KOAssistant v0.19.1 Release Notes

This is a maintenance and bugfix release to v0.19.0 (release notes below), addressing a long-standing issue with subprocess hanging.

Fixed a bug where API requests, connection tests, and update checks could hang indefinitely on some devices. The plugin now detects subprocess completion via pipe EOF instead of relying solely on waitpid, which can be unreliable on certain OS kernels. Also fixed: Connection test now correctly uses API keys entered through the GUI settings.

Changelog: v0.19.0...v0.19.1

KOAssistant v0.19.0 Release Notes

Settings reset recommended. After updating, go to Settings → Backup & Reset
and reset Quick Actions panel, Quick Settings panel, and Input Dialog actions to pick up new defaults.
Or do a full Reset. Custom actions, API keys, notebooks, chats, and cached artifacts are not affected.

Section Artifacts & Source Selection

Artifacts are no longer limited to the full document. You can now generate X-Rays, summaries, analyses, and other artifacts for specific chapters or sections.

• Section picker: Choose any chapter or section from the book's table of contents.
• Source selection popup: Before running, choose scope (full document or section) and source (full text, cached summary, or AI knowledge only). Remembers your last choice per action.
• Section summaries: Generate section-specific summaries on the fly — cached and reusable by other actions.
• Smart X-Ray lookup: Automatically selects the most relevant X-Ray for your current page (section > main > prompt to choose).
• Cross-section search: "Look up in X-Ray" searches across all section and main X-Rays simultaneously.
• Artifact unification: All artifact actions now use the same View/Update/Regenerate workflow. Previously, some cached silently in the background.
• → Chat button: Available in all artifact viewers — ask follow-up questions with the artifact as context.

Applies to: X-Ray, Recap, Summary, Analysis, Analyze Notes, Key Arguments, Discussion Questions, Quiz, Extract Insights, X-Ray Simple, and Reading Guide.

Pinned Artifacts & Starred Chats

• Pin any AI response as a named artifact (hold → "Pin to Artifacts"). Appears in Artifacts browser and popups.
• Star conversations to mark important chats. Starred chats appear in a virtual "Starred" folder in Chat History.

Research Mode

Automatic academic paper detection and adaptation.

• DOI detection from document metadata and first-page text.
• Academic prompt tracks: X-Ray uses research categories (Key Concepts, Methodology, Findings, Referenced Works), About becomes a structured overview, Find Similar focuses on related literature.
• Auto web search: DOI-detected documents enable web search for relevant actions.

Notebook Vault Storage

Notebooks can now be stored in a central folder or a custom location (e.g., an Obsidian vault), not just alongside the book.

• Three save locations: alongside book (default), central folder, or custom path.
• Vault/central modes use Author — Title.md filenames with YAML frontmatter.
• Switching location auto-migrates existing notebooks with collision handling.
• Notebook button now opens a popup: Add to Notebook / View / Edit.

Multi-Book Action Launcher

Multi-book actions (Compare, Find Common Themes, Analyze Collection, Quick Summaries, Reading Order, Recommend) now use a dedicated book picker with search and filtering, instead of requiring navigation to each book. New action: Recommend Books.

Action Changes

• AI Wiki: Encyclopedia-style entries from highlights or from the X-Ray browser (per-item, cached as artifacts).
• Reading Guide: Spoiler-free guidance for what to watch for as you read. Adapts to genre.
• Grammar: Sentence-level grammatical breakdown — word-by-word with optional constituency parse. Language-aware.
• Smart actions removed: Explain/Analyze in Context Smart replaced by the source selection popup on the standard actions.
• Action names shortened: "Book Info" → "About", "Analyze My Notes" → "Analyze Notes", etc.
• In-context trio clarified: Explain (comprehension), Analyze (reader-focused), Thematic Connection (craft analysis) — less overlap.
• Deep Analysis: Restructured for dense, scannable output.

New Providers

Z.AI

17th built-in provider. GLM models (GLM-4.5-Flash free tier) with regional endpoints (international/China) and toggleable thinking for GLM-4.5+ models.

Perplexity

18th built-in provider. Sonar models with always-on web search, citations as clickable footnotes, and reasoning extraction for sonar-reasoning-pro.

Streaming <think> tag extraction (also benefits Groq, Together, Fireworks, SambaNova, and Ollama).

Local Provider Presets

Quick setup for LM Studio, llama.cpp, Jan, vLLM, KoboldCpp, LocalAI. Pre-fills name and URL, no API key required.

Reasoning & Model Updates

Reasoning Expansion

New effort-level controls for always-on reasoning providers:

Gemini 2.5: Thinking now controlled via master toggle with configurable budget (dynamic/low/medium/high/max). Previously always-on with no user control.

Mistral: Magistral models now always think — reasoning extracted automatically.

Model Updates

• OpenAI: GPT-5.4 (new default) and GPT-5.4 Pro added. Reasoning is gated (controlled by master toggle, same as GPT-5.1/5.2).
• Gemini: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview replaces 3 Pro Preview. Gemini 3 Flash Preview (free tier) and 3.1 Flash Lite Preview added. Gemini 2.0 models removed.
• Z.AI: GLM-5 (flagship) and GLM-4.7 family added.

Other Improvements

• Text selection popup in all KOAssistant viewers: 1 word → dictionary, 2+ words → Copy/Dictionary/Translate/Notebook popup.
• Recap reminder: Optional prompt to run AI Recap when opening a book after configurable days of inactivity.
• KOReader storage modes: All metadata modes now fully supported (previously only default mode was reliable).
• Chat viewer: Button layout streamlined. Dictionary view mode for highlight actions. Export saves to file (Copy handles clipboard).
• API errors: Now shown as readable text instead of raw JSON.
• Quiz: Answer Key moved to separate section to prevent spoilers.
• Kobo: No longer crashes without Wi-Fi at startup.
• "Use Primary" → "Follow Primary": Language picker wording standardized.

Bug Fixes

X-Ray & Artifacts

• Fixed cross-book browser/viewer showing wrong book's data.
• Fixed section X-Ray surfacing, scope matching, and popup labels.
• Fixed AI Wiki placeholders, detail refresh, and cross-navigation.
• Fixed X-Ray lookup skipping description matches.
• Fixed TOC ghost entries in section artifact pickers.
• Fixed XPointer hidden flows in page display.

Chat & Conversations

• Fixed chat titles, section scope labels, and starred status persistence.
• Fixed v2 chat delete and navigation gaps.
• Fixed group popups layering and multi-book context routing.

Providers & Reasoning

• Fixed Perplexity citation formatting and message merging.
• Fixed default thinking preservation for Gemini 2.5, DeepSeek, and Z.AI when master toggle is off.
• Fixed Anthropic 4.6 adaptive thinking not suppressed when reasoning config is "off".

Other

• Fixed UTF-8 context truncation for non-ASCII text (Arabic, CJK).
• Fixed notebook vault migration, collision handling, and export paths.
• Fixed action flag preservation when duplicating actions.
• Fixed "Keep English" not saving for non-English users.
• Fixed markdown link formatting in AI responses.

For Custom Action Users

• Smart actions removed: Recreate using standard versions with source_selection enabled.
• The source_selection flag is available for custom actions — add it to any text-extraction action.

Full Changelog: v0.18.2...v0.19.0