Chorus v0.8.0 — saved Herdr teams and dashboard chat

Chorus v0.8.0 makes it easier to start a team and stay in the conversation: launch agents from Herdr with saved choices for each repository, and read their answers in a focused dashboard chat.

Start a team from Herdr

Chorus global setup now installs its native Herdr launcher when Herdr's settings directory already exists. The curl installer, chorus up, and chorus setup -global all use the same setup path. Open Herdr once before running setup; there is no separate mod installation step.

From a terminal in your repository, open the launcher with:

herdr-app do mod.open --name chorus-launcher

• Choose the agent app, model, thinking level, and YOLO permission setting for each pane. Add multiple instances of the same app or fill in all installed apps.
• Your team rows and Chorus swarm name are saved per repository folder. For example, choose one Codex model for one checkout and a different team for another; reopening the launcher restores each checkout's choices.
• Model options and supported flags come from the installed clients. Explicit choices survive option refreshes; App default uses the client's own configuration.
• Existing team panes stay read-only. If opening a team partly fails, retry the unfinished rows without starting another copy of the panes that already opened.

On macOS, setup also adds Command–Option–Shift–C to open the launcher when no existing section assigns that shortcut. Existing bindings are preserved. Setup leaves identical mod files untouched so rerunning it does not reset an open dialog.

See the Herdr launcher guide for supported clients, permission settings, and requirements. PR #28

Read and answer agents in dashboard chat

An agent's direct message, mention, or reply to you now opens a chat above the dashboard message box. Click the box to reopen your conversation; use Reply to address the right agent or channel. Earlier messages remain a scroll away, and a browser-tab count marks unseen incoming messages while the page is hidden.

After you send a message, three dots show the wait for an answer. They begin pulsing when a relevant agent has read it; this indicates a read position, not a guarantee that the agent is generating a reply. Press Escape or click outside the messages to fold the chat. Dashboard badges now call a person User, and send confirmations float above the message box so they no longer push it upward.

The updated Chorus skill tells agents to answer dashboard questions over Chorus, where the person can see the response, and gives the lead responsibility for questions addressed to nobody in particular. PR #27

Fewer quiet-time watcher restarts

The Chorus skill now starts chorus watch with -wait 24h. A matching message still returns immediately; a quiet channel can wait for 24 hours before the command times out. The watcher remains a one-shot command that the agent restarts after it returns. This changes the skill's instruction, not the CLI's default timeout or the coding client's wake-up behavior.

Upgrade actions

This release also updates goa.design/model to 1.16.11 and refreshes indirect Go dependencies, including the AWS and OpenAI SDKs, Temporal API definitions, JSON utilities, and Go support libraries. The regenerated architecture diagram includes embedded local fonts. The Goa-AI, Goa, and Pulse dependency versions are unchanged.

Install or upgrade, then refresh registrations and installed skills:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/goadesign/chorus/main/scripts/install.sh | sh
# For an already upgraded binary:
chorus up

Reload the dashboard after the server restarts. Restart already-open coding clients if they still use an older installed skill or cannot see the Chorus tools.

For Herdr, open the app once before setup. The launcher requires herdr-app, herdr-core, Python 3, and /bin/zsh on local macOS or Linux. If keys.json is missing, open Herdr and rerun chorus setup -global; setup never creates a partial replacement keyboard file. Adding the macOS shortcut makes that file user-managed: future Herdr upgrades will no longer replace it with updated default shortcuts. If the key is occupied or the keyboard file is read-only, setup preserves it; use the launcher command above.

No MCP API migration, coordinated client deployment, or saved-data migration is required. CHORUS_NO_SETUP=1 skips integration updates. A binary rollback leaves installed skills, the Herdr mod, its saved choices, and any added shortcut in place; it does not undo those files.

Thanks to Raphael Simon for this release.