Gentle AI v4.2.0 is a minor release. It publishes Gentle Shell's ODD routing block from gentle-ai, so Pi's workflow wording now has a single source, and it ships the orchestrator routing changes measured on the Gentle Shell bench: conditional delegation triggers, a named-risk independent verifier, commits per reviewable slice, and small tasks kept inline. It also fixes three review-mode defects on Windows and long local paths. The provider contract moves from 1.3.0 to 1.4.0 to add the routing bundle entry.
Provenance
- Previous stable:
v4.1.1→898d3976e8049a7238eaa7de60bff325c30d2b3d - Release target:
v4.2.0→4acaf4241beae1e0c977c92dfe406a270f8d40de - Release workflow: run 38771798911
- Verification: preflight, release, and verify jobs all succeeded.
- Provider contract:
1.4.0
What's new
Gentle Shell's routing block ships in the provider contract bundle
RenderRouting(pi) now emits Gentle Shell's own ODD step lines (steps 1-7, phase reporting, and resume) verbatim, and the review provider-contract bundle publishes that block as routing/pi.md under a new manifest field routing, introduced in contract 1.4.0 with the same rule as orchestration. Every other agent's rendered routing is byte-identical to v4.1.1, pinned by per-runtime sha256 goldens. Gentle Shell can vendor the block under its existing SHA lock instead of hand-copying it; gentle-ai still writes nothing into Pi's prompt files.
Included work: #5537, #5539 (issue #5536).
Commit per reviewable slice, small tasks stay inline
ODD routing now commits work units in reviewable slices of about 400 authored changed lines on the feature branch and keeps small tasks inline, without feature documents or delegated writers, unless the user asks for them.
Included work: #5530 (issue #5529).
Breaking changes
No breaking changes are declared for v4.2.0. The module path stays at /v4 and no review CLI flag changed. The provider contract moves from 1.3.0 to 1.4.0 additively: manifests from 1.2.0 and 1.3.0 without routing still validate, while the 1.4.0 verifier accepts only archives whose bundle README matches this release (the same rule applied when orchestration was added). Installed agent guidance and orchestrator instructions changed, so run gentle-ai sync.
Upgrade now
brew upgrade gentle-ai
gentle-ai syncWindows and other source installs:
go install github.com/gentleman-programming/gentle-ai/v4/cmd/gentle-ai@v4.2.0
gentle-ai syncRun gentle-ai sync after upgrading so managed agent, reviewer, and runtime assets match the installed binary, including the rewritten ODD routing and delegation triggers.
What was fixed
Delegation triggers fire only on their named conditions
Delegation triggers were read as always-on, so orchestrators delegated and verified small, low-risk work. The triggers are now conditional, the independent verifier runs only for a named high-risk item, and the differential check preserves existing behavior through a PRESERVE pointer.
Included work: #5522 (issue #5521).
Transport refusals name the user-owned exit
Review transport refusal messages did not say how the user could leave the refused state. They now name the user-owned exit, and Codex's dormant transport is declared honestly.
Included work: #5523 (issue #2573).
Tool artifacts and test scratch stay out of delivered diffs
CodeGraph and test scratch files could enter delivered diffs. CodeGraph keeps its index excluded locally and guidance keeps test scratch outside the worktree.
Included work: #5525 (issue #5524).
Review mode works on Windows SMB shares and long local paths
With receipt-driven development off, the stop hook and review mode status failed on a Windows SMB share because RAR authority validation still ran; it is now skipped when RDD is off. Separately, local \\?\ long paths were classified as remote, and a failed clone-scoped disable printed a misleading mode line; local long paths now stay local and failed mode mutations show as unavailable.
Included work: #5532 (issue #4670), #5534 (issue #5533).
Skill registry accepts a relative working directory
A relative cwd passed to the skill registry was not normalized before use. It is now resolved before the registry is read.
Included work: #5502 (issue #3565).
Numbers
25 non-merge commits, 9 merged pull requests, and 2 unique GitHub PR authors since v4.1.1.
Install
brew install Gentleman-Programming/tap/gentle-aior
go install github.com/gentleman-programming/gentle-ai/v4/cmd/gentle-ai@v4.2.0Windows remains supported through the Go installation path. Official Windows binary archives and Scoop publication remain unavailable; Windows upgrades fail closed to Go-based guidance rather than downloading unsigned binaries.
Signed platform archives below: linux_amd64, linux_arm64, darwin_amd64, darwin_arm64, with checksums.txt and its minisign signature.
Full changelog: v4.1.1...v4.2.0