open-design-v0.21.1

> **Nix distribution note (added August 31, 2026):** the repository-owned flake was retired on `main` in commit `49cc51058fd76ec825fcd6a9f684f8d3a138fca3` via PR #7644. If you still need the last repository-shipped flake, pin to tag `open-design-v0.21.1` (commit `fbd4d48ebe21b20f4a2faaad0ad5e53aaeb1dc4b`) or an earlier tag instead of updating against `main`.

### 🌟 Codename: Community First: *No Login Required*

🔓 **Open Design has always been rooted in the community. Now we’re returning to
that promise: no account required.** Choose a local CLI or BYOK directly from
Home and start creating. Open Design Cloud is still available whenever you need
it.

## 🔥 Highlights

- 🔓 **Start without signing in.** Open Design no longer requires a Cloud
  account before you can begin creating. (#7381) Thanks @Siri-Ray.

- 🧰 **Use your own tools from Home.** Choose an existing local CLI or connect
  your preferred model provider through BYOK. (#7381) Thanks @Siri-Ray.

- 🧪 **Introducing Open Design Labs.** Enable Open Design Harness in Settings to
  try a new generation strategy and create more polished results. More
  experiments are on the way. (#7445, #7514) Thanks @lefarcen.

> 📥 **Download:** Tag
> [`open-design-v0.21.1`](https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design/releases/tag/open-design-v0.21.1)
>
> | Platform | Architecture | Asset |
> |---|---|---|
> | macOS | Apple Silicon | [DMG](https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design/releases/download/open-design-v0.21.1/open-design-0.21.1-mac-arm64.dmg) |
> | macOS | Intel | [DMG](https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design/releases/download/open-design-v0.21.1/open-design-0.21.1-mac-x64.dmg) |
> | Windows | x64 | [Installer](https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design/releases/download/open-design-v0.21.1/open-design-0.21.1-win-x64-setup.exe) |

## ✨ Added

### Creation and experiments

- 🧪 **Design Harness is now one switch away.** Open Design Labs has a home in
  Settings, where you can opt into the latest generation strategy without
  installing another build or reaching for a terminal. The switch explains what
  it covers, saves across restarts and tells you when another policy owns the
  choice. (#7445)

- 🖼️ **Real subjects get real imagery.** When a prototype names a person,
  product, artwork, event or place, Open Design now searches for and uses the
  actual referent instead of inventing a look-alike. Images keep their natural
  proportions and full frame instead of being forced into a leftover
  placeholder crop. (#7436)

- 📱 **OD Next understands the bones of a mobile interface.** Calendars, stats,
  settings rows, top bars, bottom navigation, images and confirmation dialogs
  now receive purpose-built structure, so generated phone prototypes read
  clearly without flattening every pattern into the same generic row. (#7327)

### Team collaboration

- 🧭 **Large Team workspaces can put a ceiling on background catch-up.** An
  opt-in cumulative budget keeps background materialization from growing without
  bound while leaving foreground project opens immediate and unaffected.
  (#7403) Thanks @lefarcen.

## ⚡ Performance & reliability

- ⚡ **Team projects open from a warm path.** Repeated project-list and deep-link
  reads reuse a short-lived, workspace-safe cache; shares, unshares and workspace
  changes invalidate it immediately. (#7398) Thanks @lefarcen.

- 🚀 **Home starts with less competition for the screen.** Duplicate catalog
  reads are collapsed, and the hidden Automations area waits until you actually
  open it before fetching its data. (#7408, #7413) Thanks @lefarcen.

- 🧹 **Stopping a run now means the whole run has stopped.** Cancel, timeout,
  failure, retry and app shutdown clean up the complete Agent process tree before
  declaring the attempt finished, preventing abandoned children from continuing
  to consume resources. (#7432) Thanks @Siri-Ray.

## 🐛 Fixed

### Agents, models and setup

- ☁️ **Cloud sign-out no longer closes the door on local work.** Local Agent and
  BYOK stay selectable while signed out or while Cloud is unavailable, and
  signing out preserves provider keys, base URLs, model choices and media
  defaults stored on this installation. (#7381, #7437) Thanks @Siri-Ray.

- 🧭 **Run errors now point to the action that can actually help.** An
  incompatible Agent handshake asks you to change Agent versions instead of
  retrying; membership concurrency limits show their reset guidance; and an AMR
  model rejection stops before a second, misleading prompt failure can replace
  the real cause. (#7303, #7429, #7458) Thanks @lefarcen, @Siri-Ray.

- 🚦 **A real upstream limit is no longer buried under “empty output.”** Quota,
  rate-limit and availability signals keep priority over generic no-result
  classification, so retry behavior follows the failure that actually happened.
  (#7248) Thanks @mturac.

- 💬 **A clarification form you can see is a clarification form you can answer.**
  Strategy tasks no longer become terminal behind a rendered question form and
  reject the response with an internal state error. (#7509)

- 🔌 **A missing local engine now fails clearly instead of returning the app
  shell as if it were data.** Login, Agent discovery and other API calls surface
  a recognizable, retryable connection failure when the daemon origin is not
  configured. (#7399) Thanks @lorenzozanee.

### Studio, preview and export

- 🧩 **HTML that writes HTML no longer tears its own preview apart.** Print
  windows, email templates, `srcdoc` payloads and markup stored in scripts or
  attributes keep running as authored. Preview, deck, PDF and artifact export
  now insert Open Design's bridges at the real document boundaries instead of
  mistaking tag-shaped text for structure. (#7421, #7422) Thanks @lefarcen.

- 📊 **Editable PPTX export no longer succeeds with an invisible background.**
  Empty Chromium captures are retried; if a correct layered capture still cannot
  be produced, export stops with a clear failure instead of handing you a
  transparent slide. (#7337) Thanks @mrcfps.

- 🎛️ **Small editing controls stay in their lane.** The chat resize handle no
  longer steals hover, click or drag from the scroll edge; the slash-command
  menu keeps each row readable; and switching to Image selects it immediately
  without dimming the creation tabs. (#7324, #7368, #7375) Thanks @Siri-Ray,
  @lefarcen.

### Teams, navigation and interface

- 💳 **Team balance follows the Team workspace you are viewing.** Settings and
  Home agree on the active workspace balance and no longer fall back to a
  member's personal wallet when Team data is unavailable. (#7384)

- 🎞️ **Private projects use the Team balance they belong to.** Vela image and
  video generation now preserves the project’s Workspace billing scope without
  changing its private sharing state. (#7504) Thanks @alchemistklk.

- ↩️ **Creating a design system brings you back to where you started.** Whether
  you entered from a conversation, picker, Library, Home or the sidebar, Back
  restores that original context instead of dropping you at a generic page.
  (#7367) Thanks @lefarcen.

- 🌐 **Plugin and recovery copy speaks the app's language.** Skill-card
  descriptions follow the selected locale with a predictable English fallback,
  and a missing bundled scenario explains—in the same language—how reinstalling
  restores it. (#7369, #7325) Thanks @lefarcen, @Siri-Ray.

- 📣 **The Go Plan sunset notice reaches the right people in the right
  language.** Targeted message variants open the dedicated notice, and its copy,
  actions and layout follow the selected Open Design locale instead of falling
  back to hard-coded Chinese. (#7430, #7453, #7477) Thanks @nettee.

- 🔗 **Cloud authorization returns to the installed app, not a stray Electron
  window.** Development runs no longer take over the system-wide `opendesign://`
  link handler, while packaged builds keep their normal sign-in and invite
  handoff. Signed-out users also stop seeing a campaign badge that requires an
  account. (#7479) Thanks @lefarcen.

- ⬆️ **The update action stays where you expect it.** Signed-out desktop users
  now see the ready-to-install update in the same top-right cluster as signed-in
  users, clear of the Home composer and model picker. (#7482) Thanks @Siri-Ray.

## 🙏 Thanks to everyone who shipped 0.21.1

@alchemistklk · @lefarcen · @lorenzozanee · @mixxer · @mrcfps · @mturac ·
@nettee · @Siri-Ray