v1.42.0 : Persistent missions, evidence-backed memory, and the self-improvement layer

v1.42.0
Persistent memory now tracks evidence, uncertainty and revision history across projects.

SQLite outside the runtime. Project and global knowledge use separate memory.sqlite files in VS Code storage, with content-addressed artifact directories. Existing knowledge.json files migrate with backups retained. The embedded SQLite/WASM runtime ships with the extension; self-updates leave stored memory in place.

Confidence and relearning. Skill confidence combines current-version successful/failed uses with a 90-day decay; it is an evidence heuristic, not a probability. Inconclusive trials are neutral. Global automatic reuse needs current successful evidence from two missions in two workspaces and confidence of at least 0.70. Failures trigger a 24-hour cooldown. Correction and merging create fresh candidates; promotion does not copy project proof, and forgetting retires a skill with a tombstone rather than securely erasing history.

Typed recall. recall_memory balances relevant skills, experiments, observed failures and project constraints using confidence, freshness, domains and type diversity. Project episodes and vectors remain scoped to the workspace. CodeFlare: Memory Status reports storage readiness and counts.
Optional semantic retrieval. Set codeflare.memoryEmbeddingModel to use real embeddings from the active local/OpenAI-compatible provider. Queries and selected memory snippets are sent there. Blank uses local lexical matching; provider errors fall back with a warning. The implementation uses bounded cosine scans and cached vectors, with SQLite file locking and atomic exports.
The self-improvement layer

What turns a thoroughly verifying tool into a system that can learn without supervision — and what keeps that safe.

Guardrails the agent cannot loosen. The files that constrain the agent (policy and its gate, evidence and acceptance, git isolation, write ownership, self-update and the recovery scripts) are locked during a self-improvement task in three layers: unwritable through the file tools, unwritable and un-committable through run_command (a shell write followed by git commit would otherwise make the edit look like the baseline), and a self-update candidate whose guardrails differ from the last human-activated version is refused unless the exact files are approved in a modal. The command-trust list in tools.ts/config.ts is deliberately not locked — it is the normal improvement surface — and that gap is documented, not hidden.

Independent judge. codeflare.judgeProvider/Endpoint/Model route requirement review, Prove It, Break My Solution and reflection to a different model than the one that did the work. A judge that resolves to the working model is treated as absent, and metrics record judgeModel only when the judge was really independent.

Reflection. CodeFlare: Reflect on Experience (or the Memory tab, or codeflare.memoryReflection: after-mission) reads recorded experiments and proposes candidate skills, project constraints, contradictions between stored skills and recurring failure patterns. Every constraint must cite at least two known episodes; proposals that would weaken verification are rejected; nothing is validated by reflection itself.

Calibration that feeds back. The per-turn record of what the model claimed versus what a check demonstrated now changes behaviour: a model with a measured habit of "done" without a demonstrating check is told its own numbers and gets a mandatory behavioural check on every turn. A thin sample changes nothing; a reliable record is acknowledged.

Mission budget and stop rule. codeflare.missionBudget bounds an autonomous mission as a whole (turns, tool calls, tokens, wall time) and pauses one that makes no measurable progress for several turns, with the reason shown. Resuming an exhausted mission is refused before anything runs.

Causal skill validation. In a fraction of autonomous missions (codeflare.skillHoldoutRate, default 0.1) an eligible skill is deliberately withheld and the outcome recorded as a control trial. Once enough controls exist, a skill's lift over its own absence is computed; a skill with no lift drops back to candidate however often a mission passed with it. Interactive turns never withhold.

Night Shift. Reflection also derives a backlog of evidence-cited goals — recurring failures, contradictions, missions that ended unaccepted (CodeFlare: Show Backlog). CodeFlare: Night Shift works them one autonomous mission at a time under the mission budget and the guardrail lock; each goal prompt requires acceptance criteria first and tells the mission to stop and report when the problem does not reproduce. A human still presses the button, and only in a non-interactive autonomyProfile.

Memory tab. The chat settings panel gained a Memory tab: current counts, Reflect on recorded experiments, and Clear this project / agent memory / everything — each behind a confirmation, each reporting what was actually removed. Clearing archives a legacy knowledge.json instead of letting it re-import what was just deleted.

Fix: global storage under a vscode-userdata URI (a plain local install) was treated as "not file-backed", which disabled memory entirely. Any storage URI that resolves to a local absolute path is now accepted; remote and virtual filesystems are still excluded.
Memory remains local to the VS Code profile/extension host, without automatic cloud synchronization. Tests of restart and cross-project recall verify persistence and isolation; improved coding speed or quality requires a separate controlled benchmark. See README.md for eligibility rules, storage, migration and privacy details.

v1.41.1
Memory now lives in VS Code's extension storage, with separate workspace and cross-project scopes.

Three memory layers. Conversations and active missions stay in workspaceState. Project facts, landscapes and project skills use storageUri; reusable agent skills use globalStorageUri. New memory files are stored outside the repository.
Explicit skill scope. save_skill and try_skill accept project (default) or global, and list_skills shows the scope. Relevant global skills enter future task context only after validation with passing execution evidence. Saving a skill alone does not validate it.
Project-only migration. Existing .codeflare/memory.md and .codeflare/knowledge.json are imported once into private project storage. Original files remain as backups; no legacy content is automatically promoted to global memory.
Global memory is shared across workspaces using the same extension storage; it is not automatic cloud sync across machines, profiles or remote hosts. Project run logs, checkpoints and verification settings remain task artifacts. See README.md for the storage layout.

v1.41.0
Persistent missions, independent test authoring and controlled self-updates.

Live progress footer. Exploration, design, build/repair, verification and delivery stay visible above the input. Backward transitions include their reason; expandable history shows agent tasks and results. Stop remains available during the separate test stage.
Remembered task controls. Autonoom uitvoeren and Tests schrijven en uitvoeren both default to off. Autonomous mode includes testing and skips plan approval while preserving existing command permissions, path rules and budgets. A separate test agent works from the original request; the coordinator actually executes the tests and sends failures back for bounded repairs. Missing or inconclusive test evidence does not count as a pass.
Parallel work. codeflare.maxParallelAgents sets a shared pool of 1–32 concurrent subagents per mission, default 32. Additional tasks queue. Ownership checks and serialized mutations coordinate the shared workspace; the coordinator handles commands and integration. New limits apply to the next mission.
Resume after reload. Saved mission state includes phases, transitions, changed files and agent results. Interrupted work is reconciled through CodeFlare: Resume Mission or Hervatten, rather than automatically replaying tool calls. CodeFlare: Save Mission and Reload saves an idle mission before reloading.
Landscapes and reusable skills. The agent can record sources, acceptance criteria, decisions and unknowns, and save candidate procedures in .codeflare/knowledge.json. Skills need a successful trial with current passing test/runtime evidence before automatic reuse. This records observed success, not benchmark-proven improvement.
Self-improvement workflow. CodeFlare: Improve CodeFlare works in the extension's source repository. The default codeflare.selfImprovement: "suggest" prepares a candidate; "automatic" opts into activation after validation. Prepare and Validate Self-update checks an isolated snapshot against committed tests, type checking, build and a VS Code activation/command-registration smoke test. Activate Validated Self-update installs the tested artifact and reloads.
Self-updates require an initial manual installation of a working release with the smoke and recovery runners. Before activation, set codeflare.selfUpdateKnownGoodVsix to a retained VSIX matching the installed bundle, and ensure codeflare.selfUpdateCli targets the same VS Code installation. An external helper attempts automatic reinstallation of that package if startup health fails; a manual reload may still be needed after a crash or rollback. The smoke test does not cover every UI flow or establish improved coding performance.

Packaging no longer deploys. npm run package builds the VSIX; installation is explicit with npm run deploy. Older packages are preserved.

Requires VS Code 1.85+. Source-based self-updates also require Git, Node.js/npm and the locked development toolchain. See README.md for setup.