🚀 release: v0.1.8

[lefarcen]

🎉 Highlights

• 💻 Now available for Intel Macs — Native builds for both Apple Silicon and Intel. (feat: add intel mac desktop packaging flow #550)
• 📱 WhatsApp & Telegram! — Connect your bots to two of the world's most popular messaging platforms. WhatsApp via QR scan, Telegram via BotFather — both just work. (feat: add telegram and whatsapp channels #554)
• 🌐 System Proxy — zero config — The desktop runtime now auto-detects your macOS system proxy. Corporate VPN, Clash, Surge — all just work, no manual setup. (feat: add system proxy support for desktop runtime #637)
• 🦙 Ollama — your local models, one click — Running Llama, Mistral, or Gemma locally? Plug Ollama in as a model provider and go. (feat: add Ollama model provider support #575)
• ⚡ WeChat connects 40x faster — Cold-start slashed from ~2 minutes to ~5 seconds. Bots come online almost instantly. (fix: reduce WeChat channel cold-start delay from ~2min to ~5s #646)
• 🔧 Reinstall? Just drag and drop. — Background services no longer lock the .app bundle. Replace the app anytime, even with bots running. (fix(desktop): harden startup/shutdown lifecycle + fix V8 JIT white-screen #597)

📥 Download now: macOS Apple Silicon (.dmg) · macOS Intel (.dmg)

Requires macOS 13+. Windows support arriving in v0.2.0 🪟

✨ What's New

• 🔄 Models stay fresh — Official model inventory refreshes automatically, no restart needed (feat(models): auto-refresh nexu official model inventory #634)
• 💬 Real group names — Group chat sessions now display actual group names instead of cryptic IDs (feat(controller): use group name for group chat session titles #660)
• 🧩 Smarter skill sync — Installed skills auto-detect workspace config changes and stay in sync (feat: skill install config sync with workspace detection #643)
• ⬇️ Live download progress — Watch your skills install in real-time with progress indicators (feat(skills): show downloading state in Yours tab, remove toggle swit… #580)
• 📊 Nightly gets a changelog — Every nightly build now ships with auto-generated release notes and linked issues (feat(ci): nightly changelog with linked issues + LLM summary + Feishu notification #677)

🛡️ Stability & Reliability

• Updates are smarter — the app verifies no critical files are locked before installing, preventing failed silent upgrades
• Every exit path (window close, Cmd+Q, Force Quit, even renderer crashes) now properly cleans up background services
• Startup refuses to attach to leftover services from a different app version — no more ghost processes
• Runaway sidecar crashes trigger a circuit breaker instead of looping forever
• Diagnostic exports now include step-by-step bootstrap timing for faster troubleshooting

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixed white screen on macOS 14.7.4+ after upgrade (fix(desktop): harden startup/shutdown lifecycle + fix V8 JIT white-screen #597)
• Closing the window now hides to background like Slack — no more "Quit or Background?" dialog (fix(desktop): window close hides to background instead of showing quit dialog #673)
• Cmd+R no longer accidentally reloads the app in production (fix: disable Cmd+R page reload in production desktop builds #639)
• WhatsApp stays connected after sleep/wake cycles (fix: stabilize whatsapp runtime reconnect #668)
• Various model provider and channel connectivity improvements

🔨 For Developers

Click to expand

• Intel Mac packaging flow with architecture-specific builds (feat: add intel mac desktop packaging flow #550)
• Desktop E2E automation framework with packaged app testing (chore: add standalone desktop E2E automation #650)
• Background launchd helper commands for debugging (chore: add background launchd helper commands #672)
• CI installs and desktop packaging speed optimized (chore: speed up CI installs and desktop packaging #590)
• Nightly builds include Feishu notification with download links (feat(ci): nightly changelog with linked issues + LLM summary + Feishu notification #677)
• Release PR merge now auto-tags and publishes release notes — merge = ship 🚀

🙌 Contributors

@lefarcen, @alchemistklk, @anthhub, @ashleyashli, @qiongyu1999, @hkslover, @mrcfps, @nettee, @Siri-Ray

Full Changelog: v0.1.7...v0.1.8