ThinkWatch Lite 2026.10.1

Upgrade notes:

• The bundled core is now 0.59.0, which speaks control-plane protocol 35. A remote server has to run core 0.59.0 too: this version does not connect to 0.57.x, and 2026.10.0 and earlier do not connect to 0.59.0.
• Request history is cleared on the first start, as the request store is rebuilt. Configuration, keys and upstreams are kept.
• The Hidden characters and Output limit guards are removed (see Three security guards). If either was changed from its factory setting, set it back before updating: Hidden characters to Observe with both of its rules on, Output limit to Off with a limit of 100,000 characters. Otherwise core does not start and the app runs in safe mode until hidden_text: and output_limit:, with the lines indented under them, are deleted from the security: section of config.yaml.
• Two plugins come with the app and are added turned off.

Plugins:

• The new Plugins page runs JavaScript plugins that change requests before they go to an upstream and answers before they reach the client.
• Plugins run in a sandbox inside core, with no access to files, the network or the environment. A plugin sees only the parts of a request it was granted, and never a real secret: recognized secrets are replaced with placeholders before it runs and put back afterwards.
• A plugin is one file that also holds its settings, its scope and what happens when it fails. Its editor has a Settings tab and a Code tab that are saved together, and adding a plugin opens the same editor.
• A plugin can be tried on a recent request, moved in the run order by dragging, and followed through its logs and statistics. The Traffic page marks requests a plugin changed, and a request's detail shows it before and after the plugins.
• Only a plugin that can change tool calls asks for confirmation in a system dialog: to be installed, turned on, have its code changed, or have a change to its file approved.
• The two included plugins are Answer in a chosen language and Convert WSL and Windows paths.

Session conversations:

• A session has a new Conversation tab that replays it turn by turn: messages, folded thinking, tool calls with their results, and images.
• What cannot be shown is marked with the reason, such as a body past the retention period.

Three security guards:

• Outbound redaction, tool-call inspection and the content filter now cover what the five guards did. Hidden characters are built-in content-filter rules, which delete the characters instead of refusing the request, and the output limit is gone.
• Content rules can refuse a request, delete what they match or only record it, and can match Unicode code points.
• Custom redaction rules can name their placeholder. Email addresses and Chinese mainland mobile numbers are new built-in redaction rules, off by default.
• Tool-call inspection has two new rules: a credential sent to a host other than its own provider, and a local file uploaded to a remote host.

Stored requests:

• Request and answer bodies are stored with recognized secrets already replaced, whatever the redaction mode.
• Answers are kept up to 4 MiB (it was 256 KiB), and body storage defaults to 5 GiB (it was 2 GiB). Retention settings above 7 days, 90 days or 2 GiB now take effect; a fixed cleanup used to cut them back every hour.
• An error that an upstream answered, such as a 400, now counts as a failed request, with the upstream's message as the reason.

Fixes:

• On Windows, the gateway no longer needs the Visual C++ Redistributable to start.
• A request holding many values that look like secrets no longer slows the gateway down.

The Plugins and Features pages describe each of these in full.

Downloads

Platform	File
macOS, Apple silicon	ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.1-arm64.dmg
Windows, x64	ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.1-x64-setup.exe
Windows, ARM64	ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.1-arm64-setup.exe
Linux, x86_64	ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.1-x86_64.AppImage
Linux, aarch64	ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.1-aarch64.AppImage

Each file is published with a .sha256 file beside it. latest.json is the manifest for in-app updates, and install.sh is the Linux install script.

On macOS, Homebrew installs the same disk image:

brew install --cask thinkwatchproject/tap/thinkwatch-lite

On Linux, the install script downloads the AppImage for the machine's architecture, checks its SHA-256 and installs it as ~/Applications/ThinkWatch-Lite.AppImage:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/ThinkWatchProject/ThinkWatch-Lite/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

Both commands install the latest release. First-launch steps for each platform, such as removing the quarantine attribute from a copy downloaded on macOS, are described in the README.

Verifying a download

A .sha256 file holds the SHA-256 of the file followed by its name. With both files in the current directory, on macOS:

shasum -a 256 -c ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.1-arm64.dmg.sha256

On Linux:

sha256sum -c ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.1-x86_64.AppImage.sha256

On Windows, in PowerShell, the following prints True when the installer matches:

(Get-FileHash .\ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.1-x64-setup.exe).Hash -eq (Get-Content .\ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.1-x64-setup.exe.sha256).Split()[0]

The Homebrew cask and the Linux install script check the SHA-256 themselves.

What's Changed

• docs(readme): sponsor contact under the introduction by @fylorn in #267
• fix: subscribe to Tauri events through one helper that unlistens safely by @fylorn in #268
• ci: run the frontend unit tests by @fylorn in #269
• Use core v0.58.0: session conversations, unified guards, script plugins by @fylorn in #270
• docs(readme): LINUX DO badge in the badge row by @fylorn in #271
• Use core v0.59.0: plugin files hold their configuration, one editor by @fylorn in #272
• chore: 2026.10.1 by @fylorn in #273

Full Changelog: v2026.10.0...v2026.10.1