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
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.
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
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