Veil v1.2.8

[1.2.8] - 2026-04-04

Windows Installer

• Added a branded offline VeilSetup.exe Windows installer flow that stages the backend files and release metadata, then provisions the Windows runtime locally during setup instead of shipping a non-portable CI-built virtualenv.
• Updated the Windows install UX so Veil can generate a command that downloads the latest VeilSetup.exe release asset and passes /EXTENSION_ID=<chrome.runtime.id>, while the installer only falls back to a manual extension-ID prompt when that argument is missing.
• Added a stable VeilSetup.exe latest-release alias alongside the versioned installer asset so extension-generated install commands do not need to guess the current versioned filename.
• Switched the Windows installer to a lighter bootstrap flow that downloads the GLiNER2 model from the release assets during setup with installer progress, instead of baking the model into VeilSetup.exe.
• Windows and Unix refresh installs now reuse an existing valid local GLiNER2 model cache instead of redownloading it on every update, while full uninstall still removes the cached model data.
• Fixed the Windows popup install command so PowerShell can paste and run it correctly without expanding $installer too early in the current shell.
• Fixed the Windows setup model extraction path so the downloaded veil-model-fp16.tar.gz now unpacks correctly during install.
• Fixed the Windows installer script ordering so the Inno Setup compiler can resolve the model extraction helpers during release builds.
• Fixed the Windows setup runtime bootstrap so the installed .venv is created on the user's machine and no longer points back to the GitHub Actions runner Python path.

Windows Runtime Reliability

• Fixed Windows native-host PID liveness checks so Veil no longer uses the Unix-style os.kill(pid, 0) probe on Windows, which could surface low-level OSError failures during server start.
• Switched Windows stop behavior to taskkill-based process teardown and hardened server launch with safer Windows-specific process creation flags and clearer startup error reporting.

Release Automation and Coverage

• Added a Windows installer staging builder, branded installer assets, and release-pipeline automation that compiles and publishes the Windows setup binary from GitHub Actions.
• Added regression coverage for the Windows setup packaging flow and for the Windows-specific native-host process handling changes.

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