[Release note draft] Open Design 0.17.0 — Open Design Plugin for Codex

[lefarcen]

Important

Working draft only. The stable release workflow owns creation of the real open-design-v0.17.0 GitHub Release and tag. Before publishing: recompute the PR/contributor/day counts from the frozen branch, verify every download URL after asset upload, then convert the code-formatted contributor handles below to naked @Handles.

🌟 Codename: Open Design Plugin for Codex

🚀 58 PRs · 22 contributors · 11 days — Codex now has its own design workspace. Call @open-design from a Codex conversation to turn ideas and briefs into real, editable design artifacts—then keep creating and refining them in Open Design Studio without leaving the Codex workflow. 🚀

🔥 Highlights

• 🚀 Open Design for Codex — from @open-design to a real artifact. Codex Desktop and CLI can now call Open Design as a complete creative engine. Confirm a visual brief, choose Open Design Cloud or a supported local runtime, and receive a real Studio or Preview result. The signed Open Design runtime starts headlessly when needed, so there is no second app to keep open and no stack to wire together by hand. (feat(integrations): add the local Open Design Cloud flow for Codex #6055, fix(daemon): isolate plugin-started Local Codex runs #6273)

• ✋ Finish with your hands, not another prompt. Small visual corrections used to send you back into the chat loop. Now select an element directly, move or resize it, edit text, change color and alignment, duplicate or delete it, and replace, crop, paste, or drop images. Undo and redo preserve the canvas instead of flashing through a reload. (feat(manual-edit): add direct manipulation and reliable history #5890, fix(manual-edit): keep runtime targets selected when their last style declaration clears #6098) Thanks @pftom.

• ⚡ Clear briefs start immediately. Open Design no longer turns every first prompt into an interview. When the request already contains enough direction, the agent gets to work; when a decision would materially change the result, it asks one focused question at the moment it matters. (feat(prompts): introduce on-demand discovery in SP v2.0 #6223)

• 🧰 A stuck update is no longer a dead end. Clear a broken update cache yourself from Settings, reinstall when an installed generation is known to be unsafe, and recover automatically when a downloaded payload crashes. The app rolls back to the last working version and heals on the next healthy update. (feat(updater): manual cache clear, installer-reinstall floor, and crash-recovery lifecycle #6032, fix(desktop): cover clear-cache in updater IPC teardown and host bridge guard #6101) Thanks @PerishCode.

• 🎯 Bad model choices fail before they waste a run. Known-incompatible Codex model and CLI combinations are caught before launch, unsupported models produce a useful “switch model” path, and post-tool timeouts are diagnosed more accurately instead of triggering misleading retries. (fix(daemon): preflight incompatible Codex models #6036, fix(daemon): classify model failures and timeout stages #6103) Thanks @Siri-Ray.

• 🧩 Fifty ways to give Codex real design taste. The public Codex Design collection now brings together 50 curated, installable skills across interface design, visual systems, Figma-to-code, motion, image generation, and frontend craft—with provenance, practical guidance, and localized detail pages. (feat(landing): curated Codex design plugin catalogue (50 entries) #5978) Thanks @joeylee12629-star.

• 🎞️ Codex Slides joins the Open Design family. Explore the complete prompt-to-deck workflow, scenario and style selection, outline shaping, editing, and export through the new Codex Slides product experience. (feat(landing): add Codex Slides sister-product page #6050) Thanks @joeylee12629-star.

📥 Download: Tag open-design-v0.17.0

Platform	Architecture	Asset
macOS	Apple Silicon	DMG
macOS	Intel	DMG
Windows	x64	Setup

✨ Added

🎨 Studio, editing & canvas

• Edit the canvas at the speed of thought. Lightweight selection controls, an inline text toolbar, live alignment guides, direct image manipulation, and reliable history turn Manual Edit into a complete finishing workflow. (feat(manual-edit): add direct manipulation and reliable history #5890) Thanks @pftom.

• Exports now follow the preview you composed. Image exports respect the active preview viewport, and framework decks are captured at their authored size instead of being reshaped by the desktop frame. (Fix image export viewport sizing #5828, fix(desktop): capture framework decks at authored size #5853) Thanks @mturac.

🧠 Agents, models & integrations

• GPT-5.5 Fast is ready when speed matters. The new service tier is available as an explicit model choice. (feat: expose GPT-5.5 Fast service tier #4287) Thanks @jaehanbyun.

• Raven joins one-click MCP setup. Open Design can generate the correct Raven configuration without making users translate another client’s format. (feat(mcp): add Raven installer target #5969) Thanks @roian6.

• Grok Build is easier to find on Windows. Open Design now discovers the official user installation automatically. (fix(platform): detect Grok Build in official user bin #5843) Thanks @thebtf.

🧩 Plugins & creative workflows

• Humanize PPT turns rough material into a presentation people want to watch. The new workflow brings structured briefs, visual routing, presenter intent, material QA, and export verification into one plugin. (Add Humanize PPT plugin #5655) Thanks @LearnPrompt.

• Atelier Zero brings a production-ready image prompt library. Start from a curated prompt system instead of rebuilding art direction from scratch for every generation. (Add Atelier Zero — Image Generation Prompt Pack plugin #5873) Thanks @Nissimmiracles.

🔁 Changed

• Chat shows the work without reading like a terminal. Execution disclosures are quieter, empty tool rows stay hidden, and real ACP tool activity is represented more faithfully. (Simplify chat execution disclosures #5667, fix(web): hide empty tool_call/tool_call_update status rows in assistant process #4621, fix(daemon): full ACP tool transcript and richer usage telemetry #6057) Thanks @mrcfps, @thatditsyboy.

• Workspace tabs say what they contain. Long labels remain visible and Design System naming is consistent across the workspace. (fix(web): show full workspace tab labels and capitalize Design System #5129) Thanks @BigBandaid2.

• Windows keeps the safe BYOK boundary. Secure local BYOK profiles remain unavailable on Windows in 0.17.0 rather than shipping an unreliable credential backend; use Open Design Cloud or Local Codex there. macOS and Linux secure-profile behavior is unchanged. (fix(byok): withdraw Windows DPAPI backend #6308) Thanks @PerishCode.

🐛 Fixed

🎨 Studio & interface

• Runtime-rendered elements stay selected after their last style is cleared. Resetting alignment or another final override no longer drops the selection or reloads the canvas. (fix(manual-edit): keep runtime targets selected when their last style declaration clears #6098) Thanks @pftom.

• Opening the same project repeatedly no longer multiplies workspace tabs. (fix(web): dedupe project workspace tabs on repeated open #5993) Thanks @pcherkashin.

• Dark-first brands stay dark-first. Derived themes preserve the intended canvas instead of silently turning a dark visual direction into a light one. (fix: preserve dark-first brand canvases in derived themes #5502) Thanks @wiggdevin.

• Continuing an interrupted task clears its stale progress card. A finished follow-up no longer leaves an obsolete Todo snapshot pinned above Chat. (fix(web): dismiss stale Todo snapshot after continuing #6307) Thanks @Siri-Ray.

🔑 Models & BYOK

• BYOK migration errors now tell you what to fix. Validation problems surface the daemon’s real explanation; the “daemon offline” message is reserved for an actual connection failure. (fix(web): surface BYOK migration validation errors #6280)

• Provider names and configuration feedback are clearer. BYOK titles stay consistently localized, and a failed protocol downgrade no longer replaces a configuration that was already loaded successfully. (fix(i18n): localize BYOK provider titles to English #5826, fix(web): keep loaded config when re-persisting a downgraded protocol fails #5506) Thanks @xxiaoxiong, @EthanGuo-coder.

🧠 Agents & reliability

• Plugin-started Local Codex runs stay local. They no longer re-enter the plugin recursively or switch into a Cloud login flow after the user explicitly chose Local Codex. (fix(daemon): isolate plugin-started Local Codex runs #6273)

• ACP agents leave a complete trail. Real tool names, inputs, results, timing, and usage survive into Chat and diagnostics instead of collapsing into synthetic write events. (fix(daemon): full ACP tool transcript and richer usage telemetry #6057) Thanks @mrcfps.

• Packaged runtimes start more reliably across platforms. Linux payloads warm up before first use, and packaged wrappers consistently use the bundled runtime they shipped with. (fix(packaged): prewarm linux AppImage sidecar payload + widen linux status budget #5836, Fix packaged wrapper node runtime #5786) Thanks @arseniy-gl, @mturac.

🙏 Thanks to everyone who shipped 0.17.0

@AmyShang-alt · @AriaZhao-coder · @arseniy-gl · @BigBandaid2 · @EthanGuo-coder · @jaehanbyun · @joeylee12629-star · @LearnPrompt · @lefarcen · @mrcfps · @mturac · @Nissimmiracles · @nettee · @pcherkashin · @PerishCode · @pftom · @roian6 · @Siri-Ray · @thatditsyboy · @thebtf · @wiggdevin · @xxiaoxiong

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Final publication checklist

• Freeze release/v0.17.0 and recompute PRs, contributors, and days.
• Run release-gate.yml.
• Promote the validated prerelease through release-stable.yml.
• Verify every GitHub Release asset URL.
• Replace code-formatted contributor handles with naked @Handles.
• Replace the workflow-generated summary and set the Release title to Open Design 0.17.0 — Open Design Plugin for Codex.

[lefarcen]

Looks good as the 0.17.0 draft shape — the headline arc from @open-design → Studio artifact → manual finish is clear, and the final checklist already calls out the three risky publish-time steps.

For follow-through, the main things I'd keep as hard gates are: recompute the PR/contributor/day counts from the frozen release/v0.17.0 branch, verify each release asset URL only after upload, and swap the code-formatted contributor handles to naked @mentions right before publishing.