v0.5.0

The biggest release yet — a month of work spanning 9 new free providers, an Anthropic-compatible API, generative media, an MCP server, structured outputs, and a large reliability + security hardening pass.

## New providers (9)

**SEA-LION, NavyAI, NaraRouter, Aion, Requesty, AI Horde, Routeway, BazaarLink, AINative** — all with genuine free tiers, routed behind the same single key.

## New APIs & surfaces

- **Anthropic-compatible API** — `/v1/messages` works with Anthropic SDKs and tools (Claude Code included), with system-role fixes and Gemini thought-signature preservation (#361, #362, #493)
- **Generative media** — image generation + audio/TTS endpoints, with Image and Audio tabs in the model browser (#358, #359)
- **MCP server at `/mcp`** — gateway introspection for coding agents (#517)
- **Structured outputs** — `json_schema` forwarded to providers, with JSON healing, routing filter, and format-ignore failover when a provider can't comply (#514, #516, #520)
- **Legacy completions endpoint** (#340) and embeddings `dimensions` parameter for MRL truncation (#393)
- **Self-hosted OpenAPI reference** at `/v1/docs` + `/v1/openapi.json` (#482)
- **Opt-in response cache** for `/v1/chat/completions` (#481)

## Routing & reliability

- Unified the four provider fallback loops; 401 key rotation, retry budgets, truncation policy, rich exhaustion diagnostics (#483, #484)
- Per-request token budget + failover circuit breaker (#511)
- Client-disconnect abort + `X-Fallback-Trail` header on every surface (#518)
- Post-sleep wake recovery: drift detection, socket flush, immediate key re-probe (#515)
- Multi-key improvements: pooled monthly token budgets scale with key count, embeddings/media load balancing, quota fixes (#457, #459, #479)
- Provider timeout tuning from a live all-provider sweep; 60s chat timeout for reasoning-model TTFB (#519, #521)
- Fusion mode: tool-call support and model-family panel diversity (#331)
- Router penalty inspector + quota observability (#344)

## Security

- First-run setup code; unified key moved out of the DB into a key file; CSV export hardening (#477)
- Custom-provider SSRF guard, plus two follow-up bypass closures (#443, #450)

## Dashboard & desktop

- Keys page redesign with tabs, provider key import/export, custom models managed from the Keys page (#327, #467, #473)
- Cmd/Ctrl+K command palette, models nav dropdown, first-run checklist, skeletons, error boundary + toasts, 404 page
- Consolidated provider detail pages with API usage for image/audio/embeddings (#360)
- Playground: system prompt support + real error bubbles (#390)
- Desktop: LAN access toggle (bind 0.0.0.0), app version in popover (#421, #447)
- i18n: Italian added; complete coverage across all six locales (#367)

## Under the hood

- File-per-migration DB system, `Db`/`DbStatement` interfaces, `Scheduler` abstraction with lifecycle tests (#265, #397)
- Runtime-capability guards + centralized Config (#375); env-drift warning at startup (#494)
- Catalog controls, persistence backup, and declarative config

Full diff: https://github.com/tashfeenahmed/freellmapi/compare/v0.4.1...v0.5.0

Thanks to community contributors: @chongjiazhen, @LoneRifle, @vjsai, @Tazrif-Raim, @kairwang01 and everyone who reported issues.

> **macOS note:** the DMG is not yet notarized — on first launch use right-click → Open (or `xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/FreeLLMAPI.app`).

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