Pulse v1.3.0 is a stability and housekeeping release: no crash after restarting the service, no leaked connections, a much smaller install, and a cleaner AI story built on the local Assistant.
Highlights
- No more crash after Restart service. Start / Stop / Restart ran the administrator prompt and the wait on the UI thread; Pulse could crash a few seconds later. It now runs in the background and the prompt opens in front of Pulse.
- Connections no longer pile up. Diagnose → Connected clients stays flat; PulseService no longer runs out of pipe slots.
- Smaller install. The private Node.js runtime and the old setup leftovers are gone.
- New look outside the app. Lime app icon and a dark, Midnight-styled installer.
Removed: AI Integration (PulseMCP)
The MCP bridge for Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf and Cline is removed (ADR-013). It accounted for about 100 MB of the install. The local Assistant (Ollama / LM Studio, localhost only) stays and is the way to ask Pulse questions in plain language.
When you upgrade:
- Setup closes any running PulseMCP and deletes its files.
- On first launch, Pulse removes the
pulseentries it had added to AI client configs. Each file is backed up first (*.pulse-backup-*); entries you added yourself are left alone.
Fixes
- Pulse.exe crash (
flutter_windows.dll) after Start / Stop / Restart service - Leaked PulseService connections from PulseMCP handshake failures and Restart IPC Connection
- The Latest badge marked a pinned event instead of the newest one
- Setup kept ~41 MB of leftovers (
PulseService.pdb, the VC++ redistributable) and an emptyredistfolder - Blank taskbar icon after upgrading (Explorer icon cache is refreshed now)
- A cancelled administrator prompt and a blocked request (error 5) now show different, clearer messages
Also in this release
- The app log is written to
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Pulse\logs\app\(JSON lines, kept 14 days) and records uncaught errors — attach it to bug reports - Assistant status tool renamed
mcp_self→pulse_status - LICENSE is detected as MIT on GitHub; the README documents the code signing policy
Upgrade notes
- Confirm Diagnose → Service shows 1.3.0 after installing
- If an AI client still lists a
pulseserver, remove it from that client's MCP settings
Downloads
Windows x64 Installer
Pulse-Setup-1.3.0-windows-x64.exe
Payload ZIP
Pulse-1.3.0-windows-x64.zip (PulseService is still required; see portable vs service)
Pulse remains read-only and local-first: no telemetry, no cloud, no account.