v1.14

# Agent Zero Release Notes

## Highlights

This release introduces a redesigned first-run onboarding experience, separates Desktop and Office into focused plugins, adds host browser routing through the A0 CLI connector, and delivers significant prompt and tool contract improvements informed by cross-provider evidence sweeps.

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## New Features

- **Guided first-run onboarding** — A new wizard walks users through Cloud vs. Local provider selection, account connection, model picking, and a ready state, replacing the previous manual setup flow.
- **Ollama Cloud provider** — Available as an OpenAI-compatible chat provider with hosted API base and model listing.
- **Nebius Token Factory provider** — Registered as an OpenAI-compatible provider, available in onboarding and model config.
- **Host Browser (Bring Your Own Browser)** — Route browser actions through the A0 CLI connector to a local Chrome/Chromium instance with remote-debugging support, including profile mode selection (existing profile or clean Agent profile).
- **Browser runtime selection exposed to CLI** — A protected connector endpoint allows the A0 CLI to switch between Docker browser and Bring Your Own Browser mode.
- **Persistent browser history screenshots** — Each Browser tool call saves a static JPEG to chat history for immutable transcript previews.
- **ZIP download toast feedback** — Immediate grouped progress toasts for backup and file-browser ZIP downloads with error replacement.
- **API chat lifetime and cleanup** — `lifetime_hours` is validated and persisted per chat; a background job loop removes expired API chats automatically.
- **Connector model overrides in Web UI** — Custom per-chat model overrides now render in the model switcher instead of a generic "Custom" label, with live refresh on changes.
- **`chats-header-controls` extension hook** — Plugins can inject controls into the chats list header via the established `x-extension` pattern.

## Architecture & Plugin Changes

- **Desktop split into `_desktop` plugin** — Xpra/Xfce lifecycle, `/desktop` route, Desktop state, session APIs, surface registration, and the linux-desktop skill now live in `_desktop`.
- **Office reduced to document ownership** — `_office` focuses on document artifacts, Markdown sessions, LibreOffice-compatible file actions, and persistence. Binary document editing routes through explicit Desktop requests.
- **Shared surfaces frontend service** — Browser and Desktop register docked or floating live UI through a dedicated surfaces layer, preserving active viewers across canvas/modal switches.
- **Office and Desktop state moved under plugin storage** — Retired `/usr/_office` and `/usr/_desktop` trees migrate into `/usr/plugins/<plugin>` at startup.
- **Serialized runtime package preparation** — Office and Desktop apt operations share an in-process retry guard to handle transient apt locks gracefully.
- **Desktop install progress** — The Desktop frontend shows a neutral install message during runtime preparation instead of a misleading missing-dependencies error.

## Tool & Prompt Improvements

- **Normalized tool action contracts** — Multi-action tools standardized around `tool_args.action` while maintaining backward compatibility with older dialects.
- **Renamed skills to task-oriented names** — Office skills become Writer, Calc, Impress; high-impact skills get task-oriented names; plugin-owned skills move into their owning plugin folders.
- **Reduced default prompt pressure** — Browser and scheduler prompts compacted into skill-backed manifests, skill catalog descriptions shortened, noisy framework knowledge pruned.
- **A0 connector remote skills split by affordance** — Separate text-editor and code-execution remote skills replace the combined CLI remote workflow skill; computer-use remote scoped to desktop control and skill-gated as beta.
- **Browser tool ergonomics** — Selector-based reference actions, coordinate click fallbacks, focused-field typing, string key chords, and smarter content helper snapshots that ignore framework event wrappers.
- **Document artifact stabilization** — File creation is opt-in through `document_artifact`, file cards appear only in final responses, and Desktop canvas sessions refresh after saved edits.

## Security Fixes

- **Path-containment bypass in `/api/image_get` resolved** — Requested images are now resolved against the Agent Zero base directory with symlink-aware validation. SVG/SVGZ responses include `nosniff` and sandboxed CSP headers.

## Bug Fixes

- **Blocking history compression edge cases** — Stalled automatic compression no longer spins forever; large single-line histories (85k+ characters) split by verified token budget.
- **Canvas attachment for browser and documents** — Browser canvas attaches to active Docker sessions with initial snapshots; Markdown documents open through the right-canvas Desktop editor.
- **Bare desktop canvas treated as ready** — Linux Desktop reports healthy when XFCE has no active application window but display and screenshots are available.
- **Computer-use rearm handling** — Stale Free Run settings no longer treated as ready; agents provide backend-agnostic rearm guidance.
- **Subordinate agent document affordances** — Automatic office document response affordances skipped for delegated agents so reviews keep their actual content.
- **Model config provider controls** — Custom API base URL resets on provider change; Supports Vision toggle moved out of Advanced Settings.

## Infrastructure & Maintenance

- **Browser Playwright cache moved to `/a0/tmp/playwright`** — Startup migration cleans retired usr-based caches automatically.
- **uv cache cleaned during self-update** — Best-effort `uv cache clean` runs when the self-update manager processes an update.
- **Legacy Collabora retirement** — Old `a0_office_collabora` supervisor program stopped and removed during Docker self-update; stale runtime paths cleaned.
- **Legacy runtime artifact cleanup** — Stale directories removed, retired packages (including dynamically discovered `collaboraoffice*` splits) purged at startup/self-update.
- **Self-update backups skip runtime sockets** — Live sockets, device nodes, vanished files, and unreadable entries no longer trip rollback checks.
- **Connector hello metadata** — Remote tool metadata stored through a dedicated hello path with context-bound websocket SID acknowledgment.
- **Skill ownership hardened** — Connector list/delete scoped to enabled catalog; built-in plugin skills cannot be deleted; invalid skill YAML surfaced instead of silently accepted.

## UI Improvements

- **Simplified project LLM setup** — Project creation focuses on basic details and Git cloning; model selection moved to a collapsed Advanced Settings accordion on the edit screen.
- **Settings accordion redesign** — Sticky accordion with active section tracking replaces two-step settings navigation.
- **Action button order aligned** — Primary actions appear before Cancel across plugin settings and related modals.
- **Browser chat action button removed** — The Browser plugin no longer injects a button under the chat input.
- **Project skills settings repositioned** — Moved directly after project instructions, before file structure and secrets.
- **Host Browser config simplified** — "Use host when ready" replaced with clear "Bring Your Own Browser" option and Chrome remote-debugging guidance.

## Documentation

- **Refreshed user-facing guides** — README, quickstart, and docs index updated around Browser, Desktop, A0 CLI, projects, memory, skills, profiles, and model presets with optimized screenshots.
- **First-run onboarding guide** — Screenshot-led walkthrough linked from docs hub, quickstart, and installation flow.
- **Model efficiency scorecard** — Scored tool-efficiency chart with provider/model rankings, failure clusters, and applied improvements.
- **Refactor guardrails** — Internal docs covering modal/surface boundary, Desktop ownership, Office scope, renamed skills, and connector ownership rules.