A workspace is never empty on the second run: cst_agent_open() resumes the
last session of the store, so the engine holds a transcript before the window
exists. The window only filled its view on a session *switch*, and a start is
not a switch -- the pane came up empty next to a sidebar pointing at the very
session it belonged to (on the phone: "hello, 6 messages" highlighted, no
transcript under it).
- Main.qml: Component.onCompleted reloads the session list and replays the
open session, the same call the sessionChanged handler makes.
- AgentCore::switchSession(): a click on the row of the session that is
already open emits sessionChanged instead of returning quietly, so the row
redraws its transcript rather than being a dead spot.
- --uitest: the window is now created over a seeded session (a fixture is
written and switched to before the QML loads, which is what a restart looks
like) and the check "the open session is on screen at startup" pins it --
it failed with 0 rows before the fix. Two qWaits in the settings-dialog
section, whose clicks were racing the dialog's layout: the extra startup
work made that visible (5 failures that had nothing to do with sessions).
Verified: --uitest 79/79 (the new check among them), cst-app-selftest OK, and
on the phone -- the APK rebuilt and installed, a restart of the app draws the
whole stored session (messages, tool cards, thinking blocks, copy icons).
Version 0.9.1.
mode = coding
Two strands land together: the window draws pictures now, and the whole front
end builds, installs and runs on the phone with the engine linked in-process.
Images (the "make a picture actually show up" part)
- Engine, additively: cst_agent_hooks_t.on_tool_images(call, list, n, ud) fires
when a call left attachments behind, and cst_agent_pending_rel() /
cst_agent_pending_is_image() read that list without the app touching the
store. tests/test_attach.c::test_agent_pending pins the three cases (an
image, a stored name that passes cst_attach_rel_ok, out-of-range NULL).
- App: image://cstattach/<stored name> (app/src/ui/SessionImages.cpp) serves
only the current session's attachment directory, checked with
cst_attach_rel_ok, decodes down to the requested sourceSize and never
upscales, and holds a mutex because requestImage() runs on the render
thread while the directory can change underneath it. AgentCore gained
attachmentDir(), pendingImages(), the toolImages()/promptImages() signals
and hookToolImages(); history() gives replayed rows their images too.
- QML: ImageStrip.qml (a thumb strip, <=150 px tall, shaped by the picture,
tooltip with name/size/origin, the file's name when it went missing),
wired into MessageCard and ToolCard. Qt 6's ListModel cannot hold a
list-valued role (append() reads back undefined, setProperty drops it), so
a row carries one image per line as <stored>|<name>|<origin>|<w>x<h> and
ImageStrip decodes that.
Android (the engine is already in the APK; this is the front end)
- app/src/main.cpp: on Android the workspace, config, tmp and HOME go under
the app's own data directory before the engine opens anything, because
QDir::currentPath() is "/" there and /tmp is not writable.
- app/android/: the manifest (QtApplication/QtActivity, INTERNET and
POST_NOTIFICATIONS, adjustResize, no storage permission -- the picker will
be the system one), strings, a vector icon; minSdk 24 and targetSdk 35 come
from app/CMakeLists.txt through QT_ANDROID_MIN/TARGET_SDK_VERSION.
- app/src/platform/android/AndroidTools.cpp: the Android file behind
PlatformInit(), owner "app:android" (notification, clipboard, share sheet,
file picker are stubs for now, so the tool list does not lie about them).
- app/tools/selftest.c decides its scratch workspace with os_temp_dir(), so
the C smoke test runs on the device too.
- scripts/build_apk_android.sh: sources to installed APK in one command
(environment checks, qt-cmake configure, --target apk, adb install), and
the host-side plumbing the NixOS + qt.io combination needs -- the NDK
sysroot include dirs for Qt's FindGLESv2/FindEGL (they only look under
<sysroot>/include), -L$PREFIX/lib on the shared/module link lines as well
as the executables', the Android debug keystore created on first use with
QT_ANDROID_SIGN_APK + QT_ANDROID_KEYSTORE_* (androiddeployqt copies the
unsigned gradle output and signs it itself), and the #!/bin/bash shebang of
the build-tools wrappers, which NixOS does not have.
- scripts/gradle-android-init.gradle (installed into ~/.gradle/init.d/): the
release lint task is switched off -- lintVitalAnalyzeRelease resolves its
own tool jars straight from dl.google.com, bypassing every repository the
build configures, and fails the build after all the real work is done.
- Icons: app/icons/*.svg (Breeze's 24@3x files, the 19 names the window asks
for) are compiled in as :/cst-icons and ThemeIcons.cpp falls back to them
when the platform has no icon theme. On the phone the Qt theme lookup found
nothing and the QML glyph fallback was an empty box in the phone's fonts.
- docs/android.md: "The APK (Qt front end)" -- the SDK assembled without
sdkmanager, the host Qt's missing libraries on NixOS, the Gradle mirrors,
lint, signing -- and a Status that says what runs where. app/README.md
gains the images and APK lines, and stops claiming Android platform tools
that are still stubs.
Verified: engine `make check` green; desktop `cst-app-selftest: OK` and
--uitest all checks pass; phone (NX789J, Android 16, arm64-v8a) -- the APK
installs, starts on the workspace under /data/user/0/xyz.whcself.cstagent/
files/, a turn reaches a configured provider over HTTPS from inside the ART
process and renders the reply, rotation keeps the session and docks the
sidebar, and the toolbar/card icons draw.
Version 0.9.0.
mode = coding
The settings dialog could pick a preset, a model and a key and nothing else.
Two things were missing: a provider the presets do not know, and what the
model is asked to do while it answers. Both live under "Advanced options"
now, next to the entry they belong to.
Custom providers (engine)
- cst_models_user_set_provider() / cst_models_user_drop_provider() write the
engine's own user layer, <config>/cst-agent/models.json:
{"providers": {"myllm": {"api_base": ..., "key_env": ...,
"default_model": ..., "models": [...]}}}
and reload the registry, so the provider is at once in the provider list,
in the wire models[] and in the CLI's /provider -- the file a hand-written
override would go into is the same one, so the GUI and an editor agree.
The name is checked (1-31 of letters, digits, '.', '_', '-'), a preset's
name overrides that preset (a self-hosted endpoint, a proxy), everything
else in the file (model rules) is kept, and a file that is not a JSON
object is never overwritten. Dropping only removes the user's own entry.
- AgentCore::providers() gained "custom" (source == "user"), and
addProvider() / removeProvider() drive the two calls above.
Model parameters (engine + wire)
- cst_agent_config_t and cst_llm_request_t carry temperature, top_p and
max_tokens. 0 means the field is not sent at all -- an absent field is the
provider's own default, which "temperature": 0 is not (deterministic
decoding is a real choice), so cst_llm_build_body() only adds what was set.
tests/test_llm_body.c:test_gen_params pins both halves.
- settings.json keeps them per provider ("params": {...}) via
cst_settings_remember_params(); cst_settings_remember() carries them along
with the provider choice, and cst_agent_create() reads them, so a CLI or
TUI run sends what the window was set to. An all-zero config (the CLI)
leaves what the GUI saved alone.
- AgentCore::genParams() / setGenParams(), and useProvider() applies both the
remembered parameters of the provider it lands on and a base URL that was
edited in the dialog.
The dialog
- Rewritten around one scrolling body with a fixed footer: a long model list
used to push the key field and the buttons out of the dialog. The model
chips are filtered (a filter field appears past twelve) and capped at 40
with "... +N more", which is what a router with hundreds of models needs.
- "Advanced options" folds out the provider entry (name, base URL, key
variable, default model, models; Save provider / Remove from models.json)
and the model parameters (temperature, top-p, max tokens; empty = not
sent). The fields follow the picked provider and are what gets saved, so a
hand-typed edit is never lost to a stale property.
Verified: --uitest 67/67 (15 new checks: parameters round-trip through the
engine, a provider added through the form and removed again, a bad name
refused, a preset not removable), --selftest, ctest cst-app-selftest, and
make check with the new body test.
Version 0.8.15.
mode = coding
The window drew its icons with unicode glyphs -- a clip emoji for attach, a
gear, a hamburger, a chevron, a multiplication sign for delete. Those render
in whichever font happens to cover them (colour emoji in a grey toolbar) and
are a box on a machine without that glyph. They now come from the icon theme,
the way every other desktop app gets them.
Icons
- app/src/ui/ThemeIcons.{h,cpp}: a QQuickImageProvider for
image://csttheme/<name>?color=%23rrggbb -- QIcon::fromTheme() in the
desktop's theme (whatever the platform theme set, else breeze-dark, breeze,
hicolor), tinted with QPainter's SourceIn and rasterised at the requested
size and the screen's device pixel ratio. Qt only builds its theme search
paths from XDG once a theme name is set, so the provider fills them itself
(GenericDataLocation/icons, ~/.icons and, on NixOS,
/run/current-system/sw/share/icons, for a shell started outside the desktop
session). An unknown name yields a null image, which QML reports as
Image.Error.
- app/qml/ThemeIcon.qml: the one component that asks for an icon. Every use
still names the old character as `glyph:`, so a host with no icon theme
degrades to exactly what the window looked like before instead of going
blank. installThemeIcons() is called by main() and by --uitest, so the test
loads the same icons the app does.
- Replaced: nav (application-menu), settings (settings-configure), attach
(mail-attachment), copy (edit-copy), session delete (edit-delete), new
session (list-add), expand/collapse (arrow-right/arrow-down), jump to the end
(go-down), the plan checklist (task-complete/box). A tool card also shows
what kind of tool ran -- Theme.toolIcon(): pencil for patch/write, text page
for read, folder for list/glob, magnifier for grep, braces for a shell,
globe for web, list for a plan. Toolbar icons are 22 px (Breeze's toolbar
size), card and row icons 14-16 px.
Colours (the "some text is unreadable" part)
- textFaint #6d757b -> #8d959c: ~3.4:1 -> ~5:1 on the card fill. It carries
hints, provider URLs, session metadata and placeholders, so it is text, not
decoration.
- A selected provider row and the open session row write on the accent fill;
they now use accentText / accentTextDim / okOnAccent instead of faint grey
and green on blue (named "accentText", not "onAccent": QML reads any `onFoo`
property as a signal handler and refuses the assignment).
- The filled buttons (Send, Use this) take their ink from Theme.accentInk.
Composer
- The frame is one Theme.pad around its column on every side (anchors.fill,
implicitHeight + 2*pad). With the top margin alone the last row -- the clip
and Send -- hung over the lower border, which is what put the clip on the
frame instead of inside it.
app/README.md gains an "Icons, colors" section (the provider, why the theme
search paths are filled by hand, the qtsvg requirement for rasterising Breeze,
the tool map, and the contrast rules).
Verified: --uitest 52/52, --selftest OK, and the 0.8.14 window relaunched in
the Plasma session (no QML warnings).
Version 0.8.14.
mode = coding
Two things the window got wrong once a real turn ran through it, plus the
switch that was invisible on a dark theme.
Tool cards (app/src/core/AgentCore.*, app/qml/Main.qml, ToolCard.qml):
- A turn that called the same tool twice left the first card on "running"
forever and gave its result to the second card: both were paired by name.
cst_agent_hooks_t hands the call (ctl_tool_call_t) to every callback, so the
id travels with the signals now (toolEvent(phase, id, name, detail),
toolResult(id, name, exitCode, output)) and findTool() matches on it, in the
same way AgentCore::history() fills it from tool_call_id / tool_calls_json
for a replayed session. Only a call without an id -- an old text-protocol
session -- still falls back to the name.
- Nothing may keep spinning after a turn: closeAllRows() runs when the turn
ends and settles every open row; a call that never came back shows "no
result" (state "unfinished") and no longer claims an exit code.
Streaming text (app/qml/Main.qml, ChatView.qml):
- The answer was plain text while it streamed and turned into markdown only
when the turn ended. A 120 ms timer now re-renders the open answer with the
engine's own renderer (AgentCore::renderMarkdown -> cst_web_md_html), so a
list, a table or a code fence fills in formatted as it arrives. A row keeps
its own "html" field; a replayed session renders once, where its rows are
built.
QML details:
- the Plan mode Switch got a drawn indicator: the Basic style's pill is a dark
pill with a dark knob on this theme, which made the control look disabled.
- Every engine signal handler is a plain window function now
(engineToolEvent, engineToolResult, engineTurnFinished, engineAssistant,
...), which is also what lets --uitest drive the exact path; rowJson(i)
returns a transcript row as JSON for it (an object would not survive
QMetaObject::invokeMethod).
Tests: 6 more checks -- a call opens a card, two calls of one tool are two
cards, the result lands on the card of its own call, the other card is
untouched, the turn end settles an open call, a delta opens a streaming answer
and markdown is rendered while it still streams. 52/52 pass, --selftest,
ctest cst-app-selftest.
Version 0.8.13.
A prompt can carry files now, and they come in the three ways a desktop user
expects: the 📎 button in the composer (QtQuick.Dialogs' FileDialog), files
dropped anywhere on the window (a DropArea over it, with an accent border and
"drop to attach" while something is dragged), and an image on the clipboard
(Ctrl+V). Text keeps the editor's own paste: the composer asks
AgentCore::clipboardHasImage() first and only takes the keystroke when there is
an image.
AgentCore (app/src/core/AgentCore.*):
- pending is a property now (QStringList) fed by cst_agent_pending_describe();
attachFile() and attachClipboard() wrap cst_agent_attach_file() /
cst_agent_attach_bytes(), clearPending() wraps cst_agent_pending_clear(), and
seesImages() reports whether the model is shown images at all.
- the engine's description says what the model gets ("png 12.0 KB"), not where
it came from, so the window remembers the names it attached and puts them in
front: "note.txt — text 21 B".
- pendingChanged() fires on attach, on clear and when a turn ends (the prompt
consumed the list), which is what makes the chips move.
Engine (src/attach.c):
- cst_attach_describe() printed every sub-megabyte size as "%.0f KB": a 21-byte
text file came out as "text 0 KB". It is "B", "KB" with one decimal or "MB"
now, and test_attach still passes.
QML: the composer shows one chip per pending file with "clear all"; the hint
line mentions 📎/Ctrl+V and says when the model is text-only (images then
travel as notes); Main.qml owns the DropArea and the drag feedback.
Verified: 44/44 UI checks (8 new: attach ok, one pending, the name is shown, a
missing file is refused, one chip in the composer, clear all empties it, the
clipboard image is seen and attached), --selftest, make check rc=0 (test_attach
included), and screenshots of the chip row.
Version 0.8.12.
The Basic style paints its own controls: the two text fields came out as white
boxes on the dark panel and the buttons looked nothing like the rest of the
window. Both fields now carry the surface, border and focus colors the chat
cards use (same shape as AskDialog's field), and the buttons follow the
composer: Close is a quiet bordered button, Use this is the accent one.
No behavior change; 36/36 UI checks still pass and the dialog was looked at
again through CST_APP_SHOT.
Version 0.8.11.
The window could be started, but it could not be pointed anywhere: a provider,
a model and a key only came in on the command line. The gear in the header now
opens a dialog that changes all three on the engine's live config.
AgentCore (app/src/core/AgentCore.*):
- providers(): the engine's preset table (cst_provider_count/at), with base
URL, the remembered or preset model, whether a key exists and where it comes
from (cst_creds_resolve: "saved", or the environment variable), the preset's
key variable and the source ("built-in" / "user"). A key is read into a local
buffer only to answer "is there one"; it never leaves the C++ side.
- modelChoices(provider): the provider's own list (cst_provider_models), the
fetched cache (cst_ps_cached -- which writes through its out-parameters, so
it takes a real int, not NULL: passing one cost a segfault) and the
remembered pick. No network. modelInfo() is cst_model_info + its "200K ·
text only" label; usage() is cst_agent_usage for the session and the turn.
- useProvider(provider, model, key) -> "" or a reason: a different provider
goes through cst_ps_switch_provider() (the key is verified against /models
before it is saved; offline it is kept unverified and the header says so),
a key for the current one through cst_ps_set_key(), and the model is
remembered in settings.json. syncConfig() takes the engine's config back
over the app's copy, so provider/model/approval read correctly afterwards.
The engine's session is never touched by a switch.
- open() no longer starts with an empty provider: it takes the one the engine
used last (settings.json), else the built-in default, plus that provider's
base URL and model. Without this the first turn could not be sent at all and
no entry in the dialog was "in use".
QML (app/qml/SettingsDialog.qml, Main.qml):
- a modal dialog with the themed surface the other dialogs use (the Basic
style's light panel washes out the dark theme), the provider list with its
key state, a model field with the info label and clickable candidates, a
password field for a new key, the session's token counters, and a note that
reports what the last "Use this" answered.
Tests: 8 more checks -- the presets are readable, an unknown provider is
refused, the counters are readable, the gear opens the panel, the rows exist, a
model typed into the field reaches the engine, the note says so, Close puts the
dialog away. 36 checks pass. --uitest also points XDG_CONFIG_HOME at its
scratch directory now, so a run cannot rewrite the user's settings.json or
credentials, and CST_APP_SHOT writes shot.png at the end plus
shot-settings.png while the dialog is open (that is how the dialog above was
reviewed on a machine without a screen).
Verified: 36/36 UI checks, --selftest, ctest cst-app-selftest, make check rc=0,
and a screenshot of the dialog.
Version 0.8.10.
A conversation is now something the window can pick. The sidebar lists the
workspace's stored sessions and switching replays one into the view.
Sessions (app/src/core/AgentCore.*, app/qml/SessionRow.qml, Sidebar.qml):
- AgentCore::open() resolves the workspace's current session through
cst_agent_store_resolve_default() before the engine starts. Without it the
engine opened session.jsonl in the process's working directory, next to a
session list that stayed empty.
- sessionId property; sessions() (id, title, firstUser, messages, mtime in ms,
current); newSession(), switchSession(), deleteSession() (moves the engine
off a session it has open first), renameSession(); sessionChanged and
sessionListChanged signals. No mutation runs during a turn.
- history() turns the open session back into the rows the live signals build
(kind/role/text/name/state/detail/output/exitCode/complete): system prompt
skipped, notes and attachments shown, assistant reasoning as a think row,
tool_calls_json as one card per call, and each result paired with its call
the way findTool() pairs the live stream. A call with no result keeps state
"unfinished" ("no result"), so a replay never shows a spinner that cannot
stop. Main.qml replays on sessionChanged.
- SessionRow.qml is a file of its own: as an inline component it would not see
the Repeater's modelData. Session controls are disabled while a turn runs.
Tests (app/src/ui/UiTest.cpp, app/src/main.cpp):
- the fixture session is written through the store's own API (a tool call with
its result), then the checks click its row, assert the five replayed rows and
the paired result, start two new sessions (the view empties), delete one by
its button (the open one stays), and switch back. 28 checks in total.
- item() falls back to the visual tree: delegates a model owns are not always
in the window's QObject tree, which is why the rows were invisible to
findChild even though they were on screen.
- --uitest drives a scratch workspace unless --workspace is given; it creates
and deletes sessions. CST_APP_SHOT=file saves the window as a PNG when the
run ends and CST_APP_DUMP=1 prints the session rows seen; both are how the
layout gets looked at on a machine without a screen.
QML: ThinkBlock's click target is a TapHandler on its row (a MouseArea anchored
inside a layout is undefined behavior and Qt said so).
Verified: 28/28 UI checks, --selftest, ctest cst-app-selftest, make check rc=0,
and a screenshot of a replayed session (cards, tool card with its result, the
think block, the sidebar list).
Version 0.8.9.
The window is no longer one file pretending to be a chat box. The transcript,
the run panel, the composer and the two consent dialogs are their own QML
components over one Theme singleton, and the shell around them adapts to the
screen: docked and scrollable on a desktop, a slide-out drawer on a phone.
QML (app/qml/, new except Main.qml):
- Theme.qml: single QML singleton, dark Breeze-flavoured tokens (surface,
border, accent, text/textDim/textFaint, radius, pad, gap, sizes, monospace);
diffLineColor() for unified-diff rows, compactBreakpoint 880, touchTarget
34, segmentHeight 30, headerHeight 42.
- ChatView.qml: a row-type dispatcher over the transcript model (message,
thought, tool, note), follow-the-tail scrolling with a "jump to latest"
button once the user scrolls up, and an empty state that says where the
agent runs and what it can do.
- MessageCard.qml, ThinkBlock.qml, NoteLine.qml, ToolCard.qml (status pill,
arguments, collapsible output, 500-line cut, diff colouring, spinner while
the call runs), TodoPanel.qml.
- Sidebar.qml: workspace/provider/status, mode and approval segmented rows,
plan switch, the engine's todo list, version footer; scrolls, so a short
window still reaches every control.
- Composer.qml: auto-growing field, Enter sends / Shift+Enter newlines,
red Stop while a turn runs, autocorrect hints off, finger-sized targets.
- ConsentDialog.qml (Deny / Once / Always -> CST_PERM_*) and AskDialog.qml
(the model's options become buttons, free text stays possible).
- Main.qml: shell with header, draggable sidebar splitter (hover feedback,
200-560 px, double-click resets), transcript, composer, the two dialogs,
Esc to cancel and Ctrl+L to clear. Under 880 px the sidebar becomes a
drawer with a scrim instead of squeezing the chat away.
AgentCore / main.cpp:
- provider, model, approval and planMode are properties now; approval and
plan mode write back into the engine's config, and renderMarkdown() calls
cst_web_md_html(), so a table or a code fence looks like the WebUI's.
- the todo hook writes m_todo on the GUI thread (it was written from the
worker thread before: a data race on a QString member).
- --size WxH for the window (the layout tests drive it), and the Basic style
is chosen by default: the Breeze Quick style registers its types with
relative URLs, which floods the log and breaks the composer.
UI tests (app/src/ui/):
- --uitest drives the real window with synthesized input and exits with the
number of failures: 15 checks over docking/drawer transitions, mouse clicks
and touch taps reaching the engine's mode, the plan switch, the composer
arming the send button, and a 460x900 -> 1200x820 resize round trip.
- every control the tests touch carries an objectName; the sidebar's
implicitHeight binding loop is gone.
Tests: cst-app-selftest and --uitest pass in the standalone app build,
ctest cst-app-selftest passes in the repo build (38/38 on the host).
Version 0.8.8.
The engine can be embedded now instead of only driven from a terminal: the
same objects link into a Qt front end (app/) that owns a cst_agent_t inside
its own process -- no port, no token, no second process -- and that front end
now runs on the desktop and, engine-side, on the phone.
Capability metadata (include/cst_tools.h, src/tools/registry.c):
- cst_tool_def_t gains perm_name, platforms and available (a probe that
returns a reason), so a permission is addressable by name and a tool can
say why it cannot run here.
- cst_platform_name(), cst_tool_platform_ok(), cst_tool_available(),
cst_tool_meta_reload(), cst_tool_perm_name() and CST_PLAT_DESKTOP[].
- cst_tool_register() may take over a built-in name that is not runnable on
this platform, so a front end replaces it with its own implementation.
- the registry entries carry their class (delete_file -> "delete"), the
desktop clipboard tools carry a clipboard probe; find/active/run gate on it.
- /api/settings.tools[] exposes perm_name, platforms, available, why and the
declared parameters.
Engine as a library (Makefile, CMakeLists.txt):
- libcstcore.a from the CORE_OBJ set, and a CMake cstcore target shared by
the CLI and by app/ (-DCST_BUILD_APP=ON): the engine is compiled once.
- Android branch for the vendored sashidown: a per-ABI archive built with the
NDK's aarch64-linux-android24-clang wrapper, because CMake's compiler is
plain clang and keeps --target/--sysroot in its own variables.
Qt front end (app/, new):
- AgentCore wraps one cst_agent_t: turns run on a worker thread, every
cst_agent_hooks_t callback becomes a Qt signal, and the two hooks that need
an answer (on_permission, on_ask_user) block the worker until the GUI
replies; mode, approval and plan mode go through the engine's config.
- ToolProvider hands the front end's tools to the engine (owner "app:*"); the
Linux one is notification_send with a probe for notify-send/D-Bus.
- Main.qml: transcript, tool blocks, consent dialog (Deny/Once/Always ->
CST_PERM_*), ask_user, mode switch, Esc to cancel; --selftest stays
headless and runs the embedding checks without QML.
Android (scripts/, docs/android.md, new):
- scripts/build_third_party_android.sh builds static mbedTLS + libcurl for an
ABI (CA path /system/etc/security/cacerts); build_android.sh builds
cst-agent, libcstcore.a and the test binaries for the phone, can push them
and run the whole suite there.
- sandbox_exec.c keeps the plain exec path on Android: the seccomp supervisor
compiled in and the probe reported "seccomp", but writes outside the
workspace were not denied on the device -- claiming a sandbox that does not
hold is worse than reporting none.
- tests/test_diff.c compares layouts only against real GNU diffutils: toybox's
diff prints the same hunk header with its own hunk/context rules.
Tests: test_tool_meta (metadata, platform gate, probe reasons, takeover of a
built-in name) and test_embed (in-process embedding contract) are new; the
existing registry/llm_body assertions now follow availability. 38 test
binaries pass on the host, 36/36 on arm64-v8a Android 16, cst-app-selftest
passes in both the standalone app/ build and the repo build.
Version 0.8.7.
Working mode: --mode coding|general (CST_MODE, settings.json, /mode,
WebUI run settings). general swaps the default framing for a general
assistant one -- workflow, safety notes, tool wording (run_shell, the
subagents) -- and /status shows it; minimal (the paper profile) stays
byte-frozen. The prompt state carries the mode so a switch leaves a
system note in history.
Clipboard: clipboard_read / clipboard_write tools (16 MiB cap read,
default 64 KiB window; writing is a WRITE permission with a preview) on
pbcopy / wl-copy / xclip / pbpaste / wl-paste / xclip and the Win32
clipboard. In the TUI, /attach paste falls back to clipboard text when
there is no image on it.
PDF: a dependency-free text extractor (src/pdf_text.c): inflate,
Flate/ASCIIHex/ASCII85, PNG/TIFF predictors, layout-independent object
scan, object streams, page tree walk with inherited resources, content
lexer (Tj/TJ/'/" and the Td/TD/T*/Tm spacing heuristics), per-font
ToUnicode CMaps and inline images skipped. Encrypted files and pages
with no text layer are refused with the reason.
Attachments: /attach (a path or files dropped on the terminal) now take
images, PDFs and text. A PDF is stored as its text layer with the mime
still saying application/pdf and its page count; anything else has to be
UTF-8 text. Documents travel inline as text parts, so CST_NO_IMAGES and
text-only models no longer drop them, while images keep their old path.
Tests: test_pdf_text (plain, bare and zlib-framed Flate, inline image,
CID + ToUnicode, object stream, error paths), documents in test_attach,
inlined documents in test_llm_body, mode in test_config.
Process timeline: a run of consecutive thinking and tool calls is one
block that folds to a single line ("思考 4 次 · 工具 6 次"; while running
it shows the current action) and opens into a compact timeline, one row
per thought or call. Visible text, a note or the next prompt closes the
block; history and the live stream follow the same rule. show_thinking
now also applies while streaming instead of forcing thoughts open.
Layout: the avatar gutter and the flex-wrap that dropped it under long
answers are gone, so answer, process blocks, notes and composer share one
left edge. The text column and composer are both 720px (--content); the
rail and run panel grow with clamp() on wide screens. A rebuild after
each turn no longer replays every entrance animation, and the turn time
survives it. Message actions are icon buttons and only appear under text.
Images: a prompt's images sit above the bubble, right-aligned (one keeps
its shape, several are 152px rounded tiles) and open in a lightbox (Esc,
arrow keys). Images uploaded from the page show as thumbnails over the
composer and appear on the prompt as soon as it is sent.
Also: ?theme= is no longer overridden by app.js, the user bubble is
visible in the light theme, and the narrow top bar no longer wraps.
Sessions: rename, delete and search; /api/retry regenerates the last
answer, editing a prompt resends from there; /api/export downloads the
transcript as Markdown (cst_session_export_md). Session messages carry
note/tool_result markers, so a reload rebuilds the tool steps with
their arguments, output and exit status; subagent progress is shown.
Diff and settings: /api/diff shows the real diff; /api/settings covers
protocol, max_steps, tool switches and confirm; /api/permissions edits
the rules; sandbox status is reported. Session rename no longer reads
past a short title.
Commands: slash commands with completion in the composer (/model,
/provider, /new, /retry, /undo, /compact, /export, /diff, /init,
/skill and more), a Ctrl+P palette, Shift+Tab cycles the approval
mode, F1 or ? shows the keys. "Thinking expanded" is saved in the
settings (show_thinking), "expand all tool output" in the browser.
Extensions: GET /api/extensions lists MCP servers, plugins, skills,
agent roles and subagent runs; POST /api/extensions/reload and
/api/extensions/trust; a workspace switch reloads them. /api/init and
/api/skill run on the server (cst_init_prompt shared with the TUI).
Errors, statuses and [cst] notes are shown in Chinese with a readable
reason instead of rc=; a failed turn's error survives the reload.
Tests: scripts/e2e_webui_sessions.py, e2e_webui_workspace.py and
e2e_webui_ext.py, run from e2e_webui.sh.
Streaming: Chinese reasoning showed up garbled in the WebUI. The agent
loop now feeds visible/thinking text in runs instead of byte by byte,
and the WebUI holds an incomplete UTF-8 tail until the next chunk
(cst_utf8_hold_feed), so every think_delta/assistant_delta is whole.
src/provider_switch.c: model list fetch/cache, key verify-and-save and
provider switching moved out of tui.c and shared by TUI and WebUI.
WebUI API:
- GET /api/providers, GET /api/models[?refresh=1] (401 on a rejected
key, still listing built-ins), POST /api/provider, POST /api/key
(key checked against /v1/models, saved to credentials 0600, never
echoed in replies, events or logs)
- /api/config validates everything before applying, persists model,
effort and approval (not yolo), warns when effort does not apply;
plan_mode no longer forces read-only
- state: turn_usage, api_base, key_set/key_from, model_info,
effort_applies, sees_images, max_steps, tool_profile, perm_timeout;
permission events carry their timeout
Frontend: searchable model picker with refresh and manual entry,
provider picker and key dialog, effort/vision hints, toasts instead of
silent failures, Chinese error text, real protocol in the settings and
usage panels, approval countdown from the server's timeout.
Tests: utf8 hold unit test, scripts/e2e_webui_settings.py (fake
/v1/models, wrong key, switching, persistence, Chinese thinking) run
from e2e_webui.sh, scripts/tui_keys/provider.py.
Build: <fcntl.h> in tui.c, format-truncation in http_srv.c and /web.
WebUI:
- refuse cross-site requests (Origin must be the page itself) in the
default no-token mode: any page could POST approval=yolo and a prompt
- session/workspace/undo/compact/attach/model changes are 409 while a
turn runs (use-after-free, messages landing in the wrong session)
- ask_user returned "dismissed" at once instead of waiting
- cancel and shutdown wake a turn parked on a permission or question;
SIGTERM mid-turn no longer hangs or crashes
- a page opened while a question is pending still gets it;
Last-Event-ID resumes the stream; event seq matches the SSE id
- token mode: page assets load without the token, images via cookie
- --web-open works, --web-port/--web-token are validated
- frontend: gate keys ignored while typing, clear-images button,
reasoning no longer wiped while streaming
HTTP server: auth and size cap before reading the body, strict
Content-Length, NUL in url_decode, 413 on keep-alive, idle timeout,
absolute-form only without a leading '/', case-insensitive Connection,
header deadline, 400 for long request lines, unlink before close,
poll() instead of select(), SO_EXCLUSIVEADDRUSE on Windows.
Markdown sanitizer escapes quotes in attribute values.
/web: passes this session's provider/model/base/effort/approval (key
via the environment), keeps output off the TUI, shows the real URL and
keeps CURRENT on the TUI's session.
Tests: scripts/e2e_webui_ask.py, scripts/e2e_webui_http.py (run from
e2e_webui.sh), sanitizer quote test.
The front end is rebuilt on the design tokens the desktop app ships (surfaces,
color-mix borders, alpha hovers, accent): a 30-icon inline SVG sprite, dark and
light themes, layout switches as deep links (?side=0, ?panel=0, ?theme=light)
resolved before the first paint. The empty page is one line and leaves with the
first turn; the right rail keeps three cards - todo, file changes (+N -M) and
context (tokens, prompt cache hit rate). Both rails animate in and out, and a
collapsed rail widens its grid track to 0 instead of being removed, so the
transcript never slides into a zero-width column.
- src/webui.c: POST /api/workspace - re-root the agent at another directory
(permission rules, metrics, AGENTS.md follow) and start a session there, as
sessions live per directory; state also reports cached/cache_miss tokens
- src/agent_loop.c: cst_agent_set_workspace(), rebuilt prompt and re-measured
budget; the auto-compact threshold is 75% of the window (was 60%)
- src/tui.c: /web forks a WebUI next to the TUI - separate process and a new
session, because cst_webui_run() blocks and two writers corrupt one session
- src/os_compat.c, src/os_win.c: run_shell runs without a time limit unless
CST_SHELL_TIMEOUT asks for one, so builds and long clones finish
- src/main.c, include/cst_webui.h: one CST_WEBUI_DEFAULT_PORT for --help, the
docs and /web; Termux opens the browser through termux-open-url
- README.md, docs/webui.md, docs/env_openai.md: /web, /api/workspace, the new
state fields, the 75% threshold and the layout deep links
tests/e2e_webui.sh green (permission round-trip, token paths, --web-dev);
make check green.
A second implementation of cst_agent_hooks_t next to the TUI: the turn runs on
a worker thread, the hooks publish events into a ring buffer that SSE clients
read, so the engine itself needs no changes.
- src/net.c, include/cst_net.h: POSIX/Winsock sockets, non-blocking connect
- src/http_srv.c, include/cst_http.h: HTTP/1.1, keep-alive, chunked streaming,
body caps (413), Expect: 100-continue, connection cap, exact routing
- src/web_md.c, include/cst_web_md.h: streaming markdown -> sanitized HTML
(tag/attribute allowlist, javascript: URLs and off-site images dropped)
- src/webui.c, include/cst_webui.h: event ring + SSE broadcast, all routes,
token (Bearer/Cookie/query) and loopback Host checks, 3 s auto-deny when no
client is attached
- src/webui_stub.c, CST_WEBUI=0 / CST_BUILD_WEBUI=OFF: build without the WebUI
- web/: no-build front end (transcript, approvals, todo, sessions, image
upload, status bar)
- docs/webui.md: engine API v1 - events, requests, security model
- tests/test_webui.c, scripts/e2e_webui.sh: unit tests plus an end-to-end run
driven by a recorded SSE stream (no API key needed)
- src/main.c: --web --web-port --web-host --web-token --web-dev --web-open
and CST_WEB_PORT/HOST/TOKEN/ROOT
An empty POST body is now accepted without Content-Length (RFC 9112 6.3) so
curl-driven clients can reach cancel/undo/compact/quit; CMakeList's core tests
learned about sashidown and test_webui, and CST_WEBUI=0 defines CST_NO_WEBUI.
TUI keys: register both CSI and SS3 forms of the cursor/Home/End keys and
the xterm modifier sequences when terminfo lacks them, so an arrow sent in
the "other" form no longer turns into Esc + a typed letter. Up/Down move by
visual (soft-wrapped) row, and the draft survives a trip through history.
scripts/tui_keys drives the TUI in a pty to check all of this.
Images: text inside a multimodal content array is now a {"type":"text"}
part; DeepSeek rejected the bare string with HTTP 422. deepseek-flash
(and its deepseek-chat / deepseek-reasoner aliases) read images, so the
registry marks them vision; deepseek-v4-pro stays text only.
CI: models.c lost _DEFAULT_SOURCE in 0.7.0 and gmtime_r broke the musl
build; tests sleep with poll() instead of usleep for the same reason.
Landlock no longer handles TCP, the Seatbelt profile drops (deny network*),
and the seccomp filter stops refusing IPv4/IPv6 sockets. Sandboxed commands
run without asking in auto mode on every backend (Low-IL no longer asks for
network commands), and connection errors are not treated as sandbox blocks.
Images
- vision gate: text-only models get a note instead of image parts and no
view_image tool; unknown models retry once without images on HTTP 400
- paste: Ctrl+V and /attach paste read the clipboard (wl-paste, xclip,
pngpaste/osascript, Win32 PNG or CF_DIB converted to PNG); pasting image
file paths attaches them
- MCP image content is stored in the session and sent with the tool result
- attach: rel path validation, base64 decode, /retry keeps images
Model registry
- built-in src/models_builtin.json embedded at build time, merged with
<config>/models.json and cached GET /models metadata (context, vision,
pricing); most specific rule wins per field
- /model labels, /status source, --list-models [provider]
Cache and cost
- stable request prefix (frozen tools, notes as messages), DeepSeek prefix
completion, OpenAI/Anthropic cache hints, /cost and hit rate in the status
After a successful windows-cross build on main or v* tags, upload the zip
and .sha256 via scripts/release_windows.sh (creates/updates v$VERSION).
Prefer secrets.RELEASE_TOKEN; fall back to GITHUB_TOKEN. Skip on PRs.
os_win.c needs cst_buf_* / cst_utf8_valid from util.c after os_compat was
added to the small replay CMake targets. Release packaging only needs
cst-agent.exe, so bootstrap_windows.sh builds that target alone.
windows-cross died cloning busybox-w32 through a global gitclone.com
insteadOf (HTTP 502). Try ghfast/ghproxy/gitclone/github per repo instead
of forcing one proxy for every fetch.
gcc -O0 keeps unused cst_test_util.h helpers that need os_*; clang GC'd
them so only the gcc CMake step failed. Prefer ghfast/ghproxy.net for the
llvm-mingw tarball (gitclone 500 / github unreachable on the runner).
clang under strict C11 left strcasestr undeclared (returns int → pointer
truncation → SIGSEGV). Parse Content-Length portably; keep -Werror on
make check. Drop Nix for windows-cross (root /nix fails) and use pinned
llvm-mingw UCRT instead; Alpine musl gets linux-headers for audit.h.
test_subagent segfaulted in the Docker runner: the fake SSE handler took
user + strlen(user) - 1 with an empty user string. Guard JSON access and
format the child report with an empty-safe last character. Remove the
sanitizers job entirely (if: false still queued it and blocked the runner).
- Replace actions/checkout (pulls from github.com) with scripts/ci_checkout.sh
fetched from this Gitea over raw/commit.
- Remove the macOS job (no runner).
- Disable sanitizers until the Docker runner has SYS_PTRACE; it was wedging
the only slot with AddressSanitizer:DEADLYSIGNAL.
- Add windows-cross: Nix UCRT mingw via TUNA, bootstrap_windows.sh, verify
dist/cst-agent-*-windows-x86_64.zip. Third-party git clones go through
gitclone.com.
The sanitizers job wedged the only runner by printing AddressSanitizer
DEADLYSIGNAL forever (Docker without SYS_PTRACE). Concurrency now cancels
in-progress jobs on a new push, and make asan is wrapped in timeout -s KILL
480 with shallow ASAN_OPTIONS.
Also copy the path with memcpy after the length check so -O1 asan builds
do not warn about snprintf truncation into OS_PATH_MAX.
CI passes CFLAGS=-Werror on the command line; that wiped the library's
CFLAGS ?= ... -Iinclude -Isrc, so fsm.h could not find sashidown.h.
Always append the include paths via override CPPFLAGS.
Install was pulling bookworm packages from deb.debian.org; the domestic
Gitea runner crawls that for minutes. Rewrite sources to TUNA before
apt-get/apk, with CST_CI_MIRROR to override.
With Yama ptrace_scope=2 and no CAP_SYS_PTRACE, process_vm_readv and
/proc/<pid>/mem both fail, so sc_decide cannot read path strings and every
workspace write gets EACCES. The old probe only checked the USER_NOTIF
round trip, so CST_SANDBOX=seccomp and the forced-seccomp test pass looked
available and then failed on the first write.
sc_can_peek() forks a child, places a marker on its stack, and retries the
same sc_peek path. sc_probe() now needs that too, so those hosts fall back
to none (or keep landlock) instead of a silent deny-all sandbox.
os_temp_dir() used $TMPDIR or "/tmp" without checking either. On Termux
/tmp usually does not exist (or SELinux denies it) unless TMPDIR points at
$PREFIX/tmp, so plugin and MCP temp files failed and shell children that
need a temp file (heredocs) broke.
* os_temp_dir() picks, once, the first of $TMPDIR, $PREFIX/tmp, /tmp,
/var/tmp and ~/.cache/cst-agent/tmp where a file can really be
created; if none works it keeps the old answer
* os_temp_dir_export() at startup writes the choice back to TMPDIR, so
shell children and the sandbox's writable temp dir agree
* tests/test_tmpdir.c covers the fallbacks in fresh forks
Build
* cross build switches to pkgsCross.ucrt64 (shell-win.nix); curl (Schannel),
winpthreads and ncurses 6.6 are linked statically, so the release is
cst-agent.exe + busybox.exe (busybox-w32 Unicode) with no extra DLLs
* windres embeds a manifest with activeCodePage=UTF-8 and a version resource
* ncurses 6.6 Windows console driver patches (mouse button state, A_DIM,
wide-char declarations): scripts/patches/
* scripts/bootstrap_msys2.sh builds the same release natively in MSYS2
UCRT64; PR #1's MINGW64 notes now point there
* vendor/tre-regex (musl's TRE) provides <regex.h> on MinGW
UTF-8
* paths cross the system call boundary as UTF-16 (*W APIs); console code
pages set to 65001 and restored on exit; files are read and written in
binary mode
* child output that is not valid UTF-8 is decoded from the console, OEM or
ANSI system code page
* read_file hides CR; edit_file, apply_patch and write_file keep CRLF line
endings and a UTF-8 BOM
OS layer and processes
* os_dir_* and cst_fnmatch replace the POSIX-only directory walks in
subagent, plugins, skills, undo and fs_tools; realpath / path_under and
symlink rejection work on Windows
* every child goes through CreateProcessW with its own environment block
inside a Job Object, so timeouts and Esc end the whole process tree
Sandbox (auto mode, "auto · lowil")
* run_shell runs with a restricted Low integrity token; the workspace gets
an inheritable Low label once, the sandbox TEMP is labeled Low, and the
credentials file gets a no-read-up label
* drive roots, the profile and system folders are never labeled
* network commands still ask, since Low IL does not block the network;
Access denied and MSYS2's 0xc0000142 offer a rerun outside the sandbox
* /sandbox lists labeled folders, /sandbox reset-labels restores them
TUI
* raster console fonts are switched to Consolas / NSimSun while running
* the home logo falls back to text when the console font lacks U+2580
* mouse drag copy goes to the Windows clipboard
Distribution
* scripts/install_windows.ps1 installs a Gitea release into
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\cst-agent and adds it to the user PATH;
cst-agent-update.cmd reruns it; scripts/release_windows.sh uploads the
zip with the token taken from the environment
* scripts/run_windows.bat is gone; docs/README-windows.md is rewritten
Tests
* new test_lowil, test_win_utf8 and test_os_dir; tests made portable
(cst_test_util.h)
* scripts/win_test.sh and scripts/winvm/ run the suite on English and
Chinese Windows Server VMs as Administrator, a standard user and a
Chinese user name: 29/29 on all six
An OpenSSL-based libcurl keeps the CA path it was built with. MSYS2's is
"/mingw64/etc/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt", which resolves to nothing once the
binary runs outside an MSYS2 shell, and that build ignores CURL_CA_BUNDLE,
SSL_CERT_FILE and SSL_CERT_DIR. Every HTTPS request then failed with
CURLE_SSL_CACERT_BADFILE (77).
llm_apply_ca_bundle() sets CURLOPT_CAINFO from $CST_CA_BUNDLE, falling back
to ca-bundle.crt beside the executable. If neither exists nothing is set,
so a libcurl linked against Schannel (the Windows certificate store)
behaves exactly as before.
setlocale(LC_ALL, "") maps to the ANSI code page on Windows -- 936 (GBK)
on a Chinese system -- so wcrtomb() produces GBK where the protocol wants
UTF-8, and mbrtowc() reads UTF-8 as GBK. Typed Chinese therefore reached
the model as mojibake, and once the buffer held correct UTF-8 the input
line rendered as mojibake instead. Windows' C runtime has no ".UTF-8"
locale to switch to, so the conversion has to be explicit.
os_compat.[ch]
* add os_utf8_encode() and os_utf8_decode(), locale-independent, with
range and overlong-form checks
src/tui.c
* input_put_wc(), the command-palette filter and the ask_user buffer use
os_utf8_encode() instead of wcrtomb()
src/textsel.c
* cst_utf8_decode() uses os_utf8_decode() instead of mbrtowc()
- Drag, double-click (word) and triple-click (line) selection in the log,
auto-scroll at the edges, soft-wrapped lines joined on copy.
- sashidown ANSI renderer: delimiter runs with flanking rules, so
intraword underscores (test_apply_patch.c) stay literal; unmatched
* _ and backticks are shown as-is; * and _ do not close each other.
- tests: test_textsel, test_markdown.
Query CSI ? u at startup and push the disambiguate flag on the alternate
screen when the terminal answers; CSI u reports are mapped back to legacy
input (Shift/Ctrl+Enter insert a newline, Ctrl+Backspace deletes a word).
Ctrl/Alt+Left/Right move by word, Ctrl/Alt+Delete delete the next word.
Our define_key codes move above the range ncurses uses for terminfo
extended keys.
- Child installs a seccomp filter with a listener; a supervisor thread
resolves the path of write-type syscalls (cwd, dirfd, .., symlinks,
/proc/self, /dev/stdout, both ends of rename/link) and answers
CONTINUE or EACCES; IPv4/IPv6 sockets are refused
- Probe order Landlock -> seccomp -> none, checked in a throwaway child;
CST_SANDBOX=landlock|seccomp|off
- curl connect failures count as sandbox refusals
- test_sandbox runs the detected sandbox and forced seccomp, with escape,
symlink, rename, link, chmod, stdout, ENOENT, background and network cases
- Docs: platform matrix, limits (not a security boundary, Yama and
background jobs)
- bootstrap_termux.sh installs pkg-config/binutils, builds with make,
runs the tests and installs into Termux's $PREFIX/bin.
- Makefile drops -lpthread on Android (pthreads are in bionic libc).
- TUI assumes UTF-8 on Android: nl_langinfo needs API 26, Termux
targets 24. All sources compile for aarch64-linux-android24 (NDK 27).
Tools
- Table-driven tool registry with permission classes and default/minimal
profiles; new tools: edit_file, list_dir, glob, grep, delete_file,
move_file, todo_write, web_fetch, ask_user (plus read_file paging).
- Built-in Myers diff; write tools return unified diffs.
- Persistent permission rules (.agent/permissions.json), per-turn undo
snapshots (.agent/undo), AGENTS.md project notes, auto-compact at 80%
of the model context, cancellable run_shell with process-group kill.
TUI
- Table-driven slash commands: /provider /key /effort /status /tools
/permissions /yolo /undo /retry /diff /export /copy /rename /delete
/init /max-steps /todo, with / and @ completion.
- Permission modal with diff and prefix rules, ask_user modal, todo
panel, header with model/effort/context, bracketed paste, line editing,
wide-char cursor, NO_COLOR and ASCII fallback; Esc never quits.
Startup and configuration
- API keys are entered in the TUI (hidden) and saved per provider in
<config>/credentials (0600); env variables are only a fallback.
- Last provider, per-provider model and reasoning effort are remembered
in <config>/settings.json; --effort/-e and /effort send
reasoning_effort (low|medium|high|max) to models that accept it.
- DeepSeek preset uses deepseek-flash / deepseek-v4-pro.
- Session flags --new/--continue/--resume/--list-sessions, --yolo,
--confirm.
Compatibility and tests
- ncurses detection, macOS/Homebrew support, make install, XDG config
dir, POSIX cleanups; Gitea CI (gcc/clang/asan/musl/macOS).
- Unit tests for diff, fs tools, registry, undo/perms and config;
e2e fixtures multi_file_refactor and ask_or_todo; vendored cJSON.
WHC
XYZ