v0.17.2

0.17.2 - 2026-09-05

Highlights: more complete searchable message history, bounded backfill retries, and clearer guidance for commands used alongside continuous sync.

• Messages: extract comment bodies and album summaries in live/history sync, preserving comment reply targets and matching quote metadata. (#383 - thanks @shishiv and @Entretoize)
• History: retry an unanswered backfill anchor once with the next local message, report both anchors, and keep retries bounded without deleting history or filtering message IDs. (#371 - thanks @Entretoize)
• Sync: serialize message and receipt webhook timestamps as UTC, preserving their instants while replacing host-local offsets with the documented Z form. (#386, #388 - thanks @hchittanuru3)
• Media: explain how media download --read-only --output PATH bypasses the store lock held by continuous sync. (#387 - thanks @hchittanuru3)
• Messages: omit synthetic audio captions while preserving supplied text and the [Audio] display fallback; re-ingestion can correct legacy captions without migrating untouched rows. (#378 - thanks @hchittanuru3)
• CLI: keep successful JSON commands successful when a pipe reader closes early, including Unix SIGPIPE and Windows closed-pipe errors. (#366 - thanks @SebTardif)
• Groups: warn on stderr when groups list truncates matching results, including JSON output, and keep --events warnings machine-readable. (#360 - thanks @hchittanuru3)
• Contacts: bound system-contact exports and their helper processes while preserving the existing 10 MiB file-import limit. (#376 - thanks @SebTardif)
• Docs: render nested heading links and table-of-contents labels safely, preserving links and stable heading anchors. (#370 - thanks @vincentkoc)
• WhatsApp compatibility: update socket-context handling, message identity parsing, group deletion handling, and disconnect event processing through whatsmeow updates.
• Builds: use Go 1.27.1 for development, CI, release verification, and Docker while retaining the Go 1.27.0 source minimum; source builds now identify the upcoming 0.17.2 patch.
• Dependencies: refresh Go modules, pnpm 12.3.1, CI actions, GoReleaser, and Docker images, retaining a verified package-manager integrity pin. (#384 - thanks @thedavidweng)