Cadabra 2.1.1

[abra-code]

Requirements: macOS 14.6 or later (Apple silicon). AgentVM boxes need macOS 27 or later and the separate AgentVM app.

New: Cadabra 2.1.1 follows the AgentVM's newer releases. The AgentVM now makes Linux boxes beside macOS ones, and Cadabra tells the two apart wherever a box is chosen, counted or shown. It requires agent-vm 0.7.46.

Linux AgentVM boxes

• External agents can run in a Linux box. In Select ACP Agent, Runs in lists Linux boxes and images too, marked "(Linux)".
• Cadabra's tools stay on macOS. Cadabra's MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers are macOS programs, so Use Tools is off and disabled for a Linux box: the agent works with its own tools. In 2.1 the tools were copied into a Linux box and failed to start without saying why.
• A local model's tools run in macOS boxes only. Where tools run in Agentic Session Tools lists macOS boxes and images, and a Linux choice stored earlier is refused with the reason.
• Linux boxes do not count toward the limit of two. macOS runs at most two macOS virtual machines at a time; a Linux box is not one of them. Cadabra counted it anyway: AgentVM Boxes showed "2 of 2" with a place still free, and a Linux box was refused a start while two macOS boxes ran. The count, the start check and the texts now mean macOS boxes only.
• No View for a Linux box. A Linux box has no screen to show, so the View button in AgentVM Boxes is disabled for it and its help says why.
• Help > AgentVM Boxes Help covers Linux boxes.

agent-vm 0.7.46

Cadabra 2.1.1 needs agent-vm 0.7.46 or later, which the AgentVM app installs and updates. Cadabra 2.1 needed 0.6.14. What the newer agent-vm changes for a session in Cadabra:

• A program that is read late no longer freezes the box. Output of one program that waited to be read on this Mac could stop every connection to its box: the agent went silent, and a tool call failed after 20 seconds with "the guest is unreachable". Now only that one program waits. This needs an updated image, see Upgrading.
• A box has the project folder only while a session uses it. The folder used to stay shared and writable in the box until the box stopped. It is now taken back 5 seconds after the last program started on it ends, so what a session left running in a kept box cannot change your files afterwards.
• A Linux box that breaks says so. A Linux box stops at a fault in its own kernel, where it used to go on running with a damaged disk, and a program refused by such a box is told what happened to the box.

Other changes

• Date & Time: time-mcp updated to 0.1.1. It answers as before.

Upgrading

From 2.1: replace the old Cadabra.app with the new one. Downloaded models, settings, sandbox packs and chat history are untouched.

To go on using AgentVM boxes:

1. Update the AgentVM app, so that it installs agent-vm 0.7.46 or later. Cadabra refuses an older agent-vm and says which version it found.
2. Update your images in the AgentVM app. An image keeps the helper program that was installed in it when it was built, and the fix for a frozen box is in the newer one. A new disposable box then has it at once.
3. Recreate each kept box made before the update, in the AgentVM app. A kept box is a copy of its image from the day it was made. Recreating a box discards what was installed or logged in there.

Boxes and images that are not updated still work with Cadabra 2.1.1, without that one fix.

Known limitations

• Cadabra's tools do not run in a Linux box. An external agent there uses its own tools, and a local model's tools need a macOS box or this Mac.
• macOS runs at most two macOS virtual machines at a time, so at most two macOS boxes run at once. Any box, Linux ones too, uses the memory it was given for as long as it runs.
• Cadabra does not show which images and boxes still need the update; the AgentVM app does.
• The limitations listed for 2.1 about sandbox packs and Apple Foundation Models still apply.

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This discussion was created from the release Cadabra 2.1.1.