RAC v0.8.9 - the "live workspace" release

[tcballard]

The "live workspace" release - save a file in your editor and Explorer already knows. The gap between editing your knowledge base and seeing it is gone.

pip install --upgrade 'requirements-as-code[explorer]'
rac explorer

v0.8.6 gave your knowledge base a home. v0.8.9 makes that home live: Explorer now watches the repository while you work, invalid artifacts explain themselves on the spot, and the suggestions don't just say what's missing - they tell you what to write.

Your edits show up by themselves

The RAC loop has always been: edit Markdown in your editor, check it in the tool. Until now there was a keystroke in the middle of that loop. Not anymore - Explorer notices when artifacts change on disk and refreshes itself: the document you're reading, the sidebar, the health score, all current within a couple of seconds. Your place is kept - same artifact, same tab, same scroll position.

It's careful about it, too. The check is just file names and timestamps - nothing is re-read until something actually changed. Press e, edit in Vim, save, quit - the moment Explorer comes back, the edit is on screen.

Why you care: keep Explorer open in a split pane while you write, and it becomes a live review of your work - health score and all - with zero keystrokes spent asking for it.

Invalid artifacts explain themselves

Before: the health view told you an artifact was invalid, and then you went to the CLI to find out why. Now selecting an attention item lands you on that artifact's Inspection tab, where the actual reasons are listed - the same issues rac validate reports. The tab even carries a count badge, so you know there's something to read before you open it.

Suggestions that tell you what to write

An artifact's Findings tab now includes improvement suggestions: one per missing section, each with the schema's own guidance question as the suggested action. Not "add a Risks section" but the question that section is meant to answer. Explorer shows the suggestions; your files stay yours - it never writes a word of them.

Ask the schema, not the docs

"What sections does a decision need?" is now a palette question. /schema lists every artifact type; /schema decision lays out the required, recommended, and optional sections with their descriptions - the same facts rac schema reports, without leaving the screen.

The palette remembers

Tap / and, before you type a single character, the artifacts you've been working in are right there - Enter reopens the most recent. And when a search comes back broad, f narrows the results by type: all, then each type present, then back to all.

Also in this release (since v0.8.6)

This tag carries the two unreleased versions in between, and they're big ones:

• One persistent workspace (v0.8.7): a navigation sidebar of type-tagged artifacts, a context panel that swaps views in place, and a status line that always shows the keys that matter - no screen jumps, ever. Plus the rac-lantern theme, drawn from the mascot's palette.
• Read documents where they live (v0.8.7-v0.8.8): opening an artifact shows the document itself, rendered and scrollable, with the references inside it walkable like a wiki - and Esc retraces your steps.
• A summoned command palette (v0.8.8): / floats an input with live suggestions - empty teaches every command, a prefix completes it, anything else quick-opens matching artifacts.
• Settings you can touch (v0.8.8): /settings changes theme (live preview), mascot, animations, grouping, and your default editor in place - terminal editors like Vim now run with Explorer suspended and resume it on exit.

Upgrading

pip install --upgrade 'requirements-as-code[explorer]'
rac explorer

All your existing files, commands, and scripts keep working exactly as before - and the preferences and workspace files written by earlier versions load unchanged.

---

This discussion was created from the release RAC v0.8.9 - the "live workspace" release.