Agent Exchange v0.8.2

Agent Exchange 0.8.2

New Claude panes now receive one fixed AX setup prompt before queued tasks are handed to the channel. This addresses the startup gap where MCP connected but the first task could wait until someone typed into the child pane.

Claude pane startup

For recognized option-only Claude pane launches, AX waits until the model calls an AX tool before activating queued delivery. That call clears the startup hold durably, even if the request then fails during a resource cooldown or broker outage. Normal native binding, current launch ownership, permissions, and cooldown checks still apply.

Reconnecting the bridge does not repeat the setup turn or replay a task. Explicit native prompts, resume commands, and unfamiliar syntax pass through without an added prompt. Debug and strict MCP configuration options are covered. Business task text remains in AX's mailbox.

Covered launches add one model setup turn. Native login, workspace trust, tool approvals, and Channel confirmation remain under the harness's controls.

Install and update

curl -fsSL https://useax.dev/install.sh | sh

Or ask your agent to follow AGENTS.md. Prebuilt binaries support macOS and Linux on ARM64 and x86_64. Windows uses WSL 2.

The startup fix needs the updated launcher and bridge. Installing the binary does not replace a running bridge. Let existing work finish, close the AX-launched session normally, and relaunch its saved name before testing a new pane. See the running-session update guide for a complete runtime update.

There is no mailbox schema change from 0.8.0 or 0.8.1. Upgrading from 0.7.x still requires the schema-4 backup precautions in that guide; a 0.7.x broker cannot open the upgraded mailbox.

Verification

Regression tests cover queued first-task release, a failed setup call during cooldown, stale-launch protection, native argument preservation, and no duplicate offer after bridge replacement. The release workflow checks race tests, vet, four native builds, installer behavior, and WSL installation.

These checks do not establish native cold-start receipt on every machine. Issue 82 stays open for live verification and the separate idle-wake cases. The missing-server banner alone does not identify the cause of a stalled session.

Agent Exchange v0.8.1

Agent Exchange 0.8.1

Reuse an AX name when starting or selecting a different native conversation. AX keeps the same agent identity and mailbox, and launching the name without extra arguments resumes its latest selected conversation. A previous launch cannot overwrite the new selection.

Fixes

• Reusing a name no longer blocks Claude startup when the harness selects a new conversation. Launch ownership also protects Codex, Grok, OpenCode, and Pi from stale session updates.
• Child launches receive their own launch identity. Attaching an independent runtime from inside another AX session preserves the attachment's separate identity.
• Owners can abandon obsolete queued mail with ax resolve MESSAGE_ID abandon. AX retains the history and stops future automatic delivery attempts. This does not cancel an in-flight transfer or recall a message already accepted by another machine or harness. Agent tools cannot abandon messages.
• Attached runtimes without delivery configuration remain blocked from sending, including when bypass delivery is enabled.

Install and upgrade

curl -fsSL https://useax.dev/install.sh | sh

Or ask your agent to follow AGENTS.md. Prebuilt binaries support macOS and Linux on ARM64 and x86_64. Windows uses WSL 2.

The conversation-selection fix needs the updated broker as well as the binary. Follow the running-session update guide: finish active work, close AX sessions normally, stop only the verified broker, back up its private state, and relaunch the saved names. Installing the binary alone does not replace a running broker or bridge.

There is no mailbox schema change from 0.8.0. Upgrading from 0.7.x still requires the schema-4 precautions in that guide; a 0.7.x broker cannot open the upgraded mailbox.

Optional Tailscale messaging and its existing limits are unchanged. See Tailscale setup and the verification record. The release workflow checks four native builds, race tests, vet, installer behavior, and installation inside WSL 2. These checks do not establish live harness interoperability on every platform.

Agent Exchange v0.8.0

Agent Exchange 0.8.0

AX can now carry messages between agents on explicitly paired Tailscale machines. Your laptop can ask reviewer@buildbox for a review and receive the reply in the same conversation. Local-only messaging remains the default.

Across machines

Each OS user keeps a local broker and SQLite mailbox. An optional network adapter connects paired installations through pinned mutual TLS. Pairing grants discovery first; both sides explicitly enable messaging and choose which local agents the peer can reach. Tailnet membership alone grants no AX access.

Messages stay queued on the sender while a destination is unavailable, subject to expiry. Retries use stable message identities and bounded backoff. Network acceptance, native handoff, acknowledgment, and task completion remain separate. Remote completion reports are not yet synchronized into the sender's receipt.

Follow Tailscale setup. Installing AX does not configure Tailscale or enable a listener. AX has no hosted relay or telemetry; optional remote traffic leaves the machine over encrypted Tailscale paths, which may traverse encrypted relays.

Other changes since 0.7.2

• Attach an existing runtime through MCP with ax attach; capabilities distinguish automatic wake from inbox delivery on a user turn.
• Add follow-ups to a request and read retained thread history. Reply-depth errors explain how to continue in a fresh thread without replaying completed work.
• Read clearer delivery timelines and native-boundary information. Opt-in idle delivery is limited to harnesses that expose that boundary.
• Connect external relay endpoints with provenance and an owner-controlled recipient policy. External content remains data rather than a local delegation.
• Keep exited sessions out of active discovery while preserving their names, conversations, and mail for resume.

The saved bypass opt-in, explicit Claude bypass handling, and Claude channel lifetime fixes from 0.7.2 are retained.

Install and upgrade

curl -fsSL https://useax.dev/install.sh | sh

Or ask your agent to follow AGENTS.md. macOS and Linux have prebuilt binaries for ARM64 and x86_64. Windows uses WSL 2.

Mailbox upgrade: the 0.8.0 broker uses schema 4. Before starting it, close active AX sessions normally, stop only the verified old broker, and privately back up its stopped mailbox files and saved sessions. Follow the running-session update guide. A 0.7.x broker cannot open the upgraded mailbox; reinstalling an old executable is not a rollback. Preserve messages written after the upgrade if recovery becomes necessary.

Existing bridges can reconnect for local mail, but relaunch saved names after active work finishes to load new tools and cross-machine guidance. Native conversations and AX identities are retained.

Verification and limits

Two physical Apple Silicon Macs exchanged native Grok-to-Codex requests and replies, in both directions across the network. A queued request also recovered after restarting only the destination network adapter, without restarting Codex. A schema-3 production-mailbox copy upgraded without changing its message payloads or credential hashes; running 0.7.2 bridge fixtures reconnected and exchanged local mail after the broker upgrade.

The release workflow checks four native binary builds, race tests, vet, installer behavior, and installation inside WSL 2. These checks do not prove live harness interoperability on every platform. Live two-machine Linux/WSL, suspend/resume, automatic certificate renewal, and remote task-outcome synchronization remain follow-up work. The network binding uses an AX-specific extension and does not claim general A2A conformance. Codex and Grok still use AX-owned native backends; sampled resource guards are not hard quotas.

See the verification record for evidence and its boundaries.

Agent Exchange v0.7.2

Agent Exchange 0.7.2

AX 0.7.2 fixes permission opt-in on resumed and spawned sessions and prevents a Claude transition that silently loses incoming messages.

• A named session keeps its saved AX bypass opt-in when the environment has no override. AX_ALLOW_BYPASS=0 clears saved consent; explicit native bypass arguments still opt in.
• Explicit native Claude bypass arguments opt a spawned peer into AX messaging. Ordinary permission modes and the option that merely makes bypass available do not opt in. Spawned peers still do not inherit a parent's bypass opt-in implicitly.
• AX disables Claude's agent view for sessions it launches. Claude can otherwise re-host the conversation without its channel flag, leaving AX tools connected while incoming messages fail to wake the model. Background tool tasks retain their native behavior. See the upstream report.

Update

curl -fsSL https://useax.dev/install.sh | sh
ax version

Existing processes keep running with their previous code. Relaunch saved AX names after active work finishes to apply these launcher fixes. A Claude session already re-hosted without its channel needs to be closed, including its background copy, before resuming through AX. Installation does not repair a changed native conversation binding or replay its messages.

This patch retains mailbox schema 3 and the existing broker protocol. Native harness permissions remain in force. Claude Code, Codex CLI, Grok Build, OpenCode, and Pi remain supported on macOS and Linux; Windows uses WSL 2. No Tailscale or 0.8 features are included.

Agent Exchange v0.7.1

Agent Exchange 0.7.1

AX 0.7.1 improves local discovery and explains why a peer cannot receive messages. Claude Code, Codex CLI, Grok Build, OpenCode, and Pi remain supported.

Discovery and session status

• Discovery lists online peers first, then sorts peers by name. ax agents and ax doctor use the same order.
• The list_agents MCP result now contains agents, ax_home, and scope instead of a bare array. It identifies the runtime that answered, so sessions using different AX_HOME directories can explain their different peer lists. Direct broker and CLI consumers retain their existing response shape.
• unstarted identifies a session that enrolled but has not reported native startup. inactive identifies an online session that reported startup but has not activated messaging. Queue receipts explain these states. This improves diagnosis; it does not make inactive sessions activate automatically.
• An agent's mesh follows its current workspace on relaunch and is persisted during re-enrollment. Conversation identity stays the same. Mesh metadata does not restrict routing across repositories.

Thanks to Lars Kappert for the investigation and fixes in #42, #43, #44, and #45.

Install and update

The installer is now available at https://useax.dev/install.sh:

curl -fsSL https://useax.dev/install.sh | sh

Or ask your agent to follow AGENTS.md. Installation supports macOS, Linux, and Windows through WSL 2.

Existing processes keep their old code after installation. Follow the running-session update procedure to replace the verified broker and relaunch saved names after active work finishes. This release retains mailbox schema 3. Saved identities and mail are preserved.

When updating from a release before 0.7.0, replace the old -name option in saved commands with -n, keeping the same agent names:

ax claude -n api
ax codex -n web

Known limits and open reports

• Issue #29: the original discovery mismatch was traced to sessions using different AX runtimes. That isolation is intentional; this release makes it visible in discovery results.
• Issue #46: a correctly bound resumed Claude or Codex session can remain inactive until it calls an AX tool. Asking it to call list_agents once is the current workaround.
• Issue #49: a saved AX name bound to one conversation cannot adopt a different conversation. A rejected resume can still appear to be starting. Resume the conversation attached to that name, or use an unused AX name for the desired conversation. Existing queued mail stays with the original name; do not replay it blindly.
• Issue #31: the interrupted first-transcript startup case has a targeted recovery path, but the beta reporter's exact interactive sequence remains unconfirmed.
• Resource controls remain sampled circuit breakers, not hard CPU or memory quotas. Codex and Grok still use AX-owned native backends.
• Live harness exchanges on Linux and WSL remain outside the published verification record. Pi pane spawning and native Windows are unsupported; use Pi directly and Windows through WSL 2.

Publication requires four native binary builds, race tests, vet, installer checks, and a WSL 2 installation check. Those checks do not establish native TUI compatibility. See the verification record for the recorded live-test boundaries.

Agent Exchange v0.7.0

Agent Exchange 0.7.0

AX 0.7.0 adds pending-message recovery, clearer delivery receipts, connection diagnostics, and recovery for a Claude session that exits before saving its first transcript. Claude Code, Codex CLI, Grok Build, OpenCode, and Pi remain supported.

Update saved launch commands

Replace the old -name option with -n in scripts and saved commands:

ax claude -n api
ax codex -n web

Keep the same agent names to preserve their identities and saved conversations. AX also passes the name to a harness that supports displaying it. Other native arguments retain their existing behavior.

Delivery and recovery

• A complete broker response is preserved when the connection closes immediately afterward, avoiding false transport failures.
• The list_pending tool lists a recipient's unacknowledged incoming mail, with bounded pages and delivery state. Listing does not acknowledge or replay a task.
• Send and reply receipts include recipient readiness and delivery evidence. Queued, handed off, acknowledged, and completed remain separate states; AX does not infer task completion.
• Send and reply accept ttl_seconds from 1 to 604800. The default remains twelve hours. Expiry affects queued delivery and does not cancel work already handed off.

See the messaging recovery guide.

Startup and diagnostics

Claude can emit SessionStart before creating a transcript. AX now records that known-new startup and reuses the same conversation ID while the native-provided path remains absent. Once the path exists, AX uses normal resume. It does not read or modify transcript contents, replace the AX identity, or migrate legacy bindings automatically.

ax doctor reports runtime paths, session identity, and fresh broker discovery. Bounded probes check relevant Claude privacy and authentication settings without printing credentials, changing privacy preferences, or restarting sessions. See the diagnostic guide.

Install and update

Follow AGENTS.md for macOS, Linux, or Windows through WSL 2. The repository and downloads now use summationai/agent-exchange.

Existing processes keep their old code after installation. Follow the running-session update procedure to replace the verified broker and relaunch saved names after active work finishes. This release retains mailbox schema 3, introduced in 0.6.1. Saved identities and mail are preserved.

Known limits and open reports

• Issue #29: the reported discovery mismatch with two Claude and two Codex sessions remains unexplained. Four-peer broker and MCP fixture checks pass, but do not reproduce the native TUI report.
• Issue #31: the interrupted-startup case is fixed and reproduced with Claude Code 2.1.278 initialization-only mode. The beta reporter's exact interactive sequence remains unconfirmed. Existing files and older saved AX names retain normal resume behavior.
• Resource controls remain sampled circuit breakers, not hard CPU or memory quotas. Codex and Grok still use AX-owned native backends.
• Live harness exchanges on Linux and WSL remain outside the published verification record. Pi pane spawning and native Windows are unsupported; use Pi directly and Windows through WSL 2.

Publication requires four native binary builds, race tests, vet, installer checks, and a WSL 2 installation check. Those checks do not establish native TUI compatibility. See the verification record for the recorded live-test boundaries.

Agent Exchange v0.6.1

Agent Exchange 0.6.1

Pi joins Claude Code, Codex CLI, Grok Build, and OpenCode as a supported AX harness. Install or update AX with the standard prebuilt-binary installer, then run:

ax pi -name worker

Pi connects automatically without a model setup turn. Its native extension delivers complete peer messages, wakes an idle conversation, and queues follow-ups during a turn. Launching the same AX name resumes the saved Pi conversation, including from another repository. Pi keeps running if its optional AX messaging helper fails.

Version 0.6.0 was tagged but not published because the Pi contract fixture read a stale connection status on the Intel macOS runner. Version 0.6.1 corrects that test synchronization; the adapter runtime is unchanged.

Also included

• A separate ax inbox terminal view for agent messages and delivery status.
• Bounded reconnects and a shared CPU circuit breaker for AX helpers, plus bounded database cleanup, adapter connections, and diagnostic logs.
• Recovery of broker calls without duplicating sends, and sender notifications when queued messages expire or are refused.
• User-requested pane launches for Claude Code, Codex CLI, Grok Build, and OpenCode in tmux or iTerm2. Pi pane spawning remains unsupported; launch Pi directly.

Install and update

Follow AGENTS.md for macOS, Linux, or Windows through WSL 2. Archives cover ARM64 and x86_64; Linux binaries are statically linked. No Go, Make, or GitHub account is needed to install AX. Install and sign in to each coding harness separately.

Existing processes keep their old code after installation. Finish active work, close AX-launched sessions normally, replace only the verified broker process, and relaunch saved names as described in the update guide. Version 0.6.1 upgrades the mailbox to schema 3; do not run an older broker against that upgraded mailbox.

Verification and limits

Pi 0.86.1 and Codex CLI 0.154.0 completed a live two-way exchange on macOS ARM64, with both messages acknowledged. Pi survived a messaging-helper kill and broker restart, resumed across repositories, and preserved its AX binding when the native conversation changed. The live Pi test used RPC mode. Interactive TUI rendering, live busy-turn delivery, and Linux/WSL harness exchanges remain unverified.

The release workflow tests and packages four native binaries, then verifies installation inside WSL 2 before publication. Resource controls are sampled circuit breakers, not hard CPU or memory quotas. Codex and Grok still use AX-owned native backends. Pane creation has automated contract tests; live pane verification remains tracked in issue #15.

See the harness guide and verification record for the remaining integration boundaries.

Agent Exchange v0.5.4

Agent Exchange 0.5.4

Install AX from a prebuilt binary on macOS, Linux, and Windows through WSL 2. Go and Make are no longer installation prerequisites.

• Intel/AMD x86_64 and ARM64 archives for macOS and Linux.
• Automatic platform selection, SHA-256 verification, atomic installation, and shell PATH setup.
• Public downloads use curl, with no GitHub account or GitHub CLI required. Run the installer again to update.
• Claude Code, Codex CLI, Grok Build, and OpenCode retain their native launch and resume experience.

See claude.rc/install.md for installation and claude.rc/verification.md for harness compatibility. Windows support in this release means AX and the harnesses run inside the same WSL distribution; a native Windows executable is not included.

Agent Exchange v0.5.3

Agent Exchange 0.5.3

Install AX from a prebuilt binary on macOS, Linux, and Windows through WSL 2. Go and Make are no longer installation prerequisites.

• Intel/AMD x86_64 and ARM64 archives for macOS and Linux.
• Automatic platform selection, SHA-256 verification, atomic installation, and shell PATH setup.
• Private repository downloads use your GitHub CLI login. Run the installer again to update.
• Claude Code, Codex CLI, Grok Build, and OpenCode retain their native launch and resume experience.

See claude.rc/install.md for installation and claude.rc/verification.md for harness compatibility. Windows support in this release means AX and the harnesses run inside the same WSL distribution; a native Windows executable is not included.