gentle-pi v4.2.0 — Pi 1.2 Floor, a Real Shell Update and Honest Engram Memory

Gentle Shell v4.2.0 is a compatibility and reliability release: it moves the Pi floor to 1.2.0, ships a gentle-shell update that really refreshes the Pi a Shell installation runs, keeps the private Vim prompt working with Pi 1.2's new cursor rendering, and carries the bundled Engram core 3.4.0 with an honest disabled-memory notice. The npm package remains gentle-pi, and the bundled Gentle AI runtime remains v4.1.1.

Provenance

• Previous stable: v4.1.0 → 79323b76aa900c1cb88135fb0d95c04899c1b9c0
• Release target: v4.2.0 → c41ebd591358d393cf19c5ead981f67640a600ba
• Release validation: run 38392923994 passed package verification, published to npm with signed provenance, built and attached the installer bundles and the distribution assets, and verified the distribution on Linux, macOS and Windows (the distribution job was rerun once after an npm registry read lag; no second publish).
• Pinned Gentle AI: v4.1.1; the review provider contract remains unchanged.

What's new

Pi 1.2.0 floor and development ranges

Gentle Shell now requires Pi 1.2.0 or newer: the launcher's version gate, the @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent peer range, the installer's pinned Pi (PI_INSTALL_VERSION) and the development ranges all move to >=1.2.0, and the package resolves the Pi 1.2.0 trio for its own tests. Older Pi runtimes found on PATH are refused with a message naming the found and required versions; the installer and gentle-shell update bring installations to 1.2.0 themselves. Included work: #2177 (issue #1796) and the release preparation #2181.

gentle-shell update refreshes the Pi this launcher runs

gentle-shell update no longer forwards Pi's own self-update, which refuses pnpm linked-store installations ("pi cannot self-update this installation"). Shell now proves which global package supplies the exact Pi executable it runs, from the package manager's global listing and canonical paths, and reinstalls only that package: a global Pi for PATH or GENTLE_SHELL_PI runtimes (package-manager shims are followed to the cli.js they name), or the gentle-pi package itself, at its current version, when Pi is Shell's adjacent peer, because updating a separate global Pi never changes the peer a Shell installation runs. Unknown, ambiguous, linked-source or shared-group ownership refuses without touching anything; Pi and Shell are never combined into one install. After the install Shell reads the supplied Pi version back and reports it, naming pnpm's minimumReleaseAge rule when a very recent release is still held back. Included work: #2177 and #2179 (issue #1796).

Session profiles

Shell records a session profile frozen at startup and routes launches, status and Usage through it, with a v1 record codec and active-branch replay. Included work: #1918, #1919, #1827, #2007 (issue #1064).

YOLO sessions waive reversible pushes

A YOLO session's standing permission now covers every reversible push and non-interactive rebase. Included work: #2173.

What was fixed

Engram memory disabled with an unverifiable store

Root cause: the bundled Engram core could not answer GET /compatibility, so a pre-existing global Engram server or store could never be proven safe and Shell disabled memory with a notice that suggested an update which could not help. Shell now ships the compatibility-enabled Engram core 3.4.0, its notice no longer implies that updating Shell alone fixes a running server, and when the running global server is older than 3.4.0 the notice names that server's version and asks to update and restart it. Memory is enabled only when a server verifies the store through /compatibility or the store is Shell's own; an older global server still has to be updated by the user. Included work: #2138, #2139, #2142 (issue #2137).

Vim prompt with Pi 1.2

Root cause: Pi 1.2 renders its fake cursor through paired APC markers that the host resolves later, instead of inline SGR, which broke selection inversion and empty-prompt hints in the private Vim adapter. The adapter now admits the audited 1.2.0 pair, keeps the markers intact so the host can suppress the software cursor, closes selection before a boundary cursor and re-arms it after. Included work: #2177.

Startup, prompt cache and guards

The Todo state and its stale counter stay out of the system prompt so prefix caching survives (#2171, #1369); the last known RDD status line is kept when the native re-read fails (#2168); Auto permission checks recover with bounded evidence and live intent (#2158); the command guard ignores guarded words inside data-command arguments (#2175); already authorized work continues without a new permission prompt (#2161); Changes excludes untracked dependency backups (#2170); Todo scroll shortcuts leave Pi's prompt navigation keys alone (#2155).

Pinned runtime

The bundled Gentle AI runtime is unchanged at v4.1.1 (github.com/gentleman-programming/gentle-ai/v3), with signed archives for Darwin and Linux and the SumDB-verified source build for Windows; the review provider contract remains 1.3.0 and no new NATIVE_CLI_CONTRACTS row or capabilities/vN identity was added. The bundled Engram core moves to 3.4.0.

Breaking changes

• Pi 1.2.0 is now the minimum: a pi older than 1.2.0 found on PATH or through GENTLE_SHELL_PI exits with a message naming both versions. Installer-managed and adjacent-peer installations are moved to 1.2.0 by the installer or gentle-shell update.

Upgrade

pi install npm:gentle-pi@4.2.0

Restart Pi. No runtime migration is required: the pinned Gentle AI runtime and its managed assets are unchanged.

Numbers

30 non-merge commits, 21 merged pull requests, and 4 unique GitHub PR authors since v4.1.0. Release preparation: #2181 (issue #1796).

Verification

• Local unit suite on the release-preparation head (macOS, direct Node): 6,668 tests, 6,586 passed, 0 failed, 82 platform skips; typecheck 0 diagnostics; generated runtime matches sources (15 modules).
• Package verification: 209 files, 69 exact byte-pinned contract artifacts for the v4.1.1 runtime; provider contract mirror 1.3.0; npm pack --dry-run 856 files.
• Required CI on every merged pull request of this window passed on Linux, macOS and Windows, including the installer suites and the packed-package verification.
• gentle-shell update was exercised end to end on a real isolated pnpm 11 global installation (packed build served through a local registry proxy): adjacent-peer refresh, shim override, --all, and the minimumReleaseAge readback; an independent verifier repeated the run on the final bytes.
• Native review: not run for this window (reviewDue: false on every candidate); independent verifiers covered the high-risk changes instead.
• The packed-runner E2E against the published release assets runs inside publish.yml.

Install

pi install npm:gentle-pi@4.2.0

Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/gentle-pi

Full changelog: v4.1.0...v4.2.0