Raven

Raven 0.2.6 is a patch release. This release changes how a long conversation stays inside the model's context window: the new compacting history strategy is the default, and the previous Curator is one setting away. It also reads portable Agent Plugins packages, strengthens multi-task management, ships the EverOS Cloud memory plugin with Raven, and falls back to mirrors when a download host cannot be reached. MiniMax image and video, Keenable as a keyless web search and the Opper gateway join the model and provider choices.

Review the upgrade notes: the context history default and its reply budget change, the Claude Code, Codex and Pi adapter pins move, Shift+Enter and Ctrl+Shift keys change in the TUI on native Windows, Raven's own ACP server reports a running cost total, and a playbook route that names an undeclared param is refused.

Highlights

Compacting context history

context.history.strategy now defaults to compacting. A long session is kept verbatim until the window nears a trigger that scales with its size; then large tool results are shortened to a one-line record, older messages are dropped, and past that a summary is written that survives a restart. Set context.history.strategy to "curator" to restore the previous behaviour (#1031).

• Read a shortened result back: the new context_retrieve tool reads a shortened tool result in full, and runs without asking. Tool results are kept up to context.toolResultMaxChars (default 1,000,000 characters, previously 16,000), so session files grow. Copies that leave the session -- the session.resume transcript, a memory backend's turn and the consolidator's prompt -- carry at most 16,000 characters of each result, and the model reads the rest back with context_retrieve (#1031).

• Memory and skills move: recalled memory and routed skills now go at the end of the turn's user message instead of the system prompt (context.cache.turnScratch, default true), which keeps the cached system prompt stable (#1031).

• A reply budget beside the prompt: a request near the window asks for no more reply than fits beside its prompt, never below context.headroom.minTokens (4,096), so a reply near the window can be shorter (#1031).

• A stable context ring: the web composer's context ring shows the same number after a reload or a conversation switch as it did when the turn finished, read from the window the last model call measured. Conversations from before the upgrade keep the old estimate until their next reply (#1119).

• Tuning and rollback: context.history.compacting.summary.mode = "off" keeps the fold and writes no model summary, context.history.compacting.prune.enabled = false turns the one-line tool records off, and context.cache.turnScratch = false returns memory and skills to the system prompt (#1031).

Agent Plugins packages

Raven reads portable Agent Plugins 1.0 packages: a directory with a plugin.json, plus optional skills/ and mcp.json (#1110).

• raven agent-plugins list | inspect | import | remove | check (each with --json) validates a package and imports its skills into <workspace>/skills/<package>/. The import is tracked in agent-plugins.json in the Raven home, so remove deletes only what was imported and check reports a package that changed since. Imported skills lose their always flag, and a skill on skillForge.blocklist or one whose body points at another product's home is refused (#1110).

• List package locations in agentPlugins.packages and opt-outs

Raven 0.2.5 is a patch release. This release strengthens multi-agent coding, adds remote agent execution on registered machines, introduces conditional branches in DAG workflows, and improves native Windows support. Raven can delegate tasks to connected agents on any registered machine, using each agent's capabilities and working environment. Multi-agent coding can use this capability to coordinate local and remote coding agents. Document support is also expanded.

The trajectory view is now available to everyone, alongside conversation export and import and an optional EverOS Cloud memory backend. Review the upgrade notes for prompt customization, DAG behavior and time-zone changes.

Highlights

Native Windows support

• Installation: install.ps1 correctly finds the latest release in Windows PowerShell 5.1. The direct installer URL below remains available when PowerShell cannot follow the website redirect (#863).

• Agent startup: Bundled ACP agents start correctly, saved launch commands preserve backslashes, and Check again, Connect and Test discover agents installed after Raven started (#864, #880, #908, #912).

• Task cleanup: Agents terminate with their host, CLI sub-agents stop on timeout or cancellation, and connecting agents with multiple processes, such as Claude Code, no longer fails with WinError 32 (#927, #951, #974).

• File handling: File tools reject reserved Windows device names such as nul, aux and con.txt anywhere in a path, preventing writes that appear to succeed without creating a file (#918).

• Remote tools and operations: Windows hosts can lend MCP servers to remote ACP agents, and Raven-Oncall campaign jobs run on Windows (#972, #1016).

For Windows users: raven upgrade starts a separate helper; wait for its completion message before restarting Raven. After installing or upgrading, run raven resources once to download the knowledge reader's PDF models and word dictionary (about 110 MB). The Windows installer does not download them.

Remote agents on registered machines

Remote agent execution extends Raven's agent roster across registered machines. Raven can invoke connected agents for the work they support, run tasks in their remote working directories, and collect the results. From the Machines tab, register a machine, install its Raven node, then connect an agent and choose its working directory on that machine (#983, #1007).

• Run ACP, CLI and OpenAI agents on registered machines over SSH by setting the entry's machine field. A Raven node owns each run, so a dropped SSH connection does not end the task. raven ops connection install-node installs or updates the node (--dir chooses its location; --prune removes other versions). raven ops connection remove unregisters the machine and leaves its node installed. Installation uses the machine's configured package index without exposing its credentials on command lines (#893, #920, #963, #965).

• File tools accept remote paths such as user@host:/path or scp://user@host:port//path. read_file, list_dir, find and grep ex

Raven 0.2.4 is a patch release. Raven can now read and change its own configuration from the conversation: a new raven_config tool reads any setting without asking, asks before every write, and never takes a key through the chat (#833). Four things behave differently once you upgrade. The approval sheet on the page no longer answers to 1, 2 and 3: Esc denies, Cmd+Enter (Ctrl+Enter) allows once, and Shift+Cmd+Enter gives the broader grant (#817). Channels have left the Settings dialog: the rail row that was Agent Connector is now Connectors, with Agents and Channels as its two tabs (#830). Every turn the gateway runs (the page, chat apps, cron) now takes the per-turn workspace checkpoint, a shadow git repository at .raven/shadow.git in the workspace, which is what lets a file an exec command wrote open as a diff; runtime.checkpoint.policy: "never" turns it off (#829, #849). And the main agent answers in plainer, shorter prose, using headers, bullet menus and emoji only when you ask for them (#853). No command, flag or config key is removed or renamed.

Highlights

Raven configures itself

• The raven_config tool has seven actions: describe (every setting with its value, or a search), get, set (one path, or several under one confirmation), unset, add (connect preset agents, several at once), test and restart (reload or restart once pending changes are gathered). Its catalog covers 14 sections and about 93 settings, each saying when a change takes effect: next turn, at once, on reload, on restart, or on the memory server. Writes go through the same methods the Settings page uses, so both are checked the same way. Setting session.model switches only the current conversation (#833).

• Every write asks first, on a config card that shows what changes, the value before and after, and when it takes effect. Full access, your own allow rule or the smart-mode reviewer can let a change through, but only in a turn someone is at, and the reviewer never approves a sensitive setting (approval mode, sandbox, deny patterns, MCP servers, provider endpoints, who may instruct Raven on a channel, lent keys and the like). Cron and other unattended turns cannot change the configuration (#833).

• A key never goes through a tool call. The agent names the setting and a credential card on the page takes the key, which the host writes; the model only learns whether it was saved or skipped. A key passed to the tool directly is not written, and the agent is told to ask you to rotate it. In the terminal or a chat app, where no card can be shown, you are told where to enter it. Tool output is scrubbed of the keys Raven holds. The credential card answers to the same keys as the approval sheet: Esc skips, Cmd+Enter saves (#833, #849).

• Raven can connect preset agents, test them and work out why one does not answer. On the Agents page, a refused connect or a failed test offers "Hand it to Raven", which opens a new conversation naming the agent and the reason, without sending it. An ACP agent can be started with one of Raven's provider keys (lendKeys; Pi only for now), and the connect card says which key it lends (#833, #849).

• An EverOS memory LLM left unset now follows the main model, and the memory server restarts when the main model changes (#833).

The page

• Connectors:

Raven 0.2.3 is a patch release with two things worth reading before you upgrade. Bare raven now opens the browser page, the way raven web does, and falls back to the terminal UI only where no browser can be opened; raven tui still opens the TUI outright. And the page's own update row now works on a normal raven web install and shows the download's progress, but only once the page is served by this release: a page served by 0.2.2 or earlier still refuses it, so this one upgrade goes through the command line as before (#806). No command, flag or config key is removed or renamed. Two smaller removals on the page: the file viewer no longer offers a download button, and HTML previews run their scripts by default instead of asking (#805).

Highlights

Upgrade from the page

• The update row at the bottom of the sidebar upgrades a raven web install: the gateway hands the page its own graceful stop on every mount, exits cleanly on upgrade, and the helper waits for the supervisor, installs, and relaunches raven web --supervise on the same port with the same token and cookie, so the page reloads itself still signed in. It is refused, each with its own reason, while a turn, a sub-agent or a question waiting for an answer is running (including in an IM channel), and for a Raven started by hand with raven gateway or raven web --foreground, which has nothing to restart it (#806).

• The page shows what is moving. The helper downloads the release itself so the bytes can be counted, then answers /upgrade/status on the page's own port with phase, bytes and rate while the old Raven is gone; the card measures the bar while bytes are counted and says when the new Raven is starting. A failed install is held for the page to read before the old version comes back, instead of relaunching it silently. The twenty-minute ceiling now counts silence, not the whole upgrade, so a slow download that is visibly moving is not given up on (#806).

• The terminal raven upgrade prints each asset's size and the total before downloading, then a live progress line, so a large release on a slow link no longer reads as a stalled install. The downloaded wheels stay under ~/.raven/cache/upgrade/<version> (about 75 MB for a release with its engines); earlier versions' files are cleared (#806).

• raven gateway refuses a half-written install the way raven serve already did: a gateway that starts inside an upgrade window waits it out and exits instead of serving the placeholder page until restarted by hand. The gateway also closes its websockets on shutdown, so raven web --stop with a page open no longer waits on the page's own socket (46 seconds down to 4 ms in the PR's run) (#806).

• Bare raven opens the page, leaving the resident gateway that raven web always leaves. Where no browser can be opened it runs the TUI instead, decided before anything starts. raven web and raven tui are unchanged (#806).

Desk panes

• Every desk pane has one header that names what is on screen. The file path bar, the task status line and the node card's back-and-title row fold into it: a glyph or a back chevron, the title, a muted facts line, then the controls that act on the object. A picked node reads as "task > node"; narrow panes drop the parent crumb and keep the facts on their own line. Dragging a pane by its title works again (#805).

• Stop leaves the palette's task list and lives in the task pane header, shown only while the task or the picked node is running. The runtime has no per-node cancel for a graph, so on a graph node it st