Iliad MD 0.7.0

Iliad MD v0.7.0

Iliad MD v0.7.0 is a signed and notarized macOS release for Apple Silicon Macs.

What's New

Comments in the margin

Press ⌃⌘M, or the Comments button at the top right of the window, and every comment on the document is written out in the right margin beside its passage. You no longer have to hover passages one at a time to read them.

Point at a comment to see its passage and a small × that deletes it. Click a comment to open it with Edit and Delete. When a paragraph has many comments, long ones end in "…" and the rest fold into "+2 more"; click either to read them in full.

Ask an agent for feedback without it editing your text

Claude Code, Codex and other agents can now leave comments of their own. Ask for feedback on a document and the agent adds comments to its comments file instead of changing the text. They show up in the margin marked ✦, next to your own comments. When the margin is hidden, they leave no mark in your text.

Run iliad skill install once so Claude Code learns how to leave comments; other agents can read the same guide with iliad skill print.

Fixes

• When two comments sit close together, moving the pointer from the first one toward its card no longer switches to the second comment on the way.

Iliad MD 0.6.2

Iliad MD v0.6.2

Iliad MD v0.6.2 is a signed and notarized macOS release for Apple Silicon Macs.

What's New

The Update button shows what the update is doing

While an update downloads, the button at the bottom of the sidebar draws a thin ring that fills as the download moves. Point at it to read the progress, for example "Downloading 42%".

When the update is ready, the button turns into a restart button. Point at it and it says "Restart to update", the same words you see in Settings. Click it and Iliad saves your work and restarts on the new version.

Iliad MD 0.6.1

Iliad MD v0.6.1

Iliad MD v0.6.1 is a signed and notarized macOS release for Apple Silicon Macs. It's the first version that reaches you through the Update button.

What's New

Plainer AI writing

Suggestions and ✦ AI edits now follow a short set of writing rules.

• No filler, no obvious explanations and no empty repetition.
• Concrete details and direct verbs, when your document has them.
• No invented facts, numbers, sources or reasons.
• No generic openings, upbeat closing lines, inflated words like "crucial", or "not just X but Y".
• No em dashes or semicolons unless your own writing uses them.

Your voice comes first. A novel can still set a scene, and Spanish dialogue keeps its dashes. If you prefer a different style, say so in Settings → Writing and your preferences win.

Full idea suggestions (⌘/) are now shorter and denser, usually one or two paragraphs.

Iliad MD 0.6.0

Iliad MD v0.6.0

Iliad MD v0.6.0 is a signed and notarized macOS release for Apple Silicon Macs. From this version on, Iliad updates itself.

What's New

Iliad updates itself

• Iliad checks for a new version when it opens and every few hours after that, and downloads it in the background.
• When it's ready, a small button appears at the bottom of the sidebar, next to Settings. Click Update and Iliad saves your work, closes and opens again on the new version.
• If you don't click, the update installs the next time you quit Iliad.
• If your agent has changes you haven't reviewed yet, Iliad asks before restarting. Those changes stay on disk as they are.
• Settings → General shows the same thing in words, with Check now.
• This is the last time you update by hand. Download 0.6.0 once and the next versions arrive on their own.

A new icon

The paperclip is redrawn. It's the same idea with a cleaner, bolder line that reads well in the Dock and at small sizes.

Support Iliad

Iliad is free and MIT licensed, and it will stay that way. If it earns a place in your writing, Settings → General has a Buy me a coffee link.

Homebrew

The Homebrew cask now says Iliad updates itself, so brew upgrade leaves it alone and the app keeps itself current. brew upgrade --greedy still works if you prefer it.

Iliad MD 0.5.0

Iliad MD v0.5.0

Iliad MD v0.5.0 is a signed and notarized macOS release for Apple Silicon Macs. It is a calmer, lighter Iliad: a quieter window, clearer review of your agent's changes, and built-in AI that reads your whole document and writes the way you ask.

What's New

A calmer window

• The Mac's own font for the app, and lighter, warmer colors with neutral greys.
• No tab and no line under the top row. The sidebar toggle and Back/Forward sit next to the traffic lights; Back and Forward (⌘[ ⌘]) appear once there is somewhere to go.
• Hide the sidebar with ⌃⌘S: the page, and you. Hover the toggle or the left edge to peek at it; a quiet breadcrumb shows where you are.
• Files in the sidebar have no icons; folders have small chevrons. The current document is a soft highlight.
• Settings now lives at the bottom of the sidebar: General (language, version, updates), Typography and Writing, in one panel.
• With no document open, Iliad shows the documents you opened recently in this folder.
• ⌘N creates a new document.

Reviewing your agent's changes

• The controls for the open document sit in the top row: "N changes · ↑ ↓ · Keep all · Restore all". ↑ ↓ jump between changes.
• Suggested text reads like the rest of your document (quotes, bold, lists), on one continuous green block, with removed text lined up above it.
• "Keep all" and "Restore all" act only on the version you are looking at: if the file changed again in the meantime, Iliad refreshes the review instead.
• In the sidebar, one light row keeps or restores every changed document at once.
• Fixed: the review bar could sometimes disappear.

Built-in AI that knows your document

• Suggestions (⌘, ⌘. ⌘/) and the ✦ AI menu now read your whole document, not just the section you are in, so names, terms and the thread of your writing stay consistent. A small ✦ at the cursor shows the AI is working.
• Writing preferences: tell the AI how you write, once (Settings → Writing). They apply to suggestions and ✦ AI edits in every folder, and are never written into your documents.
• Untitled documents name themselves: new documents start empty, and once you've written a heading or a few sentences, Iliad names the file for you — the name types itself in the sidebar. Double-click any name to change it.

Your own keys

Click a shortcut in Settings → Writing and press the keys you want, like in VS Code. Keys Iliad already uses are refused, and a key another action uses can be swapped.

Privacy

With your writing preferences and whole-document context, built-in AI now sends the current document (trimmed for very long ones) and your preferences when you ask for a suggestion or a ✦ AI edit, and a short opening excerpt once to name an untitled document you created. In free mode this goes through Iliad's server, which keeps none of your text, to Groq (Zero Data Retention); with your own key it goes straight from your Mac to Groq. See the privacy page.

Iliad MD 0.4.0

Iliad MD v0.4.0

Iliad MD v0.4.0 is a signed and notarized macOS release for Apple Silicon Macs. The built-in AI now works the first time you open Iliad, with no key and no account, and it only runs when you ask for it.

What's New

AI included, free, with a daily limit

Inline completion (⌘, ⌘. ⌘/) and the ✦ AI menu work right away. There is nothing to set up: no key, no account, no sign-in.

The free AI has a daily limit, shared by autocomplete and ✦ AI. Iliad never shows a counter. If you reach the limit, a short notice near the cursor says when it comes back (limits reset at 00:00 UTC, shown in your local time).

It runs on Groq, with the openai/gpt-oss-120b model. In free mode your request goes through Iliad's server, which passes it to Groq and keeps none of your text. Groq's Zero Data Retention is on for Iliad's account, so Groq doesn't keep it either. The privacy page explains exactly what is sent and who sees what.

Or use your own Groq key

In Writing assists, choose Use my key and paste a Groq API key (Get a key opens the Groq console). Iliad checks the key with Groq before saving it, and stores it encrypted on your Mac, protected by the macOS Keychain. With your own key, requests go straight from your Mac to Groq, with no Iliad server in between and no daily limit from Iliad; your Groq account's own limits and terms apply. Iliad never switches between the two routes on its own: if your key fails, Iliad tells you instead of falling back to the free route.

Suggestions only when you ask

Iliad no longer suggests while you type. Suggestions come only from the length keys: ⌘, a sentence, ⌘. a paragraph, ⌘/ the full idea. Your text is sent only when you press one of them or pick a ✦ AI action. See Autocomplete.

⌘↵ now does one thing: with text selected, it opens the ✦ AI menu. With nothing selected it does nothing.

A simpler Writing assists menu

Every setting is one plain row: Corrector, Autocomplete, the keys (which you can change in place), the AI row (AI included or your Groq key), and Privacy, which opens the privacy page. Screen readers always announce a suggestion when it appears, so the separate setting is gone.

Install and set up from the terminal

• iliad install puts the iliad command on your PATH straight from the app bundle ("/Applications/Iliad MD.app/Contents/Resources/bin/iliad" install), with no menu click, so an AI agent can set Iliad up for you. iliad uninstall removes only the links it created.
• Homebrew: brew install --cask brainforwarding/tap/iliad-md installs the app and the iliad command.
• Every release now has a stable download link: https://github.com/brainforwarding/iliad/releases/latest/download/Iliad-MD-arm64.dmg.
• New to Iliad and using Claude Code or Codex? Tell your agent: "Set up Iliad for me: follow https://iliad.md/install.md".

What Was Removed, And Why

• Gemini. Setting up a Gemini key was the first thing a new writer ran into, and most people never did it. Groq now powers all built-in AI, free by default.
• Automatic suggestions, with Suggest while I type and Pause for 10 min. Suggestions that arrive uninvited pull you out of your own sentence, and any pause could send your text without you asking. Asking with a key keeps you in charge of both.
• Writing notes (name.notes.md and Open notes). Comments already are how you tell your agent what you want; notes duplicated them. Comments stay exactly as they were.

How To Migrate

• Nothing to set up for AI. It works on first launch.
• Saved Gemini keys are no longer used. On first launch, Iliad deletes the saved Gemini key from your Mac. If you want no daily limit, add a Groq key under Writing assists → Use my key.
• Existing notes files stay. Iliad doesn't delete, rename, or move any name.notes.md file. It now shows up in the file tree as an ordinary document, and the Iliad skill treats it like any other document. Move anything you still need into the document or a comment.
• Reinstall the skill if you use Claude Code (iliad skill install) or refresh your AGENTS.md with iliad skill print, so your agent stops looking for notes.

Download

The public download is available from the GitHub release page:

https://github.com/brainforwarding/iliad/releases/tag/v0.4.0

Iliad MD 0.3.2

Iliad MD v0.3.2 is a signed and notarized macOS release for Apple Silicon Macs. It fixes one ✦ AI issue found while writing with 0.3.1. Coming from 0.2.x? Read the 0.3.0 notes first.

Fix

• Formatting requests in the ✦ AI menu work. Asking to format a selection (for example "en cursiva" / "in italics") could fail with "Couldn't edit — try again": the model returned the passage wrapped in *…*, and a safety check that discards answers echoing the original plus commentary mistook the added formatting for commentary. Markdown formatting around the passage (italics, bold, a quote) is now accepted; added words are still rejected.

Iliad MD 0.3.1

Iliad MD v0.3.1 is a signed and notarized macOS release for Apple Silicon Macs. It fixes inline completion issues found while testing 0.3.0. If you are coming from 0.2.x, read the 0.3.0 notes first: Iliad no longer has a built-in agent, reviews your agent's changes chunk by chunk, and keeps notes and comments as plain files next to each document.

Fixes

• ⌘/ no longer comments out the line. With Autocomplete off (the default), ⌘/ fell through to the editor and wrapped the line in <!-- -->. The sentence, paragraph and full-idea keys (⌘, ⌘. ⌘/) now always belong to Iliad; with Autocomplete off they tell you to turn it on in Writing assists. With the corrector on, ⌘. keeps jumping to the next issue while Autocomplete is off.
• Suggestions respect lists. On a list item (even an empty 4. ), a paragraph suggestion continues inside that item instead of starting a new paragraph outside the list, and when the suggestion opens the next items (4. …, 5. …) each starts on its own line.

Iliad MD 0.3.0

Iliad MD v0.3.0 is a signed and notarized macOS release for Apple Silicon Macs. It is the biggest change to Iliad so far: the app now does two things, and tries to do them well.

1. Write one document at a time, with small AI help that never takes over: inline completion, the ✦ AI menu on selected text, and the corrector.
2. Review what an AI agent wrote. When Claude Code, Codex, or any other tool edits the Markdown in your folder, Iliad shows every change in the document, chunk by chunk, and you keep or restore it.

What's New

Review outside changes chunk by chunk

When another tool edits a document while Iliad is open, each changed chunk appears in place with Keep and Restore. The toolbar above the document still offers Keep all and Restore all. Files created outside Iliad offer Keep file or Move to Trash; files deleted outside offer Confirm deletion or Restore file. A restore never overwrites newer work: if the file changed again, Iliad refreshes the review instead.

Keep and Restore are buttons only. Tab and Esc never act on outside chunks, so nothing on disk changes by accident. See Reviewing Agent Changes.

Notes and comments are plain files

Each document can have two companion files next to it:

• name.comments.md holds the comments you attach to passages.
• name.notes.md holds your writing notes for that document (voice, audience, facts). Writing assists → Open notes creates and opens it.

They are ordinary Markdown, so any agent can read them, and they move, duplicate, and go to the Trash together with their document. In the file tree they appear as Notes and Comments · N under the document you have open. See Comments, Notes, And The ✦ AI Menu.

The iliad command and a Claude skill

Choose Iliad MD → Install ‘iliad’ Command… to put iliad on your PATH. Then:

• iliad status tells you (and your agent) which folder and document are open.
• iliad open file.md --line 42 shows a document in Iliad at a line.
• iliad skill install installs a skill for Claude Code that explains how to work with Iliad: check iliad status, read the notes, address and delete handled comments, keep edits minimal, and finish with iliad open.

See Working With Claude Code.

One Gemini key for all built-in AI

Inline completion and the ✦ AI menu both run on one Gemini API key, set in Writing assists. Without a key, autocomplete is off and ✦ AI is shown disabled; clicking it takes you to the key field.

Faster inline completion

Three keys ask for a length directly: ⌘, a sentence, ⌘. a paragraph, ⌘/ the full idea. ⌘↵ (the AI key) suggests a sentence and grows it when pressed again; with text selected it opens the ✦ AI menu. Tab accepts, Esc dismisses, ⌥↑/⌥↓ shows another suggestion, and Steer… gives the next one a direction. See Autocomplete.

The ✦ AI menu

Select text, press ⌘↵ or click ✦ AI, and choose Rewrite, Expand, Shorten, Summarize, Turn into a list, or type your own instruction. The result is shown in place; Tab accepts and Esc rejects.

What Was Removed, And Why

Iliad no longer has a built-in agent. These are gone:

• the assistant chat panel, its history, context attachments, and process receipts;
• the Codex connection and the OpenAI API key (and the OpenAI fallback for autocomplete);
• voice dictation (and the microphone permission);
• the Telegram remote and its relay;
• house rules in AGENTS.md read by the built-in agent.

Claude Code, Codex, and similar tools are now much stronger at long, multi-document work than a panel inside an editor could be, and they keep improving on their own. Keeping a second agent inside Iliad duplicated them and took most of the maintenance. So larger AI work happens in your agent of choice, writing to the folder, and Iliad becomes the calm place where you write and where you see and judge what the agent did.

Your AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md files are untouched; outside agents still read them.

How To Migrate

• Comments move automatically. The first time you open a workspace in 0.3.0, Iliad moves its saved comments into name.comments.md files next to their documents. Comments on documents that no longer exist are skipped.
• Writing notes move automatically. The first time you open a document that had notes, Iliad writes them to name.notes.md (only if that file does not exist yet).
• Add a Gemini key. Open Writing assists in the topbar and paste a Gemini API key in the key field ("Get a key" links to Google AI Studio). Google bills this API separately. Your old OpenAI key and Codex login are no longer used.
• Connect your agent. Install the command from the app menu, run iliad skill install for Claude Code, or iliad skill print to paste the instructions into another agent's AGENTS.md.
• Old chat history and pending internal proposals are no longer read. They stay in the app's data folder and are harmless.

Iliad MD 0.2.9

Iliad MD 0.2.9 is a signed and notarized macOS release for Apple Silicon Macs.

Highlights:

• Built-in agent and external edits now share a clearer Accept/Reject review flow.
• Added and deleted files are shown consistently in the file tree and editor review state.
• Diff highlights now keep Markdown source markers visible while preserving Markdown scale and structure.
• Review navigation is more stable when moving between modified, added, and deleted files.
• Review diagnostics are improved for future troubleshooting.

Download the DMG for a normal install. The ZIP and latest-mac.yml support update metadata.