Academic Noosphere 0.3.0 — guided Bedrock + Web Search onboarding

Onboarding now finishes the AWS story end to end (#28): after credentials are verified, a new Bedrock & Web Search step checks that the model catalog actually grants access to the two Claude models the app uses (with a one-click pointer to the console's Model access page when it doesn't), and handles the Web Search Gateway in-app — detect existing AgentCore gateways and pick one, or create a gateway + web-search connector target (pinned 1.2.0) directly from the wizard with live progress. No repo scripts involved. The same panels live in Settings.

Notarized and stapled (DMG and the app inside it). Apple Silicon only; first-run embedding-model download as before.

Academic Noosphere 0.2.3 — ideonomy catalog + AWS credential controls

Two defect fixes for the packaged app, plus a hardened release pipeline. Notarized and stapled — both the DMG and the app inside it carry tickets physically now, so Gatekeeper verifies offline too.

Fixed

• Ideonomy Expand in the packaged app (#26): the vendored ideonomy catalog (operators, organons, dimension prompts) was never bundled into the frozen core, so Expand failed with "catalog section missing". It now ships inside the app and resolves correctly when frozen; dev checkouts keep using the repo's vendor/ tree.
• AWS credential replace/clear controls (#27): once ephemeral AWS values were saved, the paste box vanished — the app's own Keychain→env mirroring made the values look environment-owned, which hides the input controls by design. Mirrored values now correctly report as Keychain-owned, so Replace and Clear stay available exactly where the expiry message points you. Genuinely shell-exported variables still show as env-owned.

Pipeline

• Notarization is now a hard gate in the release script: any failure aborts the build instead of silently shipping an unnotarized DMG (the cause of 0.2.2's "cannot verify free of malware" dialog — fixed asset was reissued).
• The app is notarized and stapled before the DMG snapshots it.

Notes

• Apple Silicon only; first-run embedding-model download as in 0.2.1+.

Academic Noosphere 0.2.2 — Bedrock API keys and expiry recovery

AWS credential quality-of-life: long-lived Bedrock API keys and a real recovery path when ephemeral credentials expire. Notarized DMG; same install as 0.2.1 (download, drag, double-click).

What's new

• Bedrock API key support (#24): paste a long-lived key from the Bedrock console (Settings → AWS, or onboarding) and gap synthesis / ideonomy run with no expiry dance — the key is stored in your Keychain and both the Anthropic client and boto3 pick it up automatically. Scope is Bedrock only: the Web Search Gateway and the identity check still use SigV4 (profile or the three pasted values).
• Two-probe "Test AWS access" (#25): the check now reports Identity (SigV4) and Bedrock separately, including which auth the Bedrock path used — so an expired SSO session no longer masquerades as "Bedrock is down" when a bearer key has it covered.
• Expiry recovery: an expired session is named as such ("session expired — paste a fresh key set above and re-test"), and a run that failed on AWS auth links straight to Settings and the Retry flow from its detail page.

Notes

• Apple Silicon only; embedding model downloads on first run (Settings/onboarding) as in 0.2.1.

Academic Noosphere 0.2.1 — ephemeral AWS credentials

Adds ephemeral AWS credentials (#23): paste AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID / AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY / AWS_SESSION_TOKEN (from your SSO portal's "Command line or programmatic access" page) directly into the app — onboarding's AWS step or Settings → AWS.

Previously the app only used an ambient AWS_PROFILE, which a Finder-launched app never sees (shell exports don't reach GUI apps). Pasted keys are stored in your macOS Keychain, mirrored to the AWS SDK at runtime, and take precedence over any profile. They expire with your SSO session (typically 1–12 h) — when "Test AWS access" starts failing, paste a fresh set. A shell-exported variable always wins over the Keychain and is never modified.

Everything from v0.2.0 applies: self-contained, Developer ID-signed, notarized and stapled, first-run embedding-model download, Apple Silicon only.

Academic Noosphere 0.2.0 — self-contained signed app

Self-contained macOS app — no uv, no repo clone, no Xcode. Download, drag to Applications, double-click. The Python core is frozen into the bundle (torch-free: SPECTER2 now runs via ONNX Runtime, parity-verified against the original at min cosine 0.9999998 — existing corpora need no rebuild).

Install

1. Download Academic.Noosphere_0.2.0_aarch64_signed.dmg, open it, drag the app to Applications.
2. Double-click to open — the app is Developer ID-signed, notarized, and stapled (Gatekeeper: Notarized Developer ID). No right-click dance.
3. The window opens immediately; the in-app onboarding wizard collects credentials (stored only in your macOS Keychain): AWS profile with Bedrock access, OpenAlex key + polite-pool email.

What's new in 0.2.0

• Frozen sidecar bundled in the app (Contents/Resources/sidecar) — the uv/checkout path remains for development only (NOOSPHERE_REPO env var forces it).
• Instant window with a boot screen — no more Dock bouncing while the core starts.
• Clean shutdown on SIGTERM/quit (protects the local databases).
• New app icon.
• First-run embedding-model download (onboarding step + Settings panel, live progress).
• Signed with hardened runtime (Developer ID), notarized by Apple, and stapled.

Known limitations

• Apple Silicon only.
• The SPECTER2 embedding model (~420 MB) is not bundled — onboarding (or Settings) downloads it once from jacksodj/specter2-base-onnx, checksum-verified. Until it's installed, surveys fall back to a stub embedder (browsing existing data is unaffected).

Academic Noosphere 0.1.0 — first prebuilt macOS app

Prebuilt macOS app (Apple Silicon) so contributors can run Academic Noosphere without installing Xcode, Rust, or Node. The app is a thin shell: it still runs the Python core from a repo checkout via uv, which bootstraps its own Python + dependencies on first launch.

Setup (one time, ~2 minutes)

1. Install uv (manages Python automatically — no pyenv/homebrew Python needed):

   curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
   

2. Clone the repo to a conventional location (the app looks in ~/Code/academic-noosphere, then ~/academic-noosphere; any other path needs NOOSPHERE_REPO=/path/to/checkout set when launching):

   git clone https://github.com/jacksodj/academic-noosphere ~/Code/academic-noosphere
   

3. Download Academic.Noosphere_0.1.0_aarch64.dmg below, open it, and drag the app to Applications.
4. First open — the build is unsigned, so macOS Gatekeeper will block a plain double-click. Either right-click the app → Open → Open, or clear quarantine:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Academic Noosphere.app"
   

First launch

• The first start runs uv sync implicitly (downloads Python + all dependencies) — allow a few minutes; the window appears when the core is up.
• The in-app onboarding wizard collects credentials (stored in your macOS Keychain, never in the repo): AWS profile with Bedrock access (Claude models), OpenAlex API key + polite-pool email; Semantic Scholar / NCBI keys optional.
• Startup problems surface as an alert dialog; for detail, run uv run noosphere-core from the checkout in a terminal and read the error.

Notes

• Apple Silicon only (built on arm64). Intel Macs need a local build.
• The app reads the checkout at launch — git pull in the repo updates the Python core without re-downloading the app; a new .app is only needed when the shell or SPA changes.