Sonata v0.5.0

Sonata v0.5.0 asks before quitting, improves session reading position, keeps Codex up to date, and brings other improvements.

• Quitting asks first. Cmd+Q now confirms before taking your live sessions down.
• Improved session reading position. Each session reopens where you left off reading it. When a new reply arrives, its top edge is brought to the top of your viewport.
• One button sends and stops. During a run the composer button reads Stop; type anything and it flips back to Send.
• Sonata keeps Codex up to date. A default-on setting updates the Codex CLI in the background: updates never touch a running session and finish on their own even if you quit.
• Guidance when a CLI isn't ready. If the selected CLI is missing or signed out, a card in the composer states the fact and offers the fix.
• New chats open on the CLI you last used. The default-provider setting is retired.

Also in this release: a Codex that dies silently mid-session is offered for resume, and a failed Codex auto-compaction warns instead of silently dropping context; the question drawer no longer breaks IME composition; Max/Ultra model tiers are recognized end to end; and a batch of smaller fixes across delivery, focus, and settings.

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Updating: if you're on an earlier version, Sonata will offer this update in-app — click Restart to Update in the sidebar when it appears (or menu → Check for Updates…).

Install: download the DMG below, open it, and drag Sonata to Applications. Requires a Mac with Apple Silicon (arm64). The app is signed and notarized.

Sonata v0.4.0

Sonata v0.4.0 routes files to the right apps, puts Settings in the left sidebar, and fixes Composer slash command issues.

• Files open with the right app. Opening a file from a session now hands it to macOS when Sonata isn't the right reader: HTML opens in your default browser, media and other binary files open in Quick Look. Sonata's preview stays focused on what agents write to be read. File links in transcripts that used to do nothing now open properly — including paths with spaces or CJK characters — and the rare binary dead-end gained a Reveal in Finder exit.
• Settings lives in the sidebar. A persistent footer at the bottom of the sidebar now holds the settings entry — one click, always visible, no hunting through menus.
• Updating is one click. The update pill now reads Restart to Update and does exactly that on a single click — the old two-step arm-then-confirm was easy to miss, so some updates simply never happened. While installing it reads Installing….
• Slash commands submit exactly as typed. The composer no longer second-guesses unknown commands with a confirm step (which also misfired on pasted absolute paths). What you type is what the CLI receives — full terminal parity, and your CLI's own newest commands work in Sonata the moment they exist.
• The command picker helps anywhere in your prompt. It now follows the "/" token at your cursor: mid-prompt it completes and inserts without submitting ("…rewrite this using /architect"), and only when the command is the entire input does Enter execute it.

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Updating: if you're on an earlier version, Sonata will offer this update in-app — click Restart to Update in the sidebar when it appears (or menu → Check for Updates…).

Install: download the DMG below, open it, and drag Sonata to Applications. Requires a Mac with Apple Silicon (arm64). The app is signed and notarized.

Sonata v0.3.0

Sonata v0.3.0 is a performance-focused release that improves CPU, memory, and disk I/O usage.

• Streaming output is much cheaper. Terminal output is now coalesced once, upstream of every consumer, and the live transcript is cleaned lazily — only when it's actually rendered. Long, chatty agent runs no longer make the machine work anywhere near as hard.
• Approval prompts are detected more reliably, at lower cost. Detection now reads the reconstructed terminal screen on a short trailing cadence instead of re-scanning every raw output chunk — prompt fragments split across chunks no longer confuse it, and the scan runs far less often.
• Background sessions are close to free. Output from sessions you're not viewing no longer drives rendering; events are delivered only to the views that need them; a task view you switch away from is evicted and rebuilt on return; render caches are byte-capped. Keeping many sessions open now costs little.
• Far fewer disk writes. The run index persists through a dirty-gated, time- and size-bounded flush instead of rewriting on every event, and the file watcher stopped hashing file contents — it relies on cheap stat identity instead.
• File-change lists show what the agent actually changed. Changes in a run report are now attributed from the agent's own tool calls rather than filesystem watching, so build artifacts and other incidental noise disappear — including retroactively, when older reports load.

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Updating: if you're on v0.2.x, Sonata will offer this update in-app — click Update in the sidebar when it appears (or menu → Check for Updates…).

Install: download the DMG below, open it, and drag Sonata to Applications. Requires a Mac with Apple Silicon (arm64). The app is signed and notarized.

Sonata v0.2.1

Sonata v0.2.1 is a polish release — a redesigned installer, a friendlier default for new installs, and a few interface refinements.

• Opus 5. The Claude Opus model is now labeled Opus 5, following Anthropic's release — same fast mode and same five effort tiers as before.
• New installs start on Claude. A fresh install now defaults to the Claude provider (Opus 5). If you've already chosen a provider, your choice is untouched.
• A new look for the installer. The DMG now opens with a custom background and a centered drag-to-Applications layout. Its support files are tucked off-window so the install window stays clean, even with hidden files shown.
• A clearer terminal toggle. The CLI toggle now reads Toggle Terminal (CLI) — plain enough whether or not you know the acronym.
• The filter icon shows when a view is filtered. The sidebar's filter icon now lights in accent blue when active filters are hiding sessions, so a narrowed list never reads as an empty one.

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Updating: if you're on v0.2.0, Sonata will offer this update in-app — click Update in the sidebar when it appears (or menu → Check for Updates…).

Install: download the DMG below, open it, and drag Sonata to Applications. Requires a Mac with Apple Silicon (arm64). The app is signed and notarized.

Sonata v0.2.0

Sonata v0.2.0 brings in-app auto-update — from here on, Sonata keeps itself current.

Auto-update

Sonata now checks for new releases quietly in the background — on launch and every 12 hours — and downloads them without interrupting you. When an update is ready:

• An Update button appears at the bottom of the sidebar. It's the only time it's ever there.
• Clicking it arms a Restart to Update confirm, so a running agent session is never restarted by a stray click.
• If you never touch it, the update installs the next time you quit Sonata normally.
• Check for Updates… in the app menu is there whenever you want to look yourself.

No settings to configure and no update server — updates ride GitHub Releases directly.

Also in this release

• Codex "Update available!" boot screens are now detected and surfaced as an attention banner instead of silently stalling a session — Sonata never answers the prompt for you.
• The hook, broker, and statusline commands Sonata injects into Claude Code and Codex now run on Sonata's own runtime, so a machine without a separate Node install no longer breaks the SessionStart handshake or Codex transcript binding.
• More reliable permission and mode switching (Shift+Tab stepping, Codex consent handling), with honest messages when a switch can't complete.
• Attachment sends report their status honestly — a partial "N of M images attached" reminder now stays until the rest actually land, and stop/cancel messages distinguish "never reached the CLI" from "reached it but wasn't submitted."
• Reading-pane scrolling no longer yanks you back to the bottom when you jump between turns, and open sidebar menus dismiss cleanly on scroll or resize.
• Custom session tags are protected against data loss: a single malformed entry can no longer wipe your whole tag set.

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Updating from v0.1.0: download this version manually (the DMG below) — v0.1.0 has no in-app updater. From v0.2.0 onward, updates arrive in-app.

Install: download the DMG below, open it, and drag Sonata to Applications. Requires a Mac with Apple Silicon (arm64). The app is signed and notarized.

Sonata v0.1.0

The first public release of Sonata — the human workspace for coding agents.

Sonata runs your real Claude Code and Codex CLIs — native behavior, your existing subscription — and builds the human side of the work around them: reading what the agent did, directing what happens next, organizing sessions, and previewing results.

Install: download the DMG below, open it, and drag Sonata to Applications. Requires a Mac with Apple Silicon (arm64) and Claude Code and/or Codex CLI installed and authenticated. The app is signed and notarized.

Auto-update ships as a fast-follow; this release already carries the update channel it will use (ZIP + latest-mac.yml).

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OpenAI Build Week: this release is the exact state submitted to OpenAI Build Week on July 21, 2026. Work added during the submission period (July 13–21): 07f0274...v0.1.0