v2.3.9 — Create empty-state, start-in-Chat, Backend Selector opt-out, header toggle fix

Drop-in patch release on top of v2.3.8. No new headline features — five Discord-reported UX reliability fixes plus a docs refresh.

What's fixed

• Create view no longer crashes when no image or video model is installed. On fresh Windows installs with no ComfyUI models yet, opening Create could go unresponsive and hard-close the app. Reported by @figuringitallout on Discord. Create now detects this state and shows a calm empty-state card with a primary Go to Model Manager button and an Already downloaded? Refresh list secondary link. Mode switcher (Image / Video) stays available. Stale persisted model names from older installs are proactively cleared.
• Header-level Create toggle + model dropdown no longer crash on click. The Lichtschalter + model picker that sit in the app header while you're on Create used to throw TypeError: activeList is undefined when opening the dropdown and setComfyRunning is not a function when the start-poll tick fired. Reported on Discord by @diimmortalis with a precise console-log dump. Four store fields (imageModelList, videoModelList, comfyRunning, setComfyRunning) that the component expected were simply never wired into createStore — they are now, and useCreate.fetchModels / checkConnection populate them.
• Backend Selector modal no longer reopens every 5-10 seconds. Users with multiple local backends (Ollama + LM Studio, Ollama + vLLM, etc) reported on Discord that the "N local backends detected" modal kept re-appearing regardless of how often they dismissed it. The old sessionStorage-only guard wasn't surviving WebView2 reloads. Fixed with a persistent hideBackendSelector flag, a pre-checked "Don't show this again" tickbox, and a clickable Settings → Providers link in the modal body so users always know where to manage providers.
• LU always starts in the Chat sidebar tab on boot, not Code. Some users were landing inside the empty Code panel after install or update because codexStore persisted the sidebar tab between sessions. Fixed: the default is now always Chat on every fresh boot. If you want Code or Remote, click the tab each session.
• classifyModel() is null-safe. Defensive guard against stale or missing model names anywhere else in the Create pipeline.

Docs

• CONTRIBUTING.md now spells out the three dev workflows (npm run tauri:dev, npm run dev, npm run tauri:build) with the trade-offs between them — Tauri invokes only resolve under tauri:dev. Reported on Discord by @k-wilkinson.

Known work in progress

Same caveat as v2.3.8: Codex (the coding-agent tab) is still actively evolving and is not yet production-finished. Chat, Create, Agent Mode, and Remote remain stable.

Upgrade

Auto-update will prompt on your next launch. If it doesn't, grab the installer below.

Stability

• 2205 / 2205 Vitest tests green
• cargo check clean
• tsc --noEmit clean
• No breaking changes, no localStorage migration