EXP [design] v2.4 — Meet Sanaa.

EXP [design] v2.4

Meet Sanaa—and a vector toolset that grew up.

EXP [design] 2.4 introduces Sanaa, an optional design companion that works from
the live canvas while leaving the designer in control. It also completes the
deferred vector-tool queue, closes several export-fidelity gaps, and smooths out
daily canvas, Layers, and multi-window work.

Meet Sanaa

• Ask Sanaa for a critique, design directions, variations, repetitive work, or
  help completing a design directly from the canvas context menu.
• Sanaa can inspect the frontmost document and draw editable pages, artboards,
  and layers. New work remains ordinary EXP content that can be selected,
  changed, saved, reopened, and exported normally.
• Existing work is protected by explicit permission. Sanaa asks before changing
  it, applies small transactional batches, and leaves each batch as one clearly
  named Undo step.
• A dedicated panel streams the conversation and activity, identifies connected
  agents, highlights affected canvas objects, and provides Select and Go actions.
  The full response reader renders selectable Markdown in a normal resizable
  window.
• Structured critique reports organize findings in a numbered rail. Show on
  canvas jumps to the exact layer; Explore places the finding back into the
  composer for review without sending or changing anything automatically.
• Critiques can use measured document facts for contrast—including bounded
  sampling over gradients—text size, target size, spacing, fonts, component
  roles, relationships, and instance overrides. Sanaa distinguishes measured
  facts, estimates, and items EXP cannot assess rather than claiming blanket
  compliance.
• A bundled, versioned design-knowledge pack grounds critiques and directions in
  the document's own visual language. A separate etiquette guide teaches any
  connected agent to use stable IDs, ask about placement, reuse Design Language
  tokens, avoid unrequested deletion, and fail honestly.
• A guided setup flow covers in-app Codex, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, generic
  MCP clients, and the choice to use no assistant at all.

Sanaa is off by default. EXP ships no language model, subscription, or API key.
The in-app conversation uses the signed-in local Codex runtime; external MCP
clients can use EXP's local canvas bridge under their own provider and privacy
settings. Conversation access and permission to change a canvas remain separate.

Better paths and drawing tools

• The Pencil tool turns freehand strokes into ordinary editable Bézier paths,
  with a fidelity control that meaningfully changes the fit.
• Direct Select moves the whole object when no anchors are selected, while
  anchors and handles still take priority.
• Pen handles keep smooth symmetric pairing by default and can be broken with
  Option for corner work.
• Live editable text can carry a real outline in the canvas, semantic HTML, and
  SVG.
• Convert to Outlines, Convert to Path, Outline Stroke, Fill, and Stroke work
  recursively through groups and mixed selections while preserving hierarchy and
  committing one undo step.
• Placed SVG dash arrays reconstruct EXP's editable Dash and Dot patterns, and
  those patterns round-trip through SVG.

Canvas and workspace fixes

• Moving path points refits their object bounds so hit testing, selection,
  shadows, and paint bounds follow the visible geometry.
• Layers selection immediately receives arrow-key nudges, and the persistent
  Auto-select control supports moving a selected object beneath overlapping
  artwork.
• Reveal in Layers and Expand or Collapse All now target the live Layers surface
  after docking, floating, collapse, and document changes.
• Floating trays return above document windows on every display but no longer
  cover EXP popovers, menus, field tips, or an active Sanaa response reader.
• Automatic artboard creation, paste, Duplicate, and Sanaa placement avoid loose
  visible artwork on the wall while preserving intentional explicit placement.

Export fidelity

• Noise and dissolve effects now render through PNG, JPEG, and PDF export instead
  of disappearing.
• Oversized layer blurs degrade in resolution instead of silently dropping the
  effect.
• Transparent gradient falloff retains smooth alpha through raster export, and
  the repaired effect path closes two PDF compositing errors found while testing
  layered production artwork.
• Existing SVG, semantic HTML, design-token, CodePen, Handoff Package, import,
  component, and canvas-page workflows remain covered by the release regression
  suite.

Honest limits

• Sanaa needs a supported signed-in local agent host. Claude Desktop and other
  external MCP clients use copyable setup rather than a bundled one-click
  extension in this release.
• A rare stack of saturated transparent radial gradients, opacity, and certain
  blend modes can still produce a colored ring in raster export. The common
  opaque/stepped gradient failure is fixed; the remaining production edge case
  is tracked for a fixture-led follow-up.
• SVG export still cannot represent inner-shadow spread on every arbitrary
  silhouette. EXP keeps the value in the document and reports the limitation.
• Browser rendering is the SVG conformance target. Preview and browsers render
  EXP's dashed SVG correctly; some Illustrator versions may interpret the same
  file differently.
• A live text outline is not preserved by Convert to Outlines; that conversion
  remains separate from the editable live-text stroke feature.

EXP [design] 2.4 is build 15 and requires macOS 26.2 or later.