v3.8.0 is a product-quality pass over the terminal experience:

• The Ink UI was redesigned around a cleaner workspace, compact sidebar, and dedicated prompt dock.
• Input handling is more reliable: typing always returns focus to the prompt, the cursor behaves consistently, and requests no longer make the shell feel frozen.
• The composer is more usable: when it is empty, ↑ and ↓ switch actions directly so the shell no longer feels static.
• Repeated Ink actions are much faster because the shell now keeps a persistent Python bridge worker alive instead of cold-starting one per request.
• The layout falls back earlier on smaller terminals so content stays inside the frame instead of clipping or colliding.
• Ollama onboarding is more accurate: setup can now adopt already-installed local models instead of assuming every machine needs a fresh pull.
• GitHub release installs now use a repo-hosted one-line bootstrap script instead of a PyPI publish path.
• Versioning is centralized and release changes are now logged in CHANGELOG.md.

Ephemeral ships with three ways to work:

Configuration, exports, charts, and session artifacts live under ~/.ephemeral/.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/desenyon/ephemeral/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

The installer:

• downloads the selected GitHub ref,
• creates ~/.ephemeral/.venv,
• installs the Python package from source,
• installs Ink UI dependencies under ephemeral/ink_ui,
• links ephemeral into ~/.local/bin.

To pin a release:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/desenyon/ephemeral/main/scripts/install.sh | EPHEMERAL_REF=v3.8.0 bash

Requirements:

• Python 3.11+
• Node.js and npm
• curl and tar

After install:

ephemeral

If ~/.local/bin is not on your PATH, run ~/.local/bin/ephemeral or add that directory to your shell profile.

git clone https://github.com/desenyon/ephemeral.git
cd ephemeral
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
npm install --prefix ephemeral/ink_ui
pip install -e ".[dev]"
ephemeral

With uv:

git clone https://github.com/desenyon/ephemeral.git
cd ephemeral
uv sync --extra dev
npm install --prefix ephemeral/ink_ui
uv run ephemeral

The default interface is now intentionally closer to Claude Code in structure, but customized for Ephemeral research workflows: one navigator, one dominant workspace, and one durable composer.

• One dominant workspace pane for the selected result.
• One compact navigator for actions, session state, and recent runs.
• One always-available composer at the bottom.

• Tab: cycle focus across modes, activity, workspace, and prompt.
• ↑ / ↓ or j / k: move within the focused rail or scroll the workspace.
• [ / ]: page the workspace output.
• d: toggle rendered vs raw payloads.
• Esc: clear the current prompt and return focus to the dock.
• Ctrl+C: quit.

• Typing from any pane returns focus to the prompt immediately.
• The prompt shows a live caret without appending the cursor to placeholder text.
• While a request runs, the shell remains navigable and shows the active job in the chrome.

Ephemeral supports both cloud providers and local models.

Set a key with:

ephemeral --setkey openai <your-key>
ephemeral --setkey anthropic <your-key>
ephemeral --setkey google <your-key>

Then choose a default:

ephemeral --provider openai
ephemeral --model gpt-5.4

v3.8.0 improves the local-model path:

• If Ollama is reachable and you already have models installed, setup offers to bind one immediately.
• Selecting a local model persists DEFAULT_PROVIDER, DEFAULT_MODEL, OLLAMA_MODEL, and OLLAMA_HOST together.
• Status output now reports whether the active default model is actually available locally.

Common Ollama flow:

ollama serve
ollama pull qwen3.5:8b
ephemeral --provider ollama
ephemeral --model qwen3.5:8b
ephemeral --status

You can also run:

ephemeral --setup

to walk through installation, model binding, and key verification interactively.

The release number is now centralized in ephemeral/version.py to keep package metadata, runtime banners, and setup surfaces aligned.

For the 3.8 UI and setup work, the primary checks are:

npm --prefix ephemeral/ink_ui run typecheck
npm --prefix ephemeral/ink_ui run smoke
.venv/bin/python -m pytest tests/test_ink_bridge.py tests/test_setup_agent.py -q

./scripts/build.sh

This produces:

• Python distributions under dist/
• A macOS app bundle via scripts/create_app.py

• Human-readable release history lives in CHANGELOG.md.
• Setup and command examples in this README reflect v3.8.0.

See LICENSE.