Dendro v0.6.0 — Operator Usability, Zero-Ceremony Dashboards & Smart Defaults

Dendro v0.6.0 Release Notes — Operator Usability, Zero-Ceremony Dashboards & Smart Defaults

Release Date: 2026-10-19
Tag: v0.6.0
Previous Release: v0.5.0

---

Executive Summary

Dendro v0.6.0 focuses on operator usability and zero-ceremony workflows, shaped by a 5-member multi-model Usability Council (Solo Operator Persona, Fleet Supervisor Persona, UX Specialist, Information Architect, and Product Owner across AGY, Codex, and Claude).

Previously, inspecting fleet health or asking a semantic question required knowing internal plumbing: running dendro run, discovering exact RFC3339 --from and --to timestamps in the database, manually running dendro materialize before dendro ask, and matching 6 exact canned strings. Running dendro ui --window 7d against a missing database failed with an opaque Error: analytics database could not be opened, and running it against recorded historical corpora anchored to Utc::now() instead of the recorded data window, rendering 100% UNKNOWN.

In v0.6.0, operators can go from zero to insights in a single command while preserving Dendro's strict analytical truthfulness, read-only source guarantees, #![deny(unsafe_code)], and static/parameterized DuckDB queries.

---

Highlights & New Capabilities

1. Zero-Config Entry (dendro & dendro status)

• Running bare dendro (with no arguments) now runs dendro status instead of exiting with a clap usage error; dendro --help and dendro --version remain unchanged.
• dendro status [--db <path>] [--rig <rig>] [--format text|json] inspects the analytics database read-only and reports:
  • Database status (ready, empty, or not_initialized)
  • Redacted rigs and seats, plus usage_rows, activity_rows, and queue_rows counts
  • Exact recorded timestamp bounds (min_timestamp, max_timestamp), scoped to --rig when supplied
  • Semantic snapshot status (semantic_fresh: true/false and semantic_snapshot scope from dendro_semantic_snapshot / dendro_semantic_guard)
  • Discovered local harness roots and copy-pasteable next commands
• Missing database errors now include actionable guidance:
  analytics database could not be opened (not found; run 'dendro run' or 'dendro dashboard --auto-ingest' first)

2. One-Command Dashboard (dendro dashboard) & Conditional --auto-ingest

• dendro dashboard: Launches the interactive terminal explorer (--once for a non-interactive snapshot) over the database's active time window (--window all by default) and displays the resolved window and window_resolution mode in the header.
• dendro dashboard --html [path]: Exports the self-contained, secret-redacted, seat-aliased offline HTML dashboard (dendro-dashboard.html by default) in one step.
• --auto-ingest: Supported on both dendro dashboard and dendro ui. When --auto-ingest is passed and the target DuckDB file does not exist or has no recorded timestamps (status != "ready"), Dendro runs a local read-only ingestion pass over default harness roots before opening the dashboard.

3. Universal Smart --window Anchored to Recorded Data (Rig-Scoped)

• --window 1h|24h|7d|30d|all is supported across dashboard, ui (defaulting to 7d), report, trace, materialize, export, ask, and simulate topology. (report and trace preserve their v0.5.0 --from/--to defaults when --window is omitted.)
• When --from/--to are omitted on a populated database, resolve_window scopes timestamp bounds to --rig (when provided), floors min_timestamp to whole seconds, sets the half-open [from, to) upper bound to max_timestamp + 1s so events at max_timestamp (including sub-second timestamps and single-timestamp databases) are never excluded, and discloses "window_resolution" ("recorded_bounds", "anchored_to_recorded_data", "explicit", or "trailing_utc").

4. Zero-Ceremony dendro ask (Auto-Materialization & Natural Aliases)

• Positional Question: dendro ask "highest idle" works directly alongside --question.
• Auto-Materialization: When the semantic snapshot (dendro_semantic_snapshot / dendro_semantic_guard) is missing or stale, the CLI dendro ask automatically refreshes the 4 canonical views (v_seat_idle_ranking, v_handoff_rework_analysis, v_mission_token_burn, v_executive_governance) over the active window (writing the derived semantic tables in DuckDB) unless --no-refresh is set, recording "auto_materialized": true and "window_resolution" in the JSON response. Calling dendro_core::semantic::answer in Rust or passing --no-refresh preserves strict read-only refusal on stale snapshots.
• Natural Intent Discovery (--list-intents): dendro ask --list-intents (or bare dendro ask with no question) prints all 6 canonical intents and example phrases without requiring a database.
• Expanded Natural Phrases: Recognizes natural questions for idle time ("idle", "highest idle", "where is time being wasted?"), yield/token burn ("worst yield", "token burn", "where do tokens go?"), rework ("rework", "handoff friction", "why is there rework?"), verification ("verify", "provenance"), trace ("trace idle", "trace tokens", "trace handoffs", "trace rework"), and honest limits ("limits", "known limits"), while still refusing out-of-scope mission/date qualifiers truthfully.

5. In-App TUI Keyboard Help (? / h)

• Pressing ? or h in dendro ui / dendro dashboard opens an interactive help view documenting panel cycling (Tab, Left/Right), seat selection (Up/Down, Enter), forensic trace inspection (1/2/3), and exit (q, Ctrl-C).