rapid-mac-v0.13.1

[0.13.1] — 2026-08-26

Added

• Experimental Qwen3.8-Flash-Next text inference. The M1 lane supports the
  mixed 4-bit checkpoint through the qwen3.8-flash-next-4bit alias on Macs
  with at least 128 GB of unified memory. This release exposes the experimental
  text lane through the CLI and API; release validation used a 256 GB Mac, and
  Desktop, MTP, and vision support remain planned for a later release.
  (#2433)
• Assistant changes are explicit, safe transactions. API clients can choose
  whether a busy text or vision model switch should reject, wait, or abort
  active assistant work. Desktop rejects a busy switch safely, and auxiliary
  speech models remain resident. The /v1/models/load API defaults
  memory_policy to evict_first_if_needed: it keeps the rollback-safe load
  when old and new fit together, evicts the replaced assistant first only when
  keeping both breaches the limit but the replacement alone fits, and otherwise
  returns a typed 507 with replacement_projection before destructive mutation.
  Set memory_policy=keep_then_commit to require rollback-safe loading.
  (#2369)
• Large multi-variant repositories can download one serving format. The CLI
  accepts --bits or --format, so users do not need to fetch every
  quantization in a repository. (#2145,
  #2338)

Fixed

• Mirrored subfolder quantizations download from the fast path. Models such
  as LFM2.5 2.6B 4-bit no longer fall back to a slow or unreachable upstream
  route merely because the quantization lives in a repository subfolder.
  (#2279)
• Explicit weather requests have dedicated regression coverage. Evaluation
  scenarios detect models selecting general web search or claiming the
  advertised Weather tool is unavailable. (#2222,
  #2327)
• Desktop photo input uses the updated bundled vision runtime. Release
  validation now requires image-dependent answers from two cached vision
  families before the sidecar can ship. (#2384,
  #2380)
• Vision-capable Qwen checkpoints choose the working lane automatically.
  Vision-capable Qwen3.5, Qwen3.6, and supported Qwen3.8 checkpoints use the
  vision lane automatically when mlx-vlm 0.6.16 or newer is installed and the
  checkpoint meets its measured vision-memory recommendation. If automatic
  admission cannot use that lane, serving falls back to text with a
  machine-readable reason. The experimental Flash-Next checkpoint is explicitly
  text-only in this release. CLI users can force text serving with --no-mllm,
  and Desktop exposes the same per-model Performance choice. Requests that
  enable MTP or another speculative decoder select the text lane, where that
  decoder is supported.
• API validation fails early with actionable fields. Requests accept scalar
  or array stop, reject invalid timeouts and non-boolean residency controls,
  and identify the exact invalid load field. (#2367,
  #2371,
  #2372)
• Guided setup accurately describes data preservation. Its confirmation no
  longer implies that onboarding reset deletes user data. (#2239,
  #2322)
• Telemetry consent appears after Rapid demonstrates value. The one-time
  question follows a successful chat reply, delivered dictation transcript, or
  generated image instead of interrupting first launch. Nothing is sent before
  explicit consent. (#2424)
• Share CLI contracts use supported invocation forms and run in CI.
  (#2377,
  #2382)
• Environment diagnosis identifies the CLI that is actually running.
  rapid-mlx doctor reports both the active-environment executable and a
  different installation found on PATH, with actionable mismatch guidance.
  (#2352,
  #2402)
• Offline serving failures are concise and actionable. An uncached model
  now stops after one cache and connectivity explanation instead of repeating
  download work or recommending an unrelated serving lane.
  (#2357,
  #2423)
• First run chooses a hardware-fit starter and photos use the correct lane.
  Eligible cached models remain preferred, and supported hybrid vision models
  route automatically. (#2385,
  #2219,
  #2388)
• 8 GB Macs start with a model that fits. First run recommends
  lfm2.5-1b-4bit on the lowest memory tier, avoiding the RAM warning produced
  by the previous 2.6B starter. (#2432)
• Dictation remains available across chat-model switches. The speech model
  stays resident and is restored after switching chat models.
  (#2400)
• MTP assistants survive loading a second model. Generation remains bound
  to its worker, so the original assistant continues answering instead of
  losing its GPU stream. (#2441)
• Model-switch memory projections credit the assistant being replaced. The
  estimate uses the same fit thresholds as the replacement transaction.
  Desktop's low-memory threshold moves from 85% to 100%: 95–100% shows
  advisory guidance and above 100% requires confirmation. The previous
  conservative threshold is superseded now that projections credit memory
  freed by the model being replaced.
  (#2443,
  #2444)
• Speech to Text arms itself after model lifecycle changes. When speech
  input is enabled, it becomes ready without an extra manual start button.
  (#2448)
• Structured text requests terminate normally on the vision lane.
  JSON-schema responses and bounded-thinking or title-generation requests now
  terminate normally on the vision lane: their request-local output processors
  and complete configured EOS set reach the multimodal scheduler, while photo
  requests continue using the same server.
  (#2471)
• Serving lanes honor the requested workload. Experimental
  Qwen3.8-Flash-Next remains on its supported text lane, MTP and other
  speculative decoding requests choose the text lane, and text-diffusion
  assistants can replace another assistant without a spurious group-conflict
  response. (#2472)
• iPhone HEIC photos can be attached to chat. Picker, drop, and paste share
  one normalization boundary that converts supported still images to truthful
  JPEG or PNG bytes while preserving the attachment size limit.
  (#2467)
• High-resolution photos fit the model's vision budget. Desktop downscales
  oversized images before sending them, and a typed image rejection no longer
  leaves a failed attachment turn that contaminates the conversation.
• Launch avoids full app-bundle identity revalidation. Keychain namespace
  selection checks the signing certificate without rehashing every sealed
  resource, and Escape no longer silently declines the later telemetry-consent
  invitation. (#2470)
• Photo rejection and multimodal reloads recover cleanly. A rejected image
  cannot poison the next text turn, and a reloaded vision model cannot reuse a
  stale generation worker. (#2379,
  #2378,
  #2401,
  #2397)
• Live API identity and cancellation are dependable. Readiness and connect
  guidance use the live port and served model name, and public streaming IDs
  are cancellable. (#2386,
  #2348,
  #2395,
  #2353,
  #2398,
  #2342)
• Reload failures preserve a truthful serving state. Registry, residency,
  routing, readiness, and speech handoff remain consistent even when both a
  primary reload and its restoration fail. (#2394,
  #2360)
• Download status and size warnings stay truthful offline. Catalog size is
  retained when remote metadata is unavailable, and cached pulls report
  verification rather than a new download. (#2391,
  #2350,
  #2392,
  #2349)
• Cached speech checkpoints are recognized by their real layouts. Complete
  Kokoro and Whisper Turbo snapshots count as runnable when their verified
  family-specific weights are present. (#2406,
  #2417)
• System-prompt settings explain what is actually sent. Saved and effective
  prompts are distinguished, and optional credentials are read only when
  needed. (#2341)
• Complete offline snapshots remain available without a branch ref. A
  single immutable cached revision is recognized as runnable, while ambiguous
  multi-snapshot caches still fail closed. (#2351,
  #2404)
• Model switching no longer scans mounted filesystems to discover servers.
  Live socket ownership supplies the same port and process facts without
  prompting for access to unrelated volumes. (#2343,
  #2408)
• Files can be dropped directly into the chat composer. Supported native
  file URLs use the existing attachment importer, while unsupported drops
  cannot leak a local path into the message. Contributed by
  osdodo. (#2396)

Documentation

• Corrected the 0.13.0 Nemotron Labs Diffusion description to identify its
  supported text-model path. (#2376)
• Published a reproducible M2 Pro comparison of 0.13.0 and 0.12.18.
  (#2375)

Known issues

• Suffix decoding with sliding-window models such as Gemma 4 and GPT-OSS can
  abort a request at a window boundary. Disable suffix decoding for these
  models as a workaround. (#2463)