v0.21.0

0.21.0 - 2026-11-13

Decide from the Inbox, a turn summary card, tray and actionable notifications, encrypted backup and restore, background update checks with one-click install, a model benchmark, a smoother first hour with a public repo, and much faster workspaces on large repos. Settings → About is 0.21.0.

Inbox decisions. The Inbox shows a decision card for each waiting item: what will run, where it runs, the agent's last words, and a risk hint. Approve, Deny, Always allow and Open chat sit on the card, with keyboard shortcuts (J/K, A, D, Enter) and Approve all when several chats wait on the same tool.

Turn summary and first task. When a turn changes files, runs tests or opens a PR, a card under the reply lists the files changed, whether tests passed, and next steps: Review changes, Open PR, Continue, or Undo this turn. The first-task card on New agent now suggests real work on your most recent repo or folder.

Tray and notifications. The desktop app has a tray icon and dock/taskbar badge with the needs-you count. Notifications say what the agent wants and open the chat when clicked; on macOS, approvals can be answered straight from the notification.

Backup and restore. Settings → Advanced → Back up and restore, or locus backup / locus restore, writes one passphrase-encrypted file with your sessions, settings, boards, projects, Jobs, Brain, workspaces and stored keys. Machine-bound keys are never copied; the vault is re-encrypted for the new machine, so a restore on a new laptop keeps every provider key. A wrong passphrase or tampered file is refused.

Updates. The desktop checks for new releases shortly after launch and every six hours, and Install downloads, verifies the checksum and installs (in place for Linux AppImage). Turn it off in Settings → About. CLI: locus update.

Model benchmark. Settings → Benchmark, or locus eval run, runs five small coding tasks against the models you pick and records pass rate, tokens, cost, tool calls and time per model.

First hour with a public repo. With Docker stopped, actions that need a container say so and offer to start on Host instead. A linked repo is preselected across New agent, Design, Jobs, Brain and IDE. No-token accounts show their rate limit and when it resets. Codebase gains an About card for the repo, and the setup wizard tests local servers such as Ollama with a real call.

Performance on large repos. Agent search after an edit no longer rebuilds the whole index (seconds down to milliseconds on very large repos), VM file listings, search without ripgrep, repo index rebuilds, the repo map and Quick Open are all much faster, and the desktop app now ships ripgrep.

Fixes. Undo on a git workspace reliably restores edited files. The desktop app uses Electron's async secure-storage API, so the deprecation warnings are gone and existing vault keys still unlock. The control plane and worker start without ssh-keygen (only VM agents need it).

What's Changed

• Publish Locus 0.21.0 by @Modsofthenation in #6

Full Changelog: v0.20.0...v0.21.0

v0.20.0

0.20.0 - 2026-11-11

Eight new Terminal themes, a UI/UX polish pass on Swarm, the composer, and empty states, and launchers that check Docker is actually running before they start. Settings → About is 0.20.0.

Terminal themes. Settings → Appearance adds a Terminal filter and group. Console is joined by eight terminal-window themes that share its titlebar, scanlines, and monospace type: Green Screen, White Phosphor, Cathode, Darkroom, Cobalt, Uplink, Mainframe, and Teletype (light).

Docker readiness. The Agents, Design, and Games launchers now check that the Docker daemon is answering before they start. When it isn't, they start on Host and say "Docker isn't running" instead of launching and failing, and the Docker footer reports when the daemon is down.

UI/UX pass. The Swarm sidebar no longer runs under the chat, narrow windows get the same rail and slide-over list as Developer, and teammate rows show full names. In the composer, the model picker shrinks instead of covering Stop, Queue, and Send. Empty states, Settings spacing, and the setup screen are more consistent, and the phone top bar is tidier.

Fixes. Repeated Docker errors and a stale "Waiting for the guest…" no longer linger in the thread, and "Loading local model…" no longer shows while a reply is streaming. The scroll tick rail no longer covers message text, collapsed-rail peek titles show in full, and Settings → Integrations lists each forge once.

What's Changed

• Publish Locus 0.20.0 by @Modsofthenation in #5

Full Changelog: v0.19.0...v0.20.0

v0.19.0

0.19.0 - 2026-11-11

Inbox and a resizable sidebar with pinnable rail sections, the Console theme, a UI/UX polish pass across every section, and more reliable Jobs, worker uploads, and desktop updates. Settings → About is 0.19.0.

Sidebar and Inbox. The icon rail opens with Inbox: agents, boards, Brain, and failing jobs waiting on you, with Approve / Deny on waiting tools. Sections from More can be pinned to the rail, reordered, and unpinned by right-clicking a rail icon. The list panel resizes (240–480px), session lists share All / Needs you / Running / Unread filters, and Alt+1–9 jumps between Inbox and pinned sections. On narrow windows the sidebar no longer slides under the chat, and the phone Needs you tab shares the Inbox list.

UI/UX pass. List headers, empty states, and filter chips are consistent across the app. The chat composer is a single frame with Send inside it, the model chip and topbar always agree, and Design sessions open with the canvas visible. Automations are called Jobs throughout. Settings pages lead with a one-line summary, providers are grouped Enabled / Available, and on/off settings are switches.

Console theme. Settings → Appearance adds Console: amber phosphor on charcoal with a monospace font and scanlines (locus config theme console).

Jobs. Run now checks Docker first and offers to switch to Host or start Docker. Jobs whose linked repo was removed run and save again, and run errors read as one plain sentence with details on demand.

Codebase and IDE. Public GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Gitea, and Azure repos load pull requests and issues without a token, and blocked or rate-limited reads say so in place. README badges render correctly in the IDE.

Fixes. Uploads to guests on a worker plane no longer answer "Not found". Deleting the open agent returns to the new-agent screen, with Undo reopening it. The desktop app picks up rebuilt UI between releases and restarts a control plane left by an older build. Kiro CLI turns no longer duplicate tool chips, recognise more test runners as verification, and use Locus's Git tools instead of reading forge tokens from the environment.

Under the hood. Host, Docker, and worker guests share one tool catalog and lifecycle, simplifying how VMs, containers, and remote workers are driven.

What's Changed

• Publish Locus 0.19.0 by @Modsofthenation in #4

Full Changelog: v0.18.0...v0.19.0