
• Plugins: extensions that are separate programs, in any language, which
  Strata starts and talks to with JSON-RPC over their standard input and
  output (the framing language servers use). A plugin can add commands to
  the command palette and Tools ▸ Plugins, keys (never one Strata already
  uses), status bar items (for every window, or for the file in front of
  each), a Markdown panel and pick lists; read and edit open files (one
  Undo takes back each edit); and read and write files in the side bar
  folders. A plugin that crashes is restarted, and left stopped
  after three crashes in five minutes; one that floods Strata with messages
  or stops answering can't hold up the editor. Plugin settings go in
  plugins in settings.json. See the new Plugins page in the manual, with
  the full API reference; two small examples are in examples/plugins.
• Plugins are installed from a folder or a zip (Tools ▸ Plugins ▸ Install
  from Folder… / Install from Zip…) into Strata's settings folder;
  there's no online directory. Zips with paths that would leave the package,
  links, or sizes over the limits are refused. Plugins: Manage Plugins…
  lists them, turns them on and off, starts and stops them, shows what they
  may do and their log, and removes them.
• A plugin asks before it first runs: Strata lists the permissions it wants
  in plain words and remembers your answer for that exact package (by its
  SHA-256), so any change to it asks again; it then runs from a read-only
  copy of exactly that package, checked again right before it starts, with
  the environment variables that load code from elsewhere (PYTHONPATH,
  NODE_OPTIONS, DYLD_*…) removed. Every request a plugin makes is
  checked against what you allowed, and its file access stays inside the
  open folders, never following links or reaching hard-linked files. Text
  from plugins shows hidden and direction-changing characters as markers.
  Strata can't sandbox a plugin's own program, and the question says so:
  running other programs and using the network are shown as things Strata
  can't limit, and an interpreter's own libraries aren't part of the check.
• Review Changes, for checking what a coding agent changed and keeping or
  undoing each change (no AI involved). The Changes tab of the side bar
  lists every file that differs from the last commit, or from a snapshot taken
  with Start Review, with its status (modified, new, deleted, renamed) and
  lines added and removed, and updates while the agent works. Clicking a file
  opens its changes side by side with Keep and Revert for each change
  or the whole file; reverting is an ordinary edit, so Undo brings the change
  back and nothing is written until you save. Tick files off as reviewed; the
  status bar counts the rest. F8 and Shift+F8 step through the changes across
  files, and the Review commands are in Tools ▸ Review Changes and the command
  palette. See the new Review Changes page in the manual.
• Language servers. When a language's server is installed (rust-analyzer,
  typescript-language-server, pyright, gopls or clangd), Strata starts it in
  the background and shows its problems as wavy underlines with a dot in the
  gutter, puts its suggestions first in the completion list, and shows type
  and documentation when the mouse pointer rests on a name. The status bar
  shows the server for the current file and its error and warning counts; a
  server that stops is restarted after a pause. Strata never downloads or
  installs servers. See Languages and Syntaxes ▸ Language servers in the
  manual.
• Language server commands, in Tools ▸ Language Server and the command
  palette: LSP: Rename Symbol… (across files, one Undo step per file),
  LSP: Format Document, LSP: Show Hover Info, LSP: Show Parameter
  Hints, LSP: Show Problems…, LSP: Next Problem / Previous
  Problem (⌘K ⌘N / ⌘K ⌘P; Ctrl+K Ctrl+N / Ctrl+K Ctrl+P elsewhere) and
  LSP: Restart Language Servers.
• Language servers start only in project folders you trust. The first time,
  Strata asks (Start, Always for This Folder, Not Now);
  lsp_trust_all skips the question. lsp_servers in settings.json changes
  the built-in servers or adds others, and lsp_enabled turns the feature
  off.
• Terminal: ⌘-click (Ctrl+click on Windows and Linux) a file location in the
  output to open the file at that line and column. Hold the key and point to
  see the location underlined. Works with path:line:col, path(line,col)
  (MSVC, C#, TypeScript), Rust errors and panics, Python tracebacks and Node
  stack traces, including locations that wrap onto the next row. Relative
  paths are found in the shell's current folder, then the side bar folders;
  only files that exist are links.
• Send to Terminal (Tools menu; ⌃↩ on macOS, Ctrl+Alt+Enter elsewhere)
  sends the selection, or the current line, to the terminal and presses
  Enter, starting a terminal if none is running. Multi-line text goes as one
  bracketed paste when the shell or REPL supports it.
• Invisible and direction-changing characters (such as U+202E RIGHT-TO-LEFT
  OVERRIDE, zero-width spaces and soft hyphens) are shown as small labeled
  boxes in the editor, Compare and Review Changes, so a file can't make code
  read differently from what it is ("Trojan Source"). Each box is one
  character for the caret, selection and copying, and the file is never
  changed; rest the pointer on it to see what it is. The status bar counts
  them, and Find: Find Hidden Characters steps through them.
  show_hidden_characters (View ▸ Editor Extras ▸ Hidden Characters) turns
  the boxes off. The Markdown preview, help, language server hovers and
  completions, tab titles, the side bar, the palette, Find in Files results,
  the status bar and AI answers show them as named markers too, and a
  completion holding one is marked with ⚠.

Changed

• Go to Definition and Go to Reference ask the file's language server first,
  across the whole project, and fall back to Strata's own symbol search when
  there's no server or it has no answer.
• The completion list stays inside the window; long details are cut with "…".
• Undo Replace in Files is all or nothing: if any rewritten file changed
  since the replace, nothing is restored and those files are listed. It never
  overwrites a file written while it runs (by a sync tool, say): what it
  couldn't put back stays in a marked folder next to the file. Files are
  restored in place (keeping permissions, owner, extended attributes and hard
  links), also through links inside the replaced folders. An undo interrupted
  by a crash is listed in the Changes tab with Put Back. Its record is
  sealed with a private key only this installation has (an undo is refused
  if the key file isn't private) and is flushed to disk at every step; Put Back only acts on its own sealed records, never outside the
  folder it was in, and only after checking the file is the one it set aside.

Fixed

• Compare: Japanese, Chinese and Korean text loads the same fonts as the
  editor, so Compare tabs no longer show boxes in place of those characters.

Security

• Nothing new runs or connects by itself. Language servers start only in
  folders you trust; code blocks run only when you ask, after Strata shows
  exactly what will run; Git sync is off until you turn it on for a vault;
  plugins ask before their first run; AI helpers are off until you turn them
  on and ask before sending text off your computer or network.
• Hidden and direction-changing characters can't disguise text: they're
  shown as markers on every surface, and a code block holding one (or
  another control character) never runs.
• Code blocks: "Don't ask again" is tied to the file's real path, its
  identity on disk and a SHA-256 of its bytes, so a replaced or changed file
  asks again. A captured block runs in its own process group (a job object
  on Windows, started suspended so nothing gets out first), and what it
  started is stopped when it ends or times out.
• Git sync: runs only in the repository it was turned on for (its Git
  folder, remote and first commit, checked before any Git runs), never
  forces a push, never prompts for credentials, allows only SSH, HTTPS and
  local remotes, and redacts tokens from error text. It undoes only a rebase
  it started itself (a record sealed with this installation's key), only
  after backing up every file the rebase touched, and fails closed. A Git
  that runs too long is stopped with its hooks. The read-only Git used for
  the gutter, Compare and Review Changes no longer inherits GIT_DIR and
  similar variables.
• Plugins: consent is for an exact package (SHA-256); each start runs a
  read-only copy of it that's checked again just before starting. Plugins
  start without environment variables that load code from elsewhere, every
  request is checked against the permissions you gave, file access stays in
  the open folders and refuses links and hard-linked files, and zips with
  unsafe paths, links or oversized contents are refused. On Windows,
  language servers and plugins start suspended and run only once they're in
  a job object.
• The temporary file used when creating the private undo key has a random
  name, so two threads can't remove each other's file.

Full changelog: v1.0.2...v2.0.0