Otium v1.0.0-alpha.1 — First community prerelease

v1.0.0-alpha.1 is the first public test package for real-device feedback. It is an unsigned Windows community prerelease, not the final V1 release. It consolidates installer, recovery, diagnostics, usage-mode, personal-protection, Guardian, and security work completed after v0.16.1.

The final v1.0.0 tag will only be created after the remaining Windows escape-path, public community package integrity, installer lifecycle, and real-device test requirements have been completed.

Highlights

• Replaced the old technical mode names with three user-facing usage modes: Tracking only, For myself, and For someone I manage.
• Added Flexible, Balanced, and Guarded personal-protection levels.
• Added Guardian-backed personal protection without turning a self-selected PIN into an instant escape mechanism.
• Converted Flexible mode into a user-controlled manual focus session.
• Hardened the Control Center, session surface, tray, and single-instance window lifecycle.

Flexible personal mode

• Removed the weekly schedule page and allowed-hour enforcement.
• Disabled forced daily-limit enforcement.
• Sessions now start only after an explicit user action.
• Added a stopwatch that starts from 00:00, pauses during a break, resumes correctly, and resets when the session ends.
• Application rules apply only while a Flexible focus session is active.
• Guardian is never required, while local usage history continues to work.

Balanced personal mode

• Retains weekly schedules, daily limits, application rules, and delayed relaxation of restrictions.
• Keeps Guardian disabled while preserving the personal change-delay policy.
• Reuses a single background session controller instead of creating new windows during navigation.
• Hides the Control Center from the taskbar before presenting the session surface.

Guarded personal mode

• Added Guarded · Guardian as the strictest personal-protection level.
• Uses an internal cryptographic Guardian credential instead of a user-created administrator PIN.
• Lowering protection is queued using the configured personal change delay.
• Guardian applies an expired relaxation even when the Control Center is closed.
• Opening the Control Center does not silently disable enforcement.
• Windows administrator recovery remains the emergency uninstall and repair path.

Managed and protected use

• Preserved administrator-PIN verification for For someone I manage.
• Fixed protected administrator exit and Control Center transitions.
• Strengthened Guardian enrollment, protected-policy synchronization, recovery, and version compatibility checks.
• Restricted test-only unlock behavior to Development builds.

Security hardening completed for Alpha.1

• Removed the offline administrator-PIN verifier from user-readable protected policy copies. Public policy files now contain a non-verifying marker while the real verifier remains restricted to Guardian and administrator storage.
• Routed protected-mode PIN checks through authenticated Guardian IPC with persistent throttling, replay protection, and migration of older policy files.
• Serialized PIN-dialog verification so parallel clicks or Enter presses cannot submit multiple attempts concurrently.
• Removed the installer elevation time-of-check/time-of-use gap. The elevated setup process now extracts and verifies its embedded MSI inside an ACL-restricted ProgramData staging directory before invoking Windows Installer.
• Added process-start observation and verified parent ancestry for launcher and child-process application rules.
• Preserved protected credential redaction when settings or pending policy targets are copied back to the user profile.

Alpha.1 behavior and reliability fixes

• Removed the Sign out limit action after a real-use test exposed a repeated Windows sign-out loop. Existing settings using it migrate to the safer Windows lock action.
• Changed usage-mode selection so Protected mode and Guardian policy changes are staged in the interface and applied only after Save succeeds.
• Prevented duplicate PIN submissions while Guardian verification is in progress.
• Replaced frequent system-theme registry polling with Windows preference-change notifications.
• Consolidated Guardian IPC request handling and reduced repeated application-rule matching work.
• Improved Recovery Center sizing and scrolling on constrained displays.
• Confirmed the basic protected surface and secondary-display shields on a physical two-monitor setup.

Community package

• Added an unsigned community package kind that uses the Release configuration and excludes every development/test bypass.
• Kept community artifacts technically separate from Debug test installers.
• Produces a self-contained Setup EXE, standalone MSI, SHA-256 files, and a schema-v2 release manifest tied to the exact source commit.
• Verifies setup/MSI metadata, embedded package integrity, release configuration, artifact sizes, hashes, and the absence of public-build test unlock markers.
• Windows SmartScreen may show an unknown-publisher warning because Alpha.1 is intentionally unsigned.

Window and startup reliability

• Fixed a Tracking-only startup crash caused by an invisible maximized WPF window.
• Prevented rapid Session Screen clicks from creating duplicate session surfaces.
• Prevented repeated Control Center requests from creating duplicate management windows.
• Added transition guards around session and Control Center navigation.
• Replaced the stale Awareness label with Tracking only.
• Normalized irrelevant personal-protection fields outside personal mode.

Recovery, diagnostics, and privacy

• Added Guardian health and version compatibility reporting.
• Added privacy-safe diagnostic export without PINs, recovery secrets, window titles, or document content.
• Added last-known-good settings recovery and installer repair flows.
• Added delayed policy-change details and recovery audit events.
• Kept all usage data local to the device.
• Expanded the Recovery Center into a System Health view with separate application, installer, Guardian, and local-data status.
• Added one-click privacy-safe diagnostic export from the health surface.

Windows lifecycle

• Added a serialized lock, unlock, suspend, and resume state policy.
• Atomically pauses active timing before suspend and resumes only when the system was not locked.
• Preserves the user-controlled Break state after Win+L and rebuilds the protected display topology after resume.
• Records bounded, content-free lifecycle audit events for diagnostics.

Open-source project foundation

• Added the MIT License, a support policy, and matching English/Turkish usage guides.
• Corrected stale RC, two-mode, and planned Application Identity claims in both READMEs.
• Documented the deliberate unsigned community-release direction without treating Development bypasses as release security.
• Added a CI documentation gate for bilingual status, modes, install/update, uninstall, support, and license coverage.

Removed or deferred

• Removed unstable one-click application suggestions from this release.
• Moved reliable live suggestion refresh to the post-v1 roadmap.
• Kept AppLocker and WDAC integration as a future optional protection level because availability depends on Windows edition and policy.

Known Alpha.1 limitations and final V1 blockers

• Balanced session-surface recovery has been hardened and passed the initial single-monitor manual test; Explorer restart, virtual desktops, and the wider repeatable Windows matrix remain open.
• The unsigned community packaging path is ready, but the published Alpha.1 artifact must be built from and matched to its release commit.
• Clean install, Protected Guardian enrollment, expiry behavior, repair, and uninstall are the first post-publication Alpha.1 field tests on a separate Windows device. Upgrade and rollback remain part of the broader final V1 matrix.
• Reboot, Win+L, sleep, hibernation, Explorer restart, user switching, Remote Desktop, multiple monitors, and standard-user scenarios remain in the final Windows matrix.

Validation completed

• Debug and Release builds complete with zero warnings and zero errors.
• Core smoke tests pass in both configurations.
• Settings migration, delayed relaxation, Guardian credentials, protected-policy synchronization, and manual Flexible sessions have automated regression coverage.
• A real-process startup diagnostic confirmed that the Tracking-only startup crash no longer occurs.
• Protected PIN redaction, legacy Sign-out migration, and save-gated Protected mode transitions have automated regression coverage.
• The unsigned Release community package passed metadata, embedded MSI, manifest, SHA-256, and public-build bypass verification.

Download and integrity

Use Otium-Setup-1.0.0-alpha.1.exe for the normal bilingual setup experience. The standalone MSI is provided for managed or unattended installation.

This community prerelease is intentionally unsigned. Windows SmartScreen may show an Unknown publisher warning. Verify the SHA-256 value before running it:

• Setup EXE: 8736c995fc3e7add6020c30fdc2fbf2d10d1aaaf1786cd64d9b10acfb3d76260
• MSI: ceabdde9ffcf8f0a17637fe430cca2500aad06d58c08a0fbe557f1220a79608e
• Source commit: 4dd94ca68b4c9c3e93c1de8db15be7ce3260782e