ThinkWatch Lite 2026.10.19

Upgrade notes:

• The bundled core is now 0.73.0, with control-plane protocol 48. A remote server must run core 0.73.0; servers on 0.72.x do not connect until they are upgraded.
• Nothing is cleared; the request history, stored payloads and settings carry over, and every existing rule keeps its behaviour.

Security page:

• The three protections are now named for what they guard against: Secrets & privacy (formerly Outbound redaction), Dangerous commands (formerly Tool-call inspection) and Content filter. Each has three states, On, Monitor and Off, shown as a dot on its tab.
• Monitor records every match in the log and raises a system notification, and changes nothing. Record only on a single rule does the same under On. The same rule notifies at most once every 5 minutes, matches arriving together are merged into one notification, and a notification never contains the matched text.
• Every rule has its own switch and action, set directly in the list: Secrets & privacy rules replace with a placeholder or record only; Dangerous commands rules cut off or record only; Content filter rules refuse, delete, replace or record only. While a protection is in Monitor, rules show their action with "Monitoring" next to it.
• Built-in rules are grouped by category, with a checkbox on each group to switch all of its rules at once, and a search box filters rules by name and pattern.
• Match case in the Secrets & privacy rule dialog is now a switch.

Content filter for answers:

• A content rule now says what it checks: Request, Answer or Request and answer. A rule on answers checks the text the model writes, including Codex's freeform tool input; tool calls stay with Dangerous commands, and thinking is not checked.
• Replace writes the rule's replacement text (default ***) in place of the match, on requests and answers. It is not undone in the answer. Delete removes the match without a trace.
• Answers keep streaming: only the few characters that could still become a match are held back. A rule on answers cannot refuse and cannot match code points; those options are disabled in the dialog with the reason given.
• The test box tries a sample as a request or as an answer.
• While a rule on answers can delete or replace, token probabilities (logprobs) are left out of streamed answers.

Log and traffic:

• Matches in answers show where they were found, and the outcome says how many places were deleted or replaced. Requests whose text was replaced carry a Replaced mark in the traffic list.
• Secrets that a Record only rule let through are counted as such instead of being shown as redacted.

Fixed:

• Rule dialogs fit small windows and scroll inside instead of pushing the buttons out of view.

Downloads

Platform	File
macOS, Apple silicon	ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.19-darwin-arm64.dmg
Windows, x64, installer	ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.19-windows-x64-setup.exe
Windows, x64, portable	ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.19-windows-x64-portable.zip
Windows, ARM64, installer	ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.19-windows-arm64-setup.exe
Windows, ARM64, portable	ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.19-windows-arm64-portable.zip
Linux, x86_64	ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.19-linux-x86_64.AppImage
Linux, aarch64	ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.19-linux-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 Windows, the portable ZIP runs without installation or administrator rights: extract it to any writable folder and start ThinkWatch Lite.exe. Its settings stay in the data folder beside it, separate from an installed copy, and it updates itself in place.

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.

The ThinkWatch Lite page describes each feature, and the documentation covers installing, connecting clients and routing.

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-2026.10.19-darwin-arm64.dmg.sha256

On Linux:

sha256sum -c ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.19-linux-x86_64.AppImage.sha256

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

(Get-FileHash .\ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.19-windows-x64-setup.exe).Hash -eq (Get-Content .\ThinkWatch-Lite-2026.10.19-windows-x64-setup.exe.sha256).Split()[0]

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

What's Changed

• 2026.10.19: security page by protection, answer content rules; pin core v0.73.0 by @fylorn in #329

Full Changelog: v2026.10.18...v2026.10.19