Releases

Changelog

All notable public changes to Aetower should be documented here.

Unreleased

0.9.0 (build 900) - 2026-07-14

Aetower 0.9.0 makes Monitor's process view structurally reliable. The app now keeps a real process-lineage graph through the core snapshot and FFI layer, so grouping no longer depends on parsing truncated component display strings. Grouped Monitor rows render one unified operator list: burden leaders are badges on the group row, per-PID expansion is inline, and search keeps the ancestor chain needed to explain matching children.

Selected commits:

• Public website comparison and claim-copy cleanup: 3d9a2d5, 235ae69, 56f7f45, 49a9546
• Changelog, docs, and public-claims validation alignment: 486c461, 1f750b3, 916ce36, c7341c0
• Monitor list decomposition, inline process expansion, and grouped-session behavior: 8ccccf5, d5d0211, ed13dc6, 56b8b66
• Core process-lineage snapshots and graph-backed Monitor grouping: 8df618c, 905902a

Monitor:

• Added ProcessLineageNode to the core model and Swift FFI binding so the UI receives PID, parent PID, owning entity, workspace/cwd, source, confidence, and per-process resource fields before component truncation.
• Reworked grouped Monitor mode to prefer lineage graph edges, while keeping component parent-summary parsing as a fallback for older/capped snapshots.
• Changed burden leaders from a separate flat section into design-system badges on grouped rows, so a high-burden root no longer disappears from its group.
• Expanded grouped rows show the concrete PIDs inline and sort those PIDs by the same key as the parent group.
• Search and filters now decide which grouped rows are visible after grouping, preserving parent/ancestor entities needed to explain visible children.

Website and docs:

• Expanded the public comparison pages into a surfaces overview plus four richer comparison arenas.
• Aligned MCP, retention, and published tool-count claims with the code and public descriptors.
• Refreshed product direction, feature inventory, tab guide, and release copy for the current operator-surface direction.

0.8.1 (build 801) - 2026-07-14

Aetower 0.8.1 is a fast follow-up to 0.8 focused on making the operator surface faster, more transparent, and easier to verify. Storage and Repos now open from cached state first, history retention moves to a seven-day default, privacy/outbound state is visible in-app, MCP operator actions are controllable from Settings, resource-cost rollups use one shared model, and the release pipeline now checks public claims before the website ships.

Selected commits:

• History retention and claim alignment: 656387c, ec78bf7
• MCP, first-run registration, and outbound-data controls: 5ae5d9a, 0e6b563, 12f8f12, badb20b
• Shared resource-cost rollups and attribution-gated repo energy/carbon: 86ed516, c92e735
• GPU/memory source badges and Fleet opt-in confidence: 628dd63, 5808882, 5e65239
• CLI/Homebrew distribution consistency: 6aad93c, e16b53c
• APFS estimates, Repos operator truth, and public-claims validation: 83a71c9, 237dfda, 32c4530
• Storage/Reclaim scan reliability and cache-first responsiveness: 03fdae7, f8881f7, f2ed3c2, 5051ade, 5f3fbd1, 46d21c2, 95de895, 338810f
• Website/docs release surface: 5842a5a, 597d0da, ae85d0d, ea567b3

Cost model:

• Added unified resource-cost rollups for repositories, sessions, entities, and machine-level activity, with shared estimates for energy, battery, dollars, carbon, disk growth, thermal contribution, source, and confidence.
• Repository rollups include estimated energy and carbon only when attribution is strong enough (known repo path, matching Chau7 session/workspace, session linked to an entity with accumulated session energy), tagged with the chau7-repo+estimated-energy source. The Repos UI carries dollars, tokens, estimated energy, carbon, source, and confidence, and row/detail help text explains the estimates where available.

Privacy:

• Added an Outbound Data panel under Settings → Privacy that shows every channel that can leave the machine and its live state: telemetry on/off with endpoint and cadence, Fleet on/off with local-network advertising behavior, VirusTotal on/off/key state with its exact hash-only behavior, provider credentials configured versus actually usable for outbound API calls, and registered MCP clients with the local-socket/client-forwarding caveat.
• MCP operator actions are now visible by default for trusted local clients, while Settings can hide them and force the MCP surface back to read-only tools. Process actions remain preview- and approval-gated.

CLI install consistency:

• Homebrew casks now declare a binary artifact for the bundled Aetower.app/Contents/Helpers/aetower helper, so brew install --cask links aetower into Homebrew's bin directory automatically.
• Settings → Setup now tracks CLI readiness, and Settings → AI Clients shows the command-line tool status before MCP registration, with explicit smoke commands for aetower top, aetower storage, and aetower repos.
• Release matrix verification now fails if the generated Homebrew cask stops linking the CLI or stops documenting the three smoke commands.

Homebrew tap:

• Published Aetower through the real Aeptus/homebrew-aetower tap so users can install with brew tap aeptus/aetower and brew install --cask aetower.
• Added an explicit tap publisher to the release pipeline; generated cask files remain build artifacts until --publish-homebrew-tap pushes the tap.
• Updated docs and website copy to distinguish the downloadable cask artifact from the brew-installable tap distribution.

Repository operations:

• Added explicit Repos operator-truth coverage for immediate cached inventory, Git/index/config fingerprint changes, stale-but-visible repositories, and the background new-repo scan toast/state.

Release validation:

• Added a public-claims validation gate that checks release-facing claims against source defaults, local release artifacts, the Sparkle appcast, source archives, bundled CLI, Fleet/outbound defaults, and published release URLs before website deploys.

Storage:

• Added explicit APFS-aware storage coverage for sparse files, hardlinks, cloud placeholders, purgeable capacity, and clone-lineage caveats, with docs that frame the feature as local reclaim estimates rather than exact filesystem ownership forensics.

Responsiveness:

• Storage and Repos now keep tab-open paths cache-first: when no display cache is available, the app shows a scan-needed idle state instead of reconstructing the first paint from the persistent storage index.
• History-backed tabs now reuse the in-memory history page on repeat opens instead of forcing a persisted-history reload every time AI Agents, Chau7, or History becomes visible.

0.8 (build 800) - 2026-07-08

Accessibility & automation:

• The main window's tabs are now addressable, not just clickable. Every workspace has a stable slug and four ways to reach it: the aetower://tab/<slug> URL scheme (e.g. open "aetower://tab/system", sub-tabs via aetower://tab/activity/timeline), an aetower tab <slug> CLI verb, Cmd+1…8 in a new Navigate menu, and matching accessibility identifiers (tab.system, rail.activity.timeline). None of these need Accessibility trust or synthetic clicks, so headless agents and scripts can drive the UI.
• Added a persisted default startup tab (Settings → General → "Startup tab"). The app opens on Monitor unless an explicit default is set, which agents can also write with aetower tab <slug> --default or defaults write com.aeptus.aetower nav.defaultWorkspaceTab <slug>.
• Sidebar rail buttons and section menus now expose selection state, labels, and hints to VoiceOver and UI automation.

Repository operations:

• Reworked the Repos tab into a cache-first operator view: cached repository inventory paints immediately, a fingerprint pass decides whether a deeper parse is needed, and a small background toast reports new-repo scans without blocking the list.
• Split repository optimization planning out of the Aetower-specific view layer so future content sources can feed the same optimization decisions.
• Aligned Repos list rows and floating controls with the Monitor tab and shared design-system components.

Storage:

• Added the Storage cube explorer and reclaim-card actions for scanning storage pressure visually.
• Fixed environment-dependent storage scan policy assertions and preserved cached repository rows when an empty signal-only refresh returns.

macOS:

• Disabled AppKit automatic window tabbing so Cmd+T no longer creates duplicate macOS-level Aetower window tabs.

Website:

• Updated the public site with early-alpha positioning, Chau7 links, and real Storage and Repos captures from the current app.

0.74 (build 723) - 2026-07-04

Developer Preview feature release.

Release metadata:

• Bundle identifier: com.aeptus.aetower
• Sparkle appcast: https://aetower.dev/releases/appcast.xml
• Release archive prefix: https://aetower.dev/releases/

Command line tool:

• Added aetower, an operator CLI that reads live data from a running Aetower over its local MCP socket: aetower top, host, storage, repos, alerts, findings, and doctor, a generic aetower call reaching every tool, --json on any command for pipelines, --watch, scriptable exit codes, shell completions, and a man page.
• The CLI ships inside the app bundle, so it arrives through every install channel. The signed installer package symlinks it onto your PATH automatically; disk-image, ZIP, and Homebrew installs can add it from Settings → AI Clients ("Install Command Line Tool") or with aetower install.

Distribution:

• The signed, notarized installer package (.pkg) and disk image (.dmg) are built and published again as part of every release, so the direct downloads track the current version instead of an older build.

0.73 (build 718) - 2026-07-03

Developer Preview feature release.

Release metadata:

• Bundle identifier: com.aeptus.aetower
• Sparkle appcast: https://aetower.dev/releases/appcast.xml
• Release archive prefix: https://aetower.dev/releases/

Storage:

• Redesigned the Storage tab around reclaiming space: a disk-pressure header, clearer reclaim opportunities, a nimble cleanup pill, and a reversible Finder-Trash cleanup flow that shows how much space frees when the Trash is emptied.
• Made storage relaunch paint instantly from a persisted cache and skip the full repository inventory re-walk when nothing changed on disk, removing the long "starting scan" delay after every launch.
• Added growth, cold-data, and filesystem-event attribution so reclaim cost is learned from writer history.

Repository:

• Reworked the Repository page around repository health: a health-header hero, a navigation rail with live signals, bulk multi-select operations, and real actions — reversible artifact cleanup, project unlinking, and re-running failed GitHub workflows / redeploying Cloudflare Pages from the provider tile.
• Expired and labelled the OpenSSF Scorecard cache so a cached supply-chain score is never shown as fresh, and banded per-check outcomes so a strong check is no longer reported as "failed".

Metrics & correctness:

• Fixed CPU-wakeups, disk, and network rates to divide by the real elapsed interval (they were previously stuck at zero or over-reported), kept metric rings updating while a visible window is unfocused, carried hardware sensors forward between samples, and summed GPU memory across accelerators.

Reliability & security:

• Hardened token storage to be device-bound, surfaced decode errors instead of failing silently, backed up corrupt local stores instead of discarding them, fenced untrusted external text before it enters agent prompts, and added a CI gate against a stale Rust↔Swift FFI binding.

0.54 (build 497) - 2026-06-04

Developer Preview maintenance release.

Release metadata:

• Bundle identifier: com.aeptus.aetower
• Sparkle appcast: https://aetower.dev/releases/appcast.xml
• Release archive prefix: https://aetower.dev/releases/

• Added a merged Activity workspace that combines History and Timeline into a single section with Overview, History, Timeline, and Storage modes.
• Added hardened process actions with per-click action IDs, PID identity safeguards, target blast-radius metadata, richer command results, and follow-up verification for terminate flows.
• Added a guarded privileged-helper process action command path that remains opt-in and disabled by default for public builds.
• Added clearer process-action UI feedback, including sent-action state, verification outcomes, command stderr/stdout, target outcomes, helper status, and restore-previous-priority support.
• Fixed Monitor click responsiveness by preventing ordinary entity/PID selection from starting eager process inspections or static analysis spinners.

0.53 (build 467) - 2026-06-04

Developer Preview feature release.

Release metadata:

• Bundle identifier: com.aeptus.aetower
• Sparkle appcast: https://aetower.dev/releases/appcast.xml
• Release archive prefix: https://aetower.dev/releases/

• Added a fast, operator-oriented Startup & Persistence view with richer risk scoring, change detection, runtime correlation, deep audit support, and safe reveal/copy/focus actions.
• Added configurable Monitor metric-ring placement for top, bottom, left, or right layouts.
• Added Monitor ring focus controls for top and bottom layouts, including full-width focused graphs and inline pin/unpin controls.
• Added stable seven-ring Monitor presentation by keeping GPU visible even when GPU activity is currently idle.
• Added release/support metadata for Monitor metric-ring placement and focus settings.

0.52 (build 462) - 2026-06-03

Developer Preview feature release.

Release metadata:

• Bundle identifier: com.aeptus.aetower
• Sparkle appcast: https://aetower.dev/releases/appcast.xml
• Release archive prefix: https://aetower.dev/releases/

• Added a redesigned public website with a cleaner visual system, real Monitor screenshot, PKG-first install flow, and project/author links.
• Added reverse resource pivot tools to show which process holds a file, port, or socket, including MCP-facing reports and UI filtering for open resources.
• Added startup and persistence inspection for login items, launch agents, launch daemons, and related persistence surfaces.
• Added richer code-signing classification with amortized full-coverage scans.
• Added per-agent budget rules, alerting, timeline notifications, per-category toggles, and snooze support.
• Added actionable recommendation flows so users and agents can act on concrete process guidance rather than generic friction text.
• Added thermal throttle forecasting and contributor attribution.
• Added slow-regression detection foundations, including app-version capture and off-tick detector wiring.
• Added energy translation for battery time, estimated cost, and carbon impact.
• Added observability documentation, a metric reference, and a Grafana dashboard.

0.51 (build 418) - 2026-05-29

Developer Preview maintenance release.

Release metadata:

• Bundle identifier: com.aeptus.aetower
• Sparkle appcast: https://aetower.dev/releases/appcast.xml
• Release archive prefix: https://aetower.dev/releases/

• Changed the Aetower project license to AGPL-3.0-only.
• Added corresponding source archive generation for public binary releases.
• Added Cloudflare release-site publication for versioned and latest source archives.
• Added public release verification for source archive availability.
• Added release preflight protection against dirty release source states.
• Updated package metadata so Rust workspace crates report the AGPL license.
• Embedded the Aetower license file in packaged macOS app bundles.

0.5 (build 414) - 2026-05-29

First public 0.5 Developer Preview release.

Release metadata:

• Bundle identifier: com.aeptus.aetower
• Sparkle appcast: https://aetower.dev/releases/appcast.xml
• Release archive prefix: https://aetower.dev/releases/

• Added prominent process actions in Monitor and process detail surfaces, including easier access to terminate and force-kill preview flows.
• Added richer monitor-side process controls, quick stop access, and clearer action naming.
• Added Chau7 integration guidance when Chau7 is not running or not connected.
• Added public-release publication checks for Sparkle appcast, immutable ZIP, direct ZIP, Homebrew cask, optional PKG, and third-party notices.
• Added Cloudflare release-site publication of Homebrew cask artifacts and optional signed PKG artifacts, gated so stale local PKGs are never published unless the current release run explicitly built a PKG.
• Added release preflight validation that the changelog version/build matches the release metadata.

0.1.0-developer-preview.1 (build 408) - 2026-05-29

First public Developer Preview baseline.

Release metadata:

• Bundle identifier: com.aeptus.aetower
• Sparkle appcast: https://aetower.dev/releases/appcast.xml
• Release archive prefix: https://aetower.dev/releases/

• Added a direct-download macOS release path with Developer ID signing, notarization, Sparkle appcast generation, and package smoke testing.
• Added local MCP support for AI agents through the app-owned live engine and a bundled helper.
• Added Monitor, History, Timeline, Chau7, AI Agents, Diagnostics, Fleet, and Settings surfaces.
• Added operator-safe History and Timeline behavior for large datasets.
• Added runtime diagnostics, history health, memory breakdowns, profiling hooks, wakeup attribution, and support-bundle previews.
• Added richer process inspection with code-signing classification, loaded library enumeration, bundle metadata, startup-entry detection, and child-tree thread aggregation.
• Added advanced process-list workflows: regex/field search, CSV export, recently-finished process visibility, new-process badges, and sandboxed Rhai filters.
• Added process-event automation hooks for Shortcuts or shell commands.
• Added release artifacts for Homebrew cask, optional PKG packaging, Sparkle distribution matrix verification, and generated third-party dependency notices.
• Added hardware-focused views for timestamp hover-scrub history graphs, hardware sensors, live menu-bar sparklines, and per-core performance/efficiency CPU load.
• Added local quality gates for Swift, Rust, security scans, benchmarks, package smoke, telemetry smoke, and dependency policy.