Perch v0.1.0-beta.4

Beta.4 is a small reliability release.

• Fixed: the right-rail Touched list could label files inside the current project as Outside when the project pool arrived after the first file snapshot; refreshing the panel was required before. The list now regroups as soon as the project pool lands.
• Added a late-pool regression case to the files UI harness.

Windows 10/11 x64 portable build. No installer; run Perch-0.1.0-beta.4-win-x64.exe directly.

Perch v0.1.0-beta.3

Perch v0.1.0-beta.3

Third Windows beta of Perch, an agent development environment: real terminals for your CLI agents, a work board for attention, and a local model gateway.

Download

• Perch-0.1.0-beta.3-win-x64.exe
• SHA-256: BB37DC4439296AB594D8DB24DE5903380E8721975D5DAC8FB91BE796099A34AC

This is a single portable executable. Download it, put it anywhere, and double-click it. No installer, no zip, and no second file to keep beside it.

The hook receiver is embedded and is unpacked to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Perch\bin on first run. Logs go to %APPDATA%\Perch\perch.log.

What changed

• Workspaces come first. The app now opens in Workspaces, with Workspaces → Overview → Settings in the left rail. A new Project is a folder; a new Agent always belongs to a real Project. The old synthetic default project is no longer shown and is reserved for the future Chat mode.
• First-run setup appears when it is needed. There is no automatic welcome splash. When you open New Agent in a Project and there is no installed, launchable agent to choose, the guide opens: install/select an agent, connect the gateway and models, then finish. Finishing only closes the guide; it does not navigate or launch an agent.
• Shared Workspace Brief. Each Project can carry a shared brief in .perch/workspace.md, mirrored into a marked section of AGENTS.md and adapted for the agent CLI. Existing AGENTS.md content is preserved. The brief is picked up on the agent's next launch.
• Quieter Overview and right rail. The Overview is a denser console with a 53-week activity map, weekly workload, needs/now columns, and an Agent CLI table. The duplicate Flow module is gone; child agents are hidden for the 1.0 redesign; the conversation flow starts open and its collapse control lives in the title bar.
• Files rail rebuilt. “Touched” is now a flat work list: one row per file, filename plus a muted Project-relative parent path, grouped by current Project / other Projects / outside workspace. It no longer turns absolute paths into fake C: directory trees. “All” is a real tree that starts at the root level, remembers expansion per Project, supports Collapse All, uses natural sorting, hides .git/node_modules, and shows relative paths. The preview header is relative too.
• Settings and shell. The default startup view is Workspaces; users who explicitly chose Overview keep it. The current reduced-chrome shell is Classic; the terminal-pane Clean skin remains a later 1.0 surface. Notification cards now stay on the right and remain readable instead of covering the app.

Requirements

• Windows 10/11 x64 with the WebView2 Runtime.
• ConPTY and Job Objects are required.
• macOS support is in development; there is no macOS build yet.
• The build is unsigned, so Windows SmartScreen may ask you to confirm. This is expected for the beta.

If WebView2 is missing, Perch shows a Windows dialog with the download page and the winget install Microsoft.EdgeWebView2Runtime command instead of exiting silently.

Known limitations

• Chat and agent-to-agent messaging are planned for 1.0; this beta is terminal workspaces.
• The file rail is read-only; edits and writes remain the agent's job.
• Workspace Brief applies on the next agent launch; running agents are not hot-reloaded.
• Qoder, Copilot, and Cursor use their own sign-in.
• DeepSeek Harness tool execution still depends on the upstream dsh-tui build.
• Agent installers and the magpie engine are downloaded from their official sources; neither is bundled in the exe.
• Perch has no account system and sends no telemetry of its own. Agent CLIs and magpie may have their own policies.

Perch v0.1.0-beta.2

Perch v0.1.0-beta.2

Second Windows beta of Perch, an agent development environment: one real terminal per pane, a work board for attention, and a local model gateway.

Download

• Perch-0.1.0-beta.2-win-x64.exe
• SHA-256: B243F53670D753EE7E77999A35B69A3AF124307D8F1768CE083B99BE8A0F47EE

This is a single portable executable. Download it, put it anywhere, and double-click it. No installer, no zip, and no second file to keep beside it.

The hook receiver is embedded and is unpacked to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Perch\bin on first run. Logs go to %APPDATA%\Perch\perch.log.

What changed

• No console flash. The release binary and hook now use the Windows GUI subsystem, so launching from Explorer no longer opens a console window first.
• First-run setup is a real flow. Pick an agent, connect the gateway and models, choose a workspace and language, then review and open your first agent. It reads live state, can be resumed, confirms before skipping, and can be reopened from Settings → About.
• Installer fixes. The Windows system proxy is now passed to the whole installer process tree (the native Claude installer does not read the system proxy by itself). Pi now checks the required Node version instead of only checking whether npm.cmd exists. Claude's current ~/.local/bin/claude.exe path is preferred, so updates are picked up.
• No restart after gateway setup. Agent models refresh when the gateway connects, an install finishes, the embedded provider page changes configuration, or you return from Gateway. The old permanent retry cap is gone.
• No silent agent fallback. If a configured agent profile cannot be applied to the gateway, Perch stops that launch with a readable error instead of letting the agent start with a stale local config. This removes the path that could send Codex to OpenAI directly and print a raw 401.
• Setup review polish. The final screen uses one status seal and a quiet review table instead of four identical check circles. Long workspace paths wrap, and the built-in workspace label is no longer vertically clipped.

Requirements

• Windows 10/11 x64 with the WebView2 Runtime.
• ConPTY and Job Objects are required.
• macOS support is in development; there is no macOS build yet.
• The build is unsigned, so Windows SmartScreen may ask you to confirm. This is expected for the beta.

If WebView2 is missing, Perch shows a Windows dialog with the download page and the winget install Microsoft.EdgeWebView2Runtime command instead of exiting silently.

Known limitations

• Qoder, Copilot, and Cursor use their own sign-in.
• DeepSeek Harness tool execution still depends on the upstream dsh-tui build.
• Agent installers and the magpie engine are downloaded from their official sources; neither is bundled in the exe.
• Provider-side authentication errors (for example an invalid or expired provider key) still come from the provider. Perch now prevents the gateway from being silently bypassed; it does not invent a working key.
• Perch has no account system and sends no telemetry of its own. Agent CLIs and magpie may have their own policies.