OpenCoven Chat 0.0.6

OpenCoven Chat v0.0.6

This release adds Settings › Model, so you choose what runs your
messages, and makes replies easier to work with: links are reviewed before
they open, a selected passage can be quoted into your draft, and Markdown
tables can be copied or expanded. Delete chat now removes everything a
chat left on disk. The inspector gains a Missions tab, which needs a newer
Coven than any released so far.

Like the earlier versions, this is an early 0.x pre-release without
auto-update. Download newer versions from the Releases page. The pipeline for
auto-update is in place; the app side follows in a later release, once its
signing key exists.

Before you install

Windows. Two installers are published for 64-bit Windows 10 and 11 on x64
processors: OpenCoven.Chat_0.0.6_x64_en-US.msi and
OpenCoven.Chat_0.0.6_x64-setup.exe. Either one is fine: the .exe installs
for your user only, the .msi for everyone on the computer. There is no build
for Windows on ARM.

Neither installer is signed. The first time you run one, Windows SmartScreen
shows Windows protected your PC with an Unknown publisher. To continue:

1. Check the download first. In PowerShell:

   Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256 .\OpenCoven.Chat_0.0.6_x64-setup.exe

   The hash must match that file's line in SHA256SUMS from the same release.

2. In the SmartScreen dialog, choose More info, then Run anyway.

The release pipeline can now sign Windows installers through SSL.com eSigner.
The signing account is not set up yet, so this release still ships unsigned;
a signed one will remove the warning.

macOS and Linux. As before: the disk images are notarized, and the Linux
.AppImage and .deb are unsigned. If anything Chat needs is missing, it
opens on Set up Coven Chat instead of the chat.

To check any download, run this in the folder that holds it and SHA256SUMS:

shasum -a 256 -c --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS

What's new

Choose what runs your messages

• Settings › Model has two groups. New chats › Runs on picks Coven
  Code (the default), Codex or Claude Code for chats that start from now on;
  an existing chat keeps what it started on, and the inspector's Overview
  shows it under Runs on. Every message sets a Model id (empty for
  the engine's default), Think longer and Speed for everything sent
  from this window.
• Codex isn't sent Think longer or Speed, because Coven ignores both for it;
  the settings say so. Attaching files is offered only where Coven Code runs
  the message. A model id that isn't one is marked in Settings and stops a
  send before anything leaves the window, with the draft kept.
• When a run reports which model answered, the inspector's Activity tab
  shows it under Model.
• Messages sent from the iPhone companion keep the engine's defaults.

Links in replies are reviewed before they open

• A link in a reply no longer opens on its own. Clicking it, or pressing Enter
  on it, shows Open this link? with the site on its own line and the full
  address as plain text, and the link's own words when they differ. Choose
  Open, Copy address or Cancel. Middle-click, modifier-click and
  the context menu never open a link behind your back.
• Open hands the exact reviewed address to your default browser and says
  "Sent the address to your browser". If no page opens, Copy address is
  there. An address with a sign-in name (https://name@site/) can only be
  copied.
• Links to IPv6 addresses such as https://[::1]:8080/ are reviewed like
  any other instead of being refused.

Quote a passage into your draft

• Select text inside one message and Quote selection appears above the
  composer. It appends the passage to the end of your draft as Markdown
  quote lines, keeps whatever was already there, and sends nothing. A
  selection that spans two messages offers nothing.

Tables

• Each Markdown table in a reply has Copy table Markdown, which copies
  the table's exact source, and Expand table, which opens it in a sheet
  with room to read. Links inside the sheet go through the same review.

Resize the inspector

• In the wide layout, drag the inspector's left edge to resize it, or Tab to
  Resize inspector and use Left, Right, Home and End. The conversation
  always keeps its room; a narrower window holds the inspector under your
  width and gives it back when there is space. Settings › General shows
  the width and has Reset.

Missions (needs a newer Coven)

• The inspector has a Missions tab for asking a familiar to look into
  something in a project, read-only and on this computer, without a chat.
  No released Coven has missions yet: with Coven 0.4.10 the tab says
  "Missions need a newer version of Coven" and sends nothing. With a Coven
  that has them, the tab shows the exact familiar version Coven has on record
  before you send, follows the mission with Coven's own state names, and
  reports plainly when nothing ran. Nothing in it starts a paid cloud run.

Fixed

• Delete chat now removes every transcript the chat is made of, not only
  the newest one, and the files you attached to it. Chats you didn't delete,
  and anything Chat didn't write, are left alone. Once per launch, while no
  run is active, Chat also removes what earlier versions' deletes left behind.
• The release pipeline retries Apple's notarization stapler when the
  connection drops, so a stapled image is not reported as unstapled, and the
  generated release body gives a shasum command that checks only the
  installers you downloaded.

iPhone

The companion's newest TestFlight build, 0.2.0 (1507), works with this
version of Chat on the Mac. Deleting the companion from the phone now removes
its pairing, so a reinstalled app asks to pair again; the Mac's shared access
stays valid until Forget paired phones. When iOS has Local Network access
off for the app, the companion names the setting and offers Open
Settings. Device checks of that build are still in progress.

OpenCoven Chat 0.0.5

OpenCoven Chat v0.0.5

This is the first release with a Windows build, and the first where setup can
create your first familiar. The Windows installers are not code-signed yet, so
Windows warns before the first run; the section below says what to expect.

Like the earlier versions, this is an early 0.x pre-release without
auto-update. Download newer versions from the Releases page.

Before you install

Windows (new). Two installers are published for 64-bit Windows 10 and 11
on x64 processors: OpenCoven.Chat_0.0.5_x64_en-US.msi and
OpenCoven.Chat_0.0.5_x64-setup.exe. Either one is fine: the .exe installs
for your user only, the .msi for everyone on the computer. There is no build
for Windows on ARM.

Neither installer is signed. The first time you run one, Windows SmartScreen
shows Windows protected your PC with an Unknown publisher. To continue:

1. Check the download first. In PowerShell:

   Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256 .\OpenCoven.Chat_0.0.5_x64-setup.exe

   The hash must match that file's line in SHA256SUMS from the same release.

2. In the SmartScreen dialog, choose More info, then Run anyway.

Code signing for Windows is tracked separately and will remove the warning in
a later release. Chat uses the WebView2 runtime that Windows 11 and up-to-date
Windows 10 already include; the installers download it if it is missing.

macOS and Linux. As before: the disk images are notarized, and the Linux
.AppImage and .deb are unsigned. If anything Chat needs is missing, it
opens on Set up Coven Chat instead of the chat.

What's new

Create your first familiar from setup

• The Familiar step of first-run setup now has a name field and a
  Create familiar button, so a computer with no Cave and no familiars can
  get from install to chat without a terminal. Names are up to 64 characters
  and need at least one letter or number. If something goes wrong, setup says
  so in plain words: a name already in use, a Coven too old to create
  familiars, or a list of familiars that needs fixing first.
• Install Coven now installs Coven 0.4.10, the release that added this
  command. If you installed Coven yourself, update it to 0.4.10 or later for
  the button to work; setup tells you when it is too old.

Windows build

• Chat runs on Windows with the same first-run setup as on macOS and Linux:
  it checks for the Coven CLI, its engine, a signed-in model provider and a
  familiar, and installs or creates what is missing. On Windows, Install
  Coven puts Coven under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\OpenCoven\Coven, for your
  user only. A Coven installed with npm install -g @opencoven/cli is found
  too.
• Stop ends the whole run. Every run is contained in a Windows Job Object
  that closes with it, so the Coven CLI and everything it started are gone
  when you stop a reply, and nothing is left behind in Task Manager.
• Cmd+, is Ctrl+, on Windows, and the other shortcuts follow the same
  rule. Settings › About shows the version and whether Coven is connected.

This is the first Windows build anyone outside the project can run. If a
reply never arrives, setup cannot find something you installed, or a window
looks wrong, please open an issue with the step and a screenshot.

Fixed

• Setup shows Coven's version on its own, without its status note.
• The release pipeline now reads the product name and version back from each
  Windows installer before publishing, and the Release body states whether
  the Windows installers were signed.

iPhone

The iPhone companion is unchanged in this release. Its current build, 0.2.0
(build 1454), works with this version of Chat on the Mac.

OpenCoven Chat 0.0.4

OpenCoven Chat v0.0.4

Chat can now set itself up. On a computer with no Coven at all, it can install
Coven and its engine and sign you in to a model provider, then open the chat.
This release also adds a Settings dialog, groups tool calls into one line, and
brings the new Coven Chat icon.

Like the earlier versions, this is an early 0.x pre-release without
auto-update. Download newer versions from the Releases page.

Before you install

You no longer need to set up Coven first. If anything is missing, Chat opens on
Set up Coven Chat instead of the chat. Builds are for macOS and Linux;
there is still no Windows build.

What's new

First-run setup

• Before the chat opens, Chat checks four things:
  • the Coven CLI is installed;
  • its engine is installed;
  • a model provider is signed in;
  • at least one familiar exists.
• If they're all in place, you won't see the setup screen at all.
• Install Coven downloads Coven 0.4.9 from its official GitHub release,
  checks the download against a fingerprint built into Chat, and installs it
  for your user only. It then goes straight on to install the engine. Each
  step shows its progress and can be stopped with Cancel. If one fails,
  it says why and offers Try again. You don't need Node.js or a terminal.
• Sign in with Claude uses your Claude subscription through Claude Code.
  If Claude Code isn't installed, setup shows the command that installs it.
  Sign in with ChatGPT appears once the engine is installed. Sign-in
  always happens in your browser, with the provider. Chat never sees your
  password.
• Every step also shows the terminal command, for those who'd rather run it
  themselves. Check again re-runs the checks.
• When Coven and its engine are installed but sign-in or a familiar is still
  missing, Continue to Chat opens the chat anyway.
• To create your first familiar, you still need Coven itself or Cave for now.
  Creating one from this screen arrives with the next Coven release.

Settings

• A gear in the sidebar and in the chat header opens Settings, and so does
  Cmd/Ctrl+,. It has these sections:
  • General: text size and whether to group tool calls.
  • Chats: whether to show archived chats.
  • Access: each project the familiar is declared to reach, with a copy
    button for its path.
  • Devices: the iPhone companion.
  • Shortcuts.
  • About: the version, whether the Coven CLI is connected, and what the
    app keeps on your computer.
• Escape closes an open dialog without also closing the side panels
  behind it.

Tool calls and attachments

• Two or more tool calls in a row fold into one line, such as "Ran 3 commands
  and read 1 file". Click it to see each call. You can turn this off in
  Settings › General.
• Attachments in the composer show the first lines of the file. Click one to
  see the whole file.

The new Coven Chat icon

• The crown-and-speech-bubble icon replaces the placeholder in the Dock and
  the app switcher, and appears in Settings › About.

Finding Coven

• Chat now finds a Coven installed with npm install -g @opencoven/cli when
  Node.js is managed by nvm, even when Chat is opened from Finder. It also now
  passes Claude Code's location to the engine, so a Claude subscription works
  from a Chat opened in Finder too.

Fixed

• Disk images are notarized. The disk images themselves are now notarized
  and stapled, not only the app inside. macOS checks them without a warning,
  even offline.
• Checksums match. Download names in SHA256SUMS now match the files
  GitHub serves (dots instead of spaces), so shasum -c SHA256SUMS passes
  on the downloaded files.

iPhone

The iPhone companion is still in internal testing through TestFlight. Its
build for this release, 0.2.0 (build 1454), works with this version of Chat
on the Mac. It brings:

• the new icon and a redesigned pairing screen;
• replies rendered as Markdown, as on the Mac, with code blocks you can copy;
• tool calls folded into one line that opens to show each call, and a live
  line saying what the familiar is doing;
• familiar cards that show what each familiar does, its current chat, and
  whether it is replying or archived;
• long-press to copy, select or share a reply, and ⋯ › Connection
  Details for the Mac's address and certificate.

OpenCoven Chat 0.0.3

OpenCoven Chat v0.0.3

A small update to v0.0.2: replies are easier to read, a failed run keeps its
reason in the conversation, and the desktop app can now pair with an iPhone.

Like v0.0.2, this is an early 0.x pre-release without auto-update. Download
newer versions from the Releases page.

Before you install

Nothing changed here since v0.0.2. Chat drives the coven command already on
your machine, so install the Coven CLI and finish any model-provider setup it
asks for first. Builds are for macOS and Linux. There is still no Windows build.

What's new

Easier to read

• Reply text is larger, 16 px instead of 14, with slightly looser letter
  spacing.

A failed run says why, and keeps saying it

• When a run fails after it has started, Chat adds a line to the conversation
  with what is known about the failure: the engine's error, what the Coven CLI printed, or Chat's
  own error, in that order of preference. If Coven gave no reason, the line
  says so. The line has its own Copy report control.
• The line stays in the chat after the error notice is dismissed. Before, the
  reason was only in the notice, and when there was none, the notice pointed
  you to the Coven CLI, which keeps no record of runs started from Chat.
• A report the CLI printed before a reply broke off is no longer lost.

Attaching files

• Dropping a file onto the conversation while a reply is still coming used to
  do nothing. It now says "Finish or stop the current reply before attaching a
  file."

iPhone pairing, desktop side

• Sidebar options (⋯, above the familiar list) has a new
  iPhone companion entry. Turn on companion shows a QR code and a
  private pairing link for Chat on iPhone. A paired phone can read your Chat
  conversations, send messages, follow replies and stop runs. Everything still
  runs through the Coven CLI on this Mac, which needs to stay awake, with Chat
  open, on the same local network as the phone.
• The pairing link gives access to your Chat conversations, so share it only
  with your own phone. Turn off stops the connection, and
  Forget paired phones makes every phone pair again.
• The iPhone app isn't publicly available yet. It is in internal testing,
  so for now you can leave this off.

Changed

• The Keyboard shortcuts list at the foot of the familiar list is gone. The
  shortcuts all still work:

  Shortcut	Does
  Cmd/Ctrl+K	Search familiars
  Cmd/Ctrl+[ and ]	Previous or next familiar
  Cmd/Ctrl+\	Show or hide the familiar list
  Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+\	Show or hide the inspector
  Cmd/Ctrl+F	Find in the conversation

Platforms

Platform	Download
macOS, Apple silicon	OpenCoven Chat_0.0.3_aarch64.dmg
macOS, Intel	OpenCoven Chat_0.0.3_x64.dmg
Linux	OpenCoven Chat_0.0.3_amd64.AppImage or .deb

GitHub replaces the spaces in these names with dots, so the files you download
are named OpenCoven.Chat_0.0.3_…. SHA256SUMS still lists them with spaces,
so shasum -c reports them missing. Check your download by hand instead, and
compare the result with its line in SHA256SUMS:

shasum -a 256 OpenCoven.Chat_0.0.3_aarch64.dmg

Known limitations

These are unchanged from v0.0.2:

• No auto-update. Download newer versions from the Releases page.
• Replies arrive whole. With the coven-code 0.8.0 engine, a reply appears
  in one piece once the familiar has finished writing it, not word by word.
• Familiars run read-only, with no tool-approval controls.
• Project access isn't enforced by Chat. The Access tab shows what Coven
  declares.
• Text files only. Images and PDFs can't be attached.
• No token, cost or timing figures.
• No Windows build. See below for progress.

Under the hood

There are 12 merged changes since v0.0.2:

• Windows groundwork. Chat can now stop a run's whole process tree on
  Windows, not only the Coven CLI it started. That was the first of two things
  a Windows build was waiting for. The second is Windows code signing.
• Release safeguards. The release workflow now refuses to build or publish
  an unsigned macOS app on the production path, even when a failed job is
  re-run, and notarizes with the team's App Store Connect API key.
• The iPhone connection. The phone and the Mac talk over local HTTPS pinned
  to the Mac's own certificate. The phone keeps its credentials in its
  Keychain, on that device only. Requests are size-limited and authenticated,
  and a send the phone isn't sure went through can't be delivered twice.

OpenCoven Chat 0.0.2

OpenCoven Chat v0.0.2

The first public build of OpenCoven Chat, a desktop app for talking to the
familiars in your local Coven CLI.

This is an early 0.x pre-release. It ships without auto-update, so newer
versions are a manual download from the Releases page.

There is no v0.0.1 release. A v0.0.1 tag was created on 2026-09-16, but its
build never published, and that tag is kept rather than reused.

Before you install

• You need the Coven CLI. Chat drives the coven command already on your
  machine. It needs no account, no Cave and no pairing. Install Coven and finish
  any model-provider setup it asks for before starting a chat.
• Tested with: a Coven 0.4.7 build with the coven-code 0.8.0 engine.
• Platforms: macOS and Linux. There is no Windows build in this release:
  Chat can't yet stop a run's whole process tree safely on Windows, so it
  couldn't send there anyway. Windows builds return once that works and Windows
  code signing is set up.

What it does

One conversation per familiar

• The sidebar lists your familiars. Each familiar has one persistent chat:
  select it to pick up where you left off.
• The list is ordered by recent activity. Search by name, identity or purpose
  with Cmd/Ctrl+K, and step to the previous or next familiar with
  Cmd/Ctrl+[ and ].
• History is read from Coven every time, not copied into a second store, so
  what you see matches what the CLI has.
• A long chat loads its most recent part first. Load earlier turns reads
  further back.
• When you continue a Coven Code chat, Chat replays its most recent turns to the
  new run, and a note in the thread says how many.

Runs you can follow

• Replies render Markdown, tables, task lists and code blocks. Each reply and
  code block has its own Copy control.
• While a run is going, the thread says what it's doing (waiting, running a
  named tool, or stopping) and how long it has taken. After thirty quiet
  seconds it says it is still waiting.
• Tool calls appear as rows between the prose. Expand one to see its input and
  result. Long runs of calls fold up, with a count of how many failed.
• Stop ends a run. A failed send offers Try again.
• A run keeps going if you switch familiars. That familiar's sidebar row shows
  when a reply is waiting, and so does the window title.

Writing messages

• Attach up to four UTF-8 text or code files, 64 KiB each, with the +
  button or by dropping them onto the conversation. Images and PDFs are refused
  rather than silently dropped.
• The composer warns before a message Coven would refuse for size (over 32,768
  bytes).
• Drafts are kept per familiar while the window is open.
• Type @name or #project to add a clear reference to a familiar or a
  project the familiar has declared access to.

Finding your way

• Cmd/Ctrl+F finds text in the conversation.
• Keyboard shortcuts, at the foot of the familiar list, lists every shortcut.
• The inspector shows a familiar's purpose, workspace and declared project
  access, plus activity for the current chat.
• Archive chat hides a chat and Restore chat brings it back.
  Delete chat removes Chat's own copy of the chat. It never touches the
  Coven CLI's records.

Everything else

• Show screen views a remote desktop over a noVNC WebSocket address, such
  as a sandbox's, view-only until you choose otherwise. The desktop app makes
  the connection, and nothing about it is stored.
• The app follows your system's light or dark appearance. Text meets WCAG AA
  contrast in both.
• The window shrinks to 480×520. The side panels fold into drawers as it
  narrows.

Platforms

Platform	Download
macOS, Apple silicon	.dmg, aarch64
macOS, Intel	.dmg, x86_64
Linux	.AppImage or .deb, x86_64

Check your download against the published checksums:

shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS

Known limitations

• No auto-update. Download newer versions from the Releases page.
• Replies arrive whole. With the coven-code 0.8.0 engine tested here, a
  reply appears in one piece once the familiar has finished writing it, not
  word by word. Until then the run status shows what the familiar is doing.
• Familiars run read-only. Chat runs them through Coven's coven-code
  engine with read-only permissions. It doesn't grant write access, and it has
  no tool-approval controls.
• Project access isn't enforced by Chat. The Access tab shows what Coven
  declares and says so plainly. Chat neither adds a boundary nor widens one.
• Text files only. The engine can't take images or PDFs through this app.
• No token, cost or timing figures. This integration with the CLI doesn't
  report them.
• No Windows build yet, as described above.

If you used the 0.0.1-demo.1 preview

• The preview's local data (the opencoven-chat IndexedDB database) is neither
  deleted nor imported.
• Chat is now a single app that opens directly on your familiars. The demo modes
  and ?demo= links are gone.

Under the hood

There are 913 commits since the 0.0.1-demo.1 preview. Most are correctness,
accessibility and release infrastructure rather than new surface area:

• One entrypoint. The demo shell and the Cave-connected app were retired,
  and the frontend is a thin view over the desktop app's native runtime.
• A narrower window. The main window can call only the runtime and screen
  commands it uses. It has no shell, filesystem or network access of its own.
• Accessibility. Contrast is measured on the rendered app in both
  appearances, keyboard focus is visible on the composer and search fields, and
  a run's end is announced to assistive technology.
• Release pipeline. Each release is checked before it publishes: a package
  verifier runs before every build, a smoke test checks the assembled release,
  signing secrets are required, and unsigned rehearsal builds can't be
  published.
• Windows hardening of the session supervisor, and a real-authority
  conformance harness that covers macOS, Linux and Windows.

OpenCoven Chat Demo 0.0.1-demo.1

OpenCoven Chat Demo — a self-contained preview of the Familiars Redesign v2 chat surface. It connects to nothing and keeps nothing: every reply, decision, and metric is local mock data, and a relaunch resets everything.

What it shows

• The ward at the centre of the chat. Each familiar's Access tab lays out what it may do alone, what it must ask about, and the only paths it may change, with the five-property Familiar Contract underneath.
• Held actions. A familiar that reaches its must-ask boundary stops in the thread and waits — approve with ⌘⏎, decline with ⌘⌫ — and "Needs you" collects everything waiting across familiars.
• A composer that warns first. Drafting something inside a familiar's must-ask tier shows Held for approval before you send.
• Summoning. New familiar… → Researcher / Builder / Manager / Communicator, a suggested name, the ward it inherits, one click.
• @ mentions. Tag another familiar into a conversation; it answers in its own voice under its own mark.
• A familiar's screen. The monitor button opens the screen panel; the watch view frames it in the recording colour with a running clock. (The frame the real feed will drop into — no screen data yet.)
• Reasoning cards, the evidence-map lightbox, ⌘K search, [ / ] and hairline edge toggles for the rails, and the earlier Messages-shaped surface at ?demo=messages for comparison.

Install (macOS, Apple silicon)

Open the DMG and drag OpenCoven Chat Demo to Applications. It installs alongside the real OpenCoven Chat (ai.opencoven.chat.demo). The app is signed with a Developer ID certificate but not notarized: on first launch macOS may say it can't verify the developer — right-click → Open once, or allow it in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

Checksums are in SHA256SUMS.txt. Built from release/demo-0.0.1-demo.1 with pnpm app:build:demo.