v1.5.4 - Windows Packaging, Inno Setup Installer & Uninstaller, and Auto-Update Check

What's Changed in v1.5.4

🚀 Packaging & Windows Distribution

• Windows Installer (watch-skill-installer.exe):
  • User-level Inno Setup installer targeting %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\watch-skill\.
  • Non-elevated (no UAC prompt required).
  • Automatically manages HKCU\Environment\Path and broadcasts WM_SETTINGCHANGE.
  • Automatically installs AI Agent skills to %USERPROFILE%\.gemini\config\skills\watch-video-cli\ and %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\watch-video-cli\ with ownership markers (.watch-skill-managed).
  • Checks for FFmpeg availability and invokes silent winget install when missing.
• Standalone Uninstaller (watch-skill-uninstaller.exe):
  • Lightweight (~2MB) native uninstaller distributed directly on GitHub Releases.
  • Idempotent and clean uninstallation without requiring Python runtime.
  • Cleans application directory, removes registry PATH token cleanly, removes managed AI Agent skills, and preserves FFmpeg and user data (~/.watch-skill).
• Core Executable (watch-skill-windows-x86_64.exe):
  • Fully self-contained portable Windows CLI binary.
• Smart Non-blocking Auto-Update Check:
  • Automatically queries GitHub Releases for updates in the background.
  • Daemon worker thread with <=2.5s timeout.
  • 24-hour local TTL cache (~/.watch-skill/update-check.json).
  • Emits notifications strictly to sys.stderr to keep stdout and --json contracts 100% clean for AI Agents.
  • Can be disabled via WATCHSKILL_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1 or WATCHSKILL_OFFLINE=1.

📦 Checksums & Verification

See SHA256SUMS.txt for cryptographic asset verification.

core-v1.5.6 - Windows Installer, Uninstaller & CLI

Official Watch Core release core-v1.5.6 with verified Windows Installer, Standalone Uninstaller, and Concurrency-Safe Update Checker.

core-v1.5.5 - Hardened Windows Packaging, Inno Setup Installer & Uninstaller, and Concurrency-Safe Update Checker

What's Changed in core-v1.5.5

🚀 Packaging, Distribution & Safety Hardening

• Windows Installer (watch-skill-installer.exe):
  • Non-elevated (PrivilegesRequired=lowest) targeting %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\watch-skill\.
  • Ownership Safety Guarantee: Pre-existing unmanaged agent skills (without .watch-skill-managed marker) are strictly preserved and never overwritten.
  • Automatically installs AI Agent skills to %USERPROFILE%\.gemini\config\skills\watch-video-cli\ and %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\watch-video-cli\.
  • Token-level HKCU\Environment\Path deduplication and Win32 WM_SETTINGCHANGE broadcast.
  • Checks for FFmpeg availability and invokes silent winget install when missing.
• Standalone Uninstaller (watch-skill-uninstaller.exe):
  • Ultra-lightweight native binary (~2.1 MB) distributed directly on GitHub Releases.
  • Idempotent and clean uninstallation without requiring Python runtime.
  • Cleans application directory, removes registry PATH token cleanly, removes managed AI Agent skills (preserves unmanaged user skills), and preserves FFmpeg and user data (~/.watch-skill).
• Core CLI Executable (watch-skill-windows-x86_64.exe):
  • Fully self-contained portable Windows CLI binary with all perception, OCR, and CLI contract capabilities.
• Smart Non-blocking Auto-Update Check:
  • Cross-process atomic file locking (~/.watch-skill/update-check.lock) with stale recovery to prevent request storms on concurrent invocations.
  • Normalizes canonical release tags (e.g., core-v1.5.5 -> 1.5.5).
  • Failure backoff updates cache to avoid hammering GitHub API on rate-limits (HTTP 403/429) or timeouts.
  • Merges latest notification state cleanly without worker overwrite races.
  • Emits notifications strictly to sys.stderr to keep stdout and --json contracts 100% clean for AI Agents.
  • Disables cleanly via WATCHSKILL_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1 or WATCHSKILL_OFFLINE=1.

📦 Checksums & Verification

See SHA256SUMS.txt for cryptographic asset verification.

Watch Skill v1.5.3 - Agent-Grade CLI & Standalone Executable

Watch Skill v1.5.3 - Agent-Grade CLI & Standalone Executable

What's New

• Standalone Windows Executable: Single-file executable (\watch-skill-windows-x86_64.exe, 178 MB) built with targeted PyInstaller packaging (pure modules + required onnxruntime/rapidocr/fastembed binaries). Zero Python installation required.
• Strict Version Alignment: Package version, CLI version (--version == 1.5.3), and immutable release tag are strictly synchronized across all manifests and skills.
• Canonical Machine JSON Envelopes (--json): All primary CLI commands (\watch, \�sk, \moment, \search, \list, \config) emit schema 1.0 JSON payloads with pure stdout discipline, stderr logging, exit codes, and actionable error fixes.
• Windows OS Pipe Buffer Deadlock Fix: Continuous background drain reader (_DrainedStderr) prevents Windows anonymous pipe buffer deadlock during stdio bridge handshake.
• Comprehensive Contract Testing: Complete JSON contract test coverage across all 5 primary commands with failure paths and stdout purity assertions.
• Unified Config Semantics: \Settings\ acts as the single runtime source of truth; canonical \WATCHSKILL_\ prefix is strictly enforced with automatic secret masking.
• macOS FFmpeg Doctor Resilience: Added automatic Homebrew fallback for FFmpeg setup on macOS.
• Agent Skill (\skills/watch-video-cli/SKILL.md): Full operational guide for AI agents (Antigravity, Codex, Claude Code, Cursor) with automatic \fmpeg\ verification and setup.

Watch Skill v1.5.2 - Agent-Grade CLI & Standalone Executable

Watch Skill v1.5.2 - Agent-Grade CLI & Standalone Executable

What's New

• Standalone Windows Binary: Single-file executable (\watch-skill-windows-x86_64.exe, 178 MB) built with targeted PyInstaller packaging (pure modules + required onnxruntime/rapidocr/fastembed binaries). Zero Python installation required.
• Strict Version Alignment: Package version, CLI version (--version == 1.5.2), and tag are strictly synchronized.
• Canonical Machine JSON Envelopes (--json): All primary CLI commands (\watch, \�sk, \moment, \search, \list, \config) emit schema 1.0 JSON payloads with pure stdout discipline, stderr logging, exit codes, and actionable error fixes.
• Comprehensive Contract Testing: Complete JSON contract test coverage across all 5 primary commands (\watch, \�sk, \moment, \search, \list) with failure paths and stdout purity assertions.
• Unified Config Semantics: \Settings\ acts as the single runtime source of truth; canonical \WATCHSKILL_\ prefix is strictly enforced with automatic secret masking.
• macOS FFmpeg Doctor Resilience: Added automatic Homebrew fallback for FFmpeg setup on macOS.
• Agent Skill (\skills/watch-video-cli/SKILL.md): Full operational guide for AI agents (Antigravity, Codex, Claude Code, Cursor) with automatic \fmpeg\ verification and setup.

Assets & Integrity (CI-Verified Provenance)

File	SHA256 Checksum
\watch-skill-windows-x86_64.exe\	\e689e812d0fdd43742b684ee6108d0284abe3f04839309352c94e82c8e6c1090\
\SHA256SUMS.txt\	Checksum verification manifest

Binary built, smoke-tested, and published directly by GitHub Actions runner in Run 41909568460.

Watch Skill v1.5.1 - Agent-Grade CLI & Standalone Executable

Watch Skill v1.5.1 - Agent-Grade CLI & Standalone Executable

What's New

• Standalone Windows Binary: Single-file executable (watch-skill-windows-x86_64.exe, 178 MB) built with targeted PyInstaller packaging (pure modules + required onnxruntime/rapidocr/fastembed binaries). Zero Python installation required.
• Strict Version Alignment: Package version, CLI version (--version == 1.5.1), and tag are strictly synchronized.
• Canonical Machine JSON Envelopes (--json): All primary CLI commands (watch, ask, moment, search, list, config) emit schema 1.0 JSON payloads with pure stdout discipline, stderr logging, exit codes, and actionable error fixes.
• Comprehensive Contract Testing: Complete JSON contract test coverage across all 5 primary commands (watch, ask, moment, search, list) with failure paths and stdout purity assertions.
• Unified Config Semantics: Settings acts as the single runtime source of truth; canonical WATCHSKILL_ prefix is strictly enforced with automatic secret masking.
• macOS FFmpeg Doctor Resilience: Added automatic Homebrew fallback for FFmpeg setup on macOS.
• Agent Skill (skills/watch-video-cli/SKILL.md): Full operational guide for AI agents (Antigravity, Codex, Claude Code, Cursor) with automatic ffmpeg verification and setup.

Assets & Integrity

File	SHA256 Checksum
watch-skill-windows-x86_64.exe	115b28f00b07196da65950b4310aa035ea1298d21f208798402843a8620b5aea
SHA256SUMS.txt	Checksum verification manifest

Watch Skill v1.5.0 - Agent-Grade CLI & Standalone Executable

Watch Skill v1.5.0 - Agent-Grade CLI & Standalone Executable

What's New

• Standalone Windows Binary: Single-file executable (watch-skill-windows-x86_64.exe) packaged with Python 3.11 runtime, Typer, Rich, Pydantic, RapidOCR, ONNXRuntime, FastEmbed, SceneDetect, and OpenCV. Zero Python installation required.
• Canonical Machine JSON Envelopes (--json): All primary CLI commands (watch, ask, moment, search, list, config) support --json emitting schema 1.0 JSON payloads with exit codes and actionable error fixes.
• Deep Temporal Inspection (moment): watch-skill moment <video> <ts> [--window 10.0] [--json] extracts synchronized keyframes, OCR snippets, and audio transcript segments around any instant.
• Global Config Management (config): watch-skill config set / get / list / path enables agents to safely configure API keys (Groq Whisper, Anthropic, OpenAI) with automatic secret masking.
• Agent Skill (skills/watch-video-cli/SKILL.md): Full operational guide for AI agents (Antigravity, Codex, Claude Code, Cursor) with automatic ffmpeg verification and setup.

Assets & Integrity

File	SHA256 Checksum
watch-skill-windows-x86_64.exe	c9c09b63cf47088398dbd72e1ad486eff25e12c5debb10f3885232c604b3377a
SHA256SUMS.txt	Checksum verification manifest