Bench 0.2.0

Deep alpha, made for myself. A hobby project, not a product: it may break or change completely. The downloads are built by GitHub Actions from this tag.

What's new since 0.1.0

• The UI is reworked from scratch to look and behave like a Mac app (Xcode, Finder, Messages, System Settings): a Finder-like sidebar, a classic chat with bubbles and one rounded composer, System Settings-style forms, segmented controls and switches, the macOS menu bar with every shortcut, light and dark following macOS.
• Chat and Code. Every project has two faces, a switch in the title bar: the conversation, and the project as an IDE shows it (the Explorer: a file tree, documents in tabs, lines changed since HEAD, diffs, language servers, Problems, the thread beside the editor).
• Projects anywhere. A folder on this Mac, a folder on a server over SSH, or a project of an agent installed on the server. A project can keep its agent inside its folder.
• A project's Settings page: where it lives, reasoning, approvals, code mode, compaction, its Telegram bot. Its environment (soul, prompts, skills, MCP and language servers, schedule) sits in the Explorer.
• Local models first: the context used in the title bar, the answer's speed, a fallback model when the main one fails or goes silent.
• The agent got stronger: read and edit by line anchors, grep/glob/ls, code navigation through language servers, diagnostics after every edit, background processes, code mode, its own memory notes per project.
• Threads: a queue of messages while the agent works (send now, edit, take back), the agent's plan and questions as cards, "Fork from here", a second thread side by side.
• Inserts: /terminal, /browser, /tools. /tasks is gone.
• Gear: Agents (models and voice of each, servers' agents), Presets, Appearance.
• The browser demo builds again.

Install

• macOS (Apple Silicon): unzip, move to Applications. The build is not notarized: right-click → Open the first time.
• Linux, Windows: the binary; built in CI, I don't use them myself.
• The agent needs Node.js 22.18+; Bench installs and starts it on first launch.

Full Changelog: v0.1.0...v0.2.0

Bench 0.1.0

The first public build of Bench, the app made with bench-kit.

• macOS (Apple Silicon): Bench-macos-arm64.zip. The app isn't signed: the first time, right-click Bench.app → Open.
• Linux (x86_64): Bench-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
• Windows (x86_64): Bench-windows-x86_64.zip

No install needed to look around: the browser demo is the same app with made-up data. The chat needs Hermes Agent; run with BENCH_DEMO=1 to see the demo session instead.