github stablyai/orca v1.4.247
on GitHub

3 hours ago

Improved Chat UI, richer phone reviews & more ways to make Orca yours ✨

  • 🔄 Continue after usage limits reset: An optional setting resumes your chat automatically when its usage limit resets.
  • 📱 Richer reviews on your phone: Browse branch commits, jump between files in diffs, and read or add pull-request review comments alongside the code.
  • 🎨 Make Orca yours: Discover more themes, preview fonts in their own typefaces, and import Ghostty or Kitty configuration files.
  • 🧩 More powerful plugins: Build custom editors, live status items and panels, and connect plugins to agent prompts, launches and workspace actions.
  • 🤝 Clearer agent activity: Running workers stay visible after their coordinator finishes, with easier account switching and clearer hand-off cards.
  • ⚡ Smoother everyday work: Fewer unnecessary redraws and offscreen animations, more reliable saved replies, and fixes for workspaces, terminals and emulator previews.
  • 💬 Improved Chat UI: Choose Chat or CLI for each agent in Chat UI settings, keep drafts when continuing from a terminal, and see your selected permission mode clearly.

Highlights

  • Chat UI: Choose Chat or CLI for each agent directly in Chat UI settings. Permission choices stay visible, model and effort controls remain usable while options refresh, and focusing the composer keeps open overlays in place.
  • Conversation continuity: Keep unsent text when moving from a terminal into chat, and preserve received replies and tool results while saving is busy. Turn on automatic continuation to resume a chat after its usage limit resets.
  • Phone source control: Review each branch commit on its own page, jump between files, fold diff context, and read or add review comments alongside the code. The pull-request tab focuses on what blocks the merge, with clearer next actions and automatic refreshes.
  • Themes & fonts: Find GitHub, VS Code and catalog themes in the appearance controls. Preview each font in its own typeface, import Ghostty themes with light/dark pairs, and bring in Kitty configuration files too.
  • Plugins: Create custom editors that keep pending edits through saves and reloads, live status bar items, and component panels with a Box layout container. Hooks connect plugins to agent launches, prompts, tool calls, terminal sends and workspace creation; screenshot and testing tools help check the result.
  • Agents & orchestration: Running workers remain in the Agents list after their coordinator finishes. Hand-off cards make delegated work easier to follow, and Codex and Claude account switchers are simpler to use.
  • Remote work & workspaces: Preview remote HTML outside registered workspaces, find projects in stopped WSL distros after a restart, and see clearer Git progress. Child worktrees stay in the caller’s project, folder roots remain visible, and branch links open the current pull request.
  • Responsiveness & reliability: Offscreen animations pause, unrelated settings changes cause fewer diff redraws, and unused editor models are released. Terminal fixes prevent stray escape text, while emulator previews offer clearer connection and startup feedback.

Compatibility & upgrade notes

  • Chat or CLI per agent: Chat UI is out of Experimental. Shared launch controls are also available in Settings → Chat UI, so you can choose which surface each agent opens.
  • Automatic continuation is optional: Enable it if you want a usage-limited chat to continue automatically after the limit resets.
  • Phone Send behavior: The phone follows the paired desktop’s send setting. Update Orca Mobile as well as your desktop or server to get the mobile changes.
  • Orchestration panel: The experimental Orchestration panel is disabled while its app-wide lag is addressed. Orchestration commands continue to work.

Known issues

Saved chat storage: Chat history can continue to use more disk space as conversations grow; automatic storage compaction is not included in this release.

Plugin command replacements: A plugin replacing a built-in command can still finish after Orca has used the normal command instead, causing the action to happen twice.

Product experience

Automations

Choose whether automation setup runs, and avoid launching a wake that was cancelled.

Native chat

Choose Chat or CLI from Chat UI settings, keep drafts and replies intact, and use an optional automatic continuation after usage limits reset.

Agents, integrations & orchestration

Keep workers visible after their coordinator finishes, switch accounts more clearly, and see the selected permission and effort choices.

SSH, managed servers & remote

Keep WSL projects and hosts discoverable across restarts, with clearer stopped-distro messages and safer server startup.

  • Preview remote HTML outside registered workspaces by @guangyu-reflexio in #36791
  • Route hosted review operations to the owning host by @AmethystLiang in #36003
  • The Codex quota poll gates the distro it probes, not the default by @nwparker in #37043
  • Name the stopped distro, not its raw hold code, wherever a held terminal is shown by @nwparker in #37380
  • Land on the workspace view after a move's window reload by @nwparker in #37376
  • Offer the existing host when adding a folder from a distro that already runs as one by @nwparker in #37377
  • Say why to move projects in the WSL move dialog by @nwparker in #37390
  • Remove a freshly installed server that fails its start check by @nwparker in #37388
  • Keep the e2e fake WSL connector out of release builds by @nwparker in #37378
  • Show a penguin icon for WSL host rows and the stopped-distro notice by @nwparker in #37389
  • A stopped distro still lists all its projects after a restart by @nwparker in #37396

Phone

Review branch commits and pull requests with richer diffs, code comments and clearer next actions, and keep navigation and sending consistent with the desktop.

Workspaces, sidebar & tabs

Keep projects, tabs and task lists in the right place, with clearer Git progress and more dependable pull-request links.

Editor, files & Markdown

Keep rich Markdown steady when returning from Find, show readable Git diffs, and make themes and fonts easier to discover and import.

  • Keep rich Markdown in place when focus returns from Find by @brennanb2025 in #36781
  • Show encrypted and textconv files as text diffs, not binary by @hrithiksaini99 in #37105
  • Ship GitHub and VS Code themes, make themes discoverable in Appearance, and offer catalog themes in the pickers by @nwparker in #36828
  • Keep custom editor documents in step with accepted edits by @nwparker in #37277
  • Hand over pending custom-editor edits before closing or reloading by @nwparker in #37278
  • Let a custom editor require the desktop app's isolated frame by @nwparker in #37298
  • Orca.document.session() for custom editors by @nwparker in #37285
  • Keep Match Terminal's host pill label at 4.5:1 on its fill by @nwparker in #37309
  • Plugins: editor.save.before hook (format on save, or refuse the save) by @nwparker in #37347
  • Merge disk writes into a custom editor's unsaved edits by @nwparker in #37343
  • Ignored files in the explorer meet 4.5:1 in the built-in themes by @nwparker in #37355
  • Changed divider colors also paint workspace splits by @nwparker in #37342
  • List Windows fonts through Chromium instead of PowerShell and surface failures by @nwparker in #37369
  • Let the Ghostty import read a config file you pick by @nwparker in #37353
  • Delete imported terminal themes from the theme picker by @nwparker in #37356
  • Preview each font in its own typeface in font pickers by @Rayyan34 in #33254
  • Import Ghostty themes, including light/dark pairs, as per-mode terminal themes by @nwparker in #37368
  • Import Kitty configs through a shared terminal config import pipeline by @nwparker in #37375

Browser, skills & feedback

Open links from streamed pages in new tabs, and give plugins more ways to build editors, panels and agent workflows.

  • Plugin shot --scenario: screenshot a check scenario without touching the live plugin by @nwparker in #37090
  • Open target=_blank links in Server (streamed) pages as new tabs by @AmoabaKelvin in #37102
  • Stop the plugin update-review toast crashing the web client by @nwparker in #37152
  • Never print a catalog release entry that install would reject by @nwparker in #37264
  • Skip nested packages in dev folders and summarize blocked frame requests by @nwparker in #37300
  • Status bar items plugins can update live by @nwparker in #37291
  • Reject declared artifact paths whose case differs from the file by @nwparker in #37307
  • Hooks that can change or block terminal sends and workspace creation by @nwparker in #37287
  • Hooks for agent launches and prompts, plus plugin dev hook by @nwparker in #37295
  • Agent tool-call hooks (Claude Code can block or rewrite) by @nwparker in #37303
  • Check custom editors and test them with mockEditorHost by @nwparker in #37293
  • Plugin shot --editor to screenshot and drive custom editors by @nwparker in #37302
  • Workers can list and open workspaces, create and read terminals, launch agents by @nwparker in #37312
  • Workers can open files and run built-in actions by @nwparker in #37323
  • Commands[].replaces lets a mod take over a built-in action by @nwparker in #37316
  • Make the editor template the rich-editor recipe by @nwparker in #37349
  • Plugins: Box layout container for components panels (catalog 4) by @nwparker in #37420

Performance & reliability

Reduce unnecessary redraws and offscreen animations, release unused editor models, and improve terminal and emulator recovery.

  • Show serve-sim's camera error instead of no active emulator by @AmoabaKelvin in #37119
  • Show each device's OS version and disable unavailable simulators in the picker by @AmoabaKelvin in #37122
  • Preserve iOS helpers when ps output overflows by @Misty-Star in #34913
  • Detect Android devices when only adb is installed by @AmoabaKelvin in #37128
  • Type and paste into the Android emulator pane by @AmoabaKelvin in #37139
  • Show a dead Android preview as Not connected with a working Connect by @AmoabaKelvin in #37146
  • Report why an Android AVD failed to start instead of timing out after 3 minutes by @AmoabaKelvin in #37137
  • List only the worktree's attached emulators, iOS and Android by @AmoabaKelvin in #37127
  • Fix terminal sleep verification during inventory polls by @AmethystLiang in #37172
  • Stop the single-file diff viewer re-rendering on unrelated settings writes by @nwparker in #37150
  • Report when Xcode Device Hub blocks iOS simulator input instead of a silent ok by @AmoabaKelvin in #37140
  • Compute collapsed sub-agent signal states in one pass by @nwparker in #37229
  • Detect foreground from the physical PTY owner by @brennanb2025 in #36342
  • Keep the running emulator when the tab reopens instead of switching to an iPhone by @AmoabaKelvin in #37132
  • Stop agent spinners that are scrolled out of view by @nwparker in #37153
  • Tint the scrollbar thumb from the terminal foreground so it shows on light themes by @nwparker in #36583
  • One mode-2031 report per appearance flip, caught up on reconnect by @nwparker in #37163
  • Pause long-lived status animations offscreen and honor reduced motion by @nwparker in #37162
  • Stop the client-hosted page position loop when nothing changes by @nwparker in #37188
  • Release leaked Monaco diff models under tab groups and Changes mode by @OrcaWin in #37263
  • Bump xterm to 6.1.0-beta.336 and regenerate patches by @nwparker in #37266
  • Recognize Claude drafts with labelled input boxes and the default hidden cursor by @brennanb2025 in #37171
  • Keep read-only close errors from blocking agent launch and AppImage CLI setup by @brennanb2025 in #37155
  • Import the primary font-family from a repeated fallback list by @nwparker in #37292
  • Stop stray escape tails like "2C" printing after returning to a busy pane by @nwparker in #37269

Relay service

Give newly started reserve servers time to come online before treating them as unavailable.

  • Dead-man boot grace for a freshly booted reserve cell by @nwparker in #37225

Reverted

Restore the earlier CI check arrangement.

  • Revert "ci: full checks on main pushes, changed-file lint on PRs, Slack alert when main breaks (#37282)" by @nwparker in #37341

Tests, CI & maintenance

Maintain tests, build checks and internal organization; orchestration-panel work remains behind disabled switches and is unavailable in this release.

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