Ouroboros

Ouroboros is an open-source, general-purpose AI agent whose identity, durable memory, and history continue across tasks and restarts. It works on external projects, coordinates a live swarm of specialist agents, and can rewrite the implementation it runs on, including its code, architecture, prompts, tools, and dependencies. Reflection can also change how it understands itself without severing that continuity.

It runs as a native desktop app or through a headless CLI. The runtime keeps its repository, durable memory, history, and interface on your machine, while model inference can use remote APIs you configure or a local GGUF model.

Ouroboros first booted on February 16, 2026. During the following 48 hours, the repository advanced from the v4.1 line to v6.2.0. The self-authored record preserved from that period counts 32 evolution cycles. That first generation ran in Google Colab through Telegram and remains preserved on the legacy-google-colab branch and its original project page; the current generation carries the same identity into a native desktop and headless runtime.

⭐ Star Ouroboros to follow its next evolution. A star also helps more people find the project, trace its history, and take part in what it becomes.

Reviewed skills, transport bridges, tools, and widgets are available through OuroborosHub.

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Install

Platform	Download	Instructions
macOS 12+	Ouroboros.dmg	Open DMG → drag to Applications → optional CLI: run Install CLI.command after the app is in Applications
Linux x86_64	Ouroboros-linux.tar.gz	Extract → run ./Ouroboros/Ouroboros → optional CLI: ./Ouroboros/bin/install-ouroboros-cli. If browser tools fail due to missing system libs, run: ./Ouroboros/python-standalone/bin/python3 -m playwright install-deps chromium webkit
Windows x64	Ouroboros-windows.zip	Extract → run Ouroboros\Ouroboros.exe → optional CLI: Ouroboros\bin\install-ouroboros-cli.cmd

Prerelease artifacts stay on their tag pages; /releases/latest points to the latest stable release.

On macOS, use right-click → Open on first launch if Gatekeeper asks. The setup wizard configures model access, review policy, and budget. Packaged CLI installers create a user-local ouroboros command without sudo; ouroboros run --start "2+2?" starts or attaches to the same managed runtime used by the desktop app.

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What Ouroboros Can Do

• Modify its implementation. Its editable surface spans application code, architecture, prompts, tools, and dependencies, while reflection can also reshape its living self-understanding.
• Evolve autonomously. Evolution campaigns turn selected improvements into reviewed changes that remain part of its Git history.
• Continue across restarts. Identity, memory, dialogue, knowledge, reflections, and version history form one ongoing biography.
• Think between requests. Background consciousness supports reflection, initiative, and preparation outside the immediate request-response loop.
• Coordinate a live swarm. Specialist agents can investigate or act in parallel, share task-tree findings, and return work for integration.
• Work on external projects. A separate Git workspace can receive the full task loop while Ouroboros keeps its own repository and governance boundary distinct.
• Operate through desktop or CLI. The native app and gateway-backed command line expose the same managed tasks, progress, artifacts, logs, and schedules.
• Organize long-running work. Project rooms keep working folders, journals, knowledge, task history, and conversations connected to the same identity.
• Use remote or local models. Supported provider APIs and local GGUF models can fill the runtime's configurable cognitive roles.
• Grow through reviewed extensions. Skills, transport bridges, widgets, MCP tools, and companion processes expand capability without folding every integration into the core.
• Keep self-change inspectable. Git history, review evidence, explicit protected surfaces, and restart checks make implementation changes traceable.

This list is an orientation, not a second specification. BIBLE.md defines Ouroboros's identity and constitutional boundaries; docs/ARCHITECTURE.md and docs/DEVELOPMENT.md are the current technical sources of truth.

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Run from Source

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• macOS, Linux, or Windows
• Git
• GitHub CLI (gh), optional unless you use GitHub integration

Setup

git clone https://github.com/razzant/ouroboros.git
cd ouroboros
python3.11 -m venv .venv      # any Python >= 3.10 is OK
source .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
python -m pip install -e . --no-deps

Windows PowerShell:

py -3.11 -m venv .venv      # any Python >= 3.10 is OK
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
python -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
python -m pip install -e . --no-deps

Run

ouroboros server

Then open http://127.0.0.1:8765 in your browser. The setup wizard will guide you through API key configuration.

Google Colab

Use notebooks/colab_quickstart.py as a Colab-compatible cell script when you need a source-mode runtime without the desktop UI. It keeps runtime data on Google Drive and preserves the original Colab path without making it the primary installation flow.

CLI / Headless

The ouroboros command attaches to the local runtime by default and starts one when --start is passed. It exposes managed tasks, progress streams, artifacts, logs, schedules, settings, skills, and evolution controls without duplicating the server's business logic.

ouroboros status
ouroboros run --start "2+2?"
ouroboros run "Summarize current runtime state"
ouroboros run --workspace /path/to/project --memory-mode forked --patch-out result.patch "Fix the failing test"
ouroboros tasks list
ouroboros logs tail progress --task-id <task_id>
ouroboros schedule add --name nightly-review --cron "0 2 * * *" "Run a maintenance review"
ouroboros schedule list

External workspaces must be separate Git worktree roots and may not overlap Ouroboros's own repository or data directory. Patch, streaming, detached-task, and schedule semantics are documented in the CLI help and the canonical architecture.

For Agents

Another agent, script, or CI job can invoke Ouroboros through the same gateway-backed CLI:

ouroboros run --start \
  --workspace /path/to/project \
  --memory-mode forked \
  --patch-out result.patch \
  --result-json-out result.json \
  "Investigate the task, act, and verify the result"

Use --jsonl for a machine-readable event stream and --detach when the caller will follow the task with ouroboros tasks watch <task_id> or inspect it with ouroboros tasks show <task_id>. External workspace runs keep Ouroboros's own repository and governance context separate, then export changes as reviewable patch artifacts.

To change Ouroboros itself, follow CONTRIBUTING.md and read BIBLE.md, docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, docs/DEVELOPMENT.md, and docs/CHECKLISTS.md in full before editing.

Configuration

The first-run wizard and Settings configure model access, cognitive roles, local models, review policy, runtime mode, budget, skills, and optional integrations. Ouroboros supports configurable remote providers, compatible endpoints, and local GGUF inference; exact settings and defaults live in ouroboros/config.py and docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

The server binds to 127.0.0.1:8765 by default. Read docs/DEPLOYMENT.md before exposing it beyond loopback; non-local binds need OUROBOROS_NETWORK_PASSWORD or an explicitly trusted external access layer.

Run Tests

make test

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Build

Docker

docker build -t ouroboros-web .
docker run --rm -p 8765:8765 \
  -e OUROBOROS_NETWORK_PASSWORD='choose-a-password' \
  -e OUROBOROS_FILE_BROWSER_DEFAULT=/workspace \
  -v "$PWD:/workspace" \
  ouroboros-web

Docker runs the web runtime, not the native desktop shell. It bundles Chromium and WebKit support; use docs/DEPLOYMENT.md for network and container policy.

Release tag prerequisite

Platform build scripts package only a commit already tagged with v$(cat VERSION). Tag the exact release commit first:

git tag -a "v$(tr -d '[:space:]' < VERSION)" -m "Release v$(tr -d '[:space:]' < VERSION)"

scripts/build_repo_bundle.py verifies the tag and embeds the source binding into the packaged repository bundle. Signing, notarization, bytecode sealing, and CI invariants are documented in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md and docs/DEVELOPMENT.md.

macOS (.dmg)

bash scripts/download_python_standalone.sh
OUROBOROS_SIGN=0 bash build.sh

Output: dist/Ouroboros-<VERSION>.dmg, containing Ouroboros.app and Install CLI.command. Omit OUROBOROS_SIGN=0 when a Developer ID signing identity is configured.

Linux (.tar.gz)

bash scripts/download_python_standalone.sh
bash build_linux.sh

Output: dist/Ouroboros-<VERSION>-linux-<arch>.tar.gz, containing Ouroboros/bin/install-ouroboros-cli. If bundled browser tools need host libraries, run ./Ouroboros/python-standalone/bin/python3 -m playwright install-deps chromium webkit.

Windows (.zip)

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts/download_python_standalone.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build_windows.ps1

Output: dist\Ouroboros-<VERSION>-windows-x64.zip, containing Ouroboros\bin\install-ouroboros-cli.cmd.

Architecture and Runtime Data

The native launcher starts a web runtime and supervisor-managed agent workers. The agent core lives in ouroboros/, the interface in web/, the process plane in supervisor/, and the runtime's durable identity, state, history, logs, and skills under ~/Ouroboros/data/.

The full component map, data flow, API surface, storage layout, safety boundary, and operational rationale live in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md. Deployment details live in docs/DEPLOYMENT.md.

Runtime Commands

Command	Purpose
/panic	Stop the runtime and its managed processes immediately.
/restart	Restart without automatically resuming the active owner task.
/status	Show workers, task queue, and budget state.
/evolve on|off	Start or stop autonomous evolution.
/review	Queue a deep constitutional and architectural self-review.
/bg start|stop|status	Control background consciousness.

Philosophy

The 13 Constitution principles — Agency, Continuity, Meta-over-Patch, Immune Integrity, Self-Creation, LLM-First, Authenticity & Reality Discipline, Minimalism, Becoming, Versioning and Releases, the absorbed Iterations / Spiral lineage, and Epistemic Stability — are defined in full in BIBLE.md. That file is the constitutional SSOT (Bible P4 Ship-of-Theseus protection) and this README intentionally does not paraphrase it.

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Contributing

External contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the complete workflow. Open pull requests against the lowercase ouroboros branch and leave release-version allocation to maintainers. A current OpenRouter triad + scope packet is the optional fast path; pull requests without one remain welcome but require more maintainer-side review and integration work.

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Version History

Version	Date	Description
6.83.0	2026-07-30	fix: a screenshot that cannot be decoded fails where it is taken, an infeasibility verdict is judged as an argument, and a declared step budget is one the runtime actually enforces. (1) Image integrity is fail-closed at three seams: the remote screenshot fetch validates a FULL decode before publishing a path (bounded re-fetch, write-validate-rename), the shared remote-result builder rejects an undecodable capture instead of claiming ok, and the VLM payload builder raises IMAGE_UNDECODABLE at build time. A truncated PNG keeps a valid 24-byte header, so header-only checks passed it and it detonated rounds later as a non-retryable provider 400 — five task deaths in the v6.81.1 OSWorld run. Four test fixtures labelled "minimal valid PNG" were themselves undecodable and are now real images; one assertion that pinned an IDENTITY coordinate transform for a 1920x1080 capture at a 1280 cap (it only held because the stub never downscaled) now pins the real 1.5x transform. (2) Tool results are judged by their typed envelope: a structured {"ok": false} payload counts as a failure for the error counters, anti-loop and auto-attach, instead of only text markers. (3) Acceptance review gains an ABSENT-PREMISE branch: when the terminal claim is that the premise is missing, the deliverable under review is the PREMISE ARGUMENT — instantiating "the named artifact exists" as a criterion begs the question, and coaching a continuation whose remaining routes breach the task's own stated restrictions manufactures the artifact the task forbids. A weak premise argument still fails on its own grounds. Measured cost of the old behaviour: a correct 1.0 converted into 0.0 over 149 tool calls. (4) type_text routes multi-line and long payloads through the in-VM clipboard (typewrite presses Enter per newline and sheds keystrokes), joining the non-ASCII and angle-bracket paths. (5) OSWorld adapter: --max-steps declares AND enforces a leaderboard-comparable budget — a step is one top-level policy turn, matching the official predict() -> actions[] boundary, not one GUI action; the server round cap is verified against the derived worker cap before the VM boots, the gate phase is cancelled at its own reserve (the runtime cap is server-wide and the gate is a separate task), and the post-run audit reads the loop's policy turns rather than the flat physical-call field, which disagreed with it on 344 of 346 examples. --expect-dataset-commit turns the graded-spec pin into a gate: a checkout other than the campaign's is refused before any paid work, because it supplies different task instructions AND a different evaluator.
6.82.0	2026-07-29	feat: the Working card tells the truth again, rarely-used providers step aside, mobile gets two real gestures, the shipped model set moves forward, and a run can be cancelled where it is shown. (1) A collapsed live card carries a dedicated activity line beside its identity: the title keeps the coined name (or a child's role-model-id), the line shows the latest meaningful action (bounded at 400 chars with a visible ellipsis, complete text on the element), an unnamed card does not duplicate itself, and a finished card keeps its last activity — the regression introduced when proactive naming took the single title slot in v6.40.0. (2) Card cost is honest and sticky: only frames with task-scope accounting evidence may set it (a per-round llm_round_finished delta is NOT task cost), rank is unavailable < pending < final, and a costless frame re-renders the stored value instead of erasing it. Reload replays the same truth: the snapshot's flat cost fields ride on task_summary rows (up to nine; cost_usd and cost_accounting_error come with the persisted terminal result, which overrides the row). (3) Cloud.ru and the OpenAI-compatible pair move into a collapsed onboarding "More options" group, Cloud.ru and GigaChat into a Settings "More providers" section that auto-opens for a usable credential; every input stays mounted, so load/save is unchanged. The About footer drops its lab byline. (4) Two mobile gestures and no more: swipe-left closes the drawer, swipe-down on the project-panel header closes the overlay — release-triggered through one small gestures.js (pure classifier + binder, selection/editable/scroller guards, scoped click suppression, disabled with the keyboard open), no drag-follow, no other surfaces. (5) Shipped defaults move to grok-4.5 main, gemini-3.6-flash light, gpt-5.6-luna fallback, gpt-5.6-sol-pro deep review, a gpt-5.6-terra + gemini-3.6-flash + deepseek-v4-pro triad and a gpt-5.6-terra scope reviewer (1M window; the sentinel and both migration sets moved with it, so an upgraded install cannot keep a retired sub-floor reviewer). Installs whose settings file never stored a model key follow the new defaults by design. Stored values equal to a FORMER SHIPPED DEFAULT migrate forward only where the provider-defaults path already runs — exclusive direct-provider installs and the scope-review slot; an ordinary OpenRouter install keeps its stored models (the owner's file is not rewritten), and a value that differs from every shipped default is never touched anywhere. Disclosure: an Anthropic-only direct install's auto-filled review triad is now the loud single-model [sonnet-5]×3 (main==light), a deliberate diversity trade-off; the deep-self-review slot now ships a per-provider value too (direct OpenAI gets plain gpt-5.6-sol — the shipped OpenRouter default's -pro is a router slug that 404s on api.openai.com, and pro reasoning lives only on the Responses API this codebase does not call, so a direct-OpenAI deep review is deliberately the non-pro model; anthropic gets opus-5; the prior shipped value migrates), so a direct-only install no longer keeps an unreachable OpenRouter-form id for it — Cloud.ru and GigaChat get NO auto-filled deep slot, because they are documented below the 1M window deep review sizes against. Safety light is authored only by a FRESH desktop wizard through a narrow flag proved under the settings lock — the shipped default and every fail-closed fallback stay full, and existing, web and Docker installs keep full. (6) The per-root active-subagent ceiling rises 50 to 500 through one shared constant (default stays 6; wait_tasks shares it, and the accepted scale trade-offs are documented). (7) A live root card gains Cancel run: it cancels the task and its live subtree (re-sweeping late-admitted descendants) and answers only once the teardown finished — one synchronous transaction off the event loop, so the split-transaction family (pre-ack latch, partial-record statuses, background fence ownership) is absent rather than guarded. Cancellation takes CUSTODY (capture under the lock marks the worker slot, kill/join run outside it and must CONFIRM death, publication happens only after that; any failure restores custody and refuses), and outcomes are typed per task, so a child that refused to die fails the whole cascade with a 503 instead of a false success; a natural-completion race is a graceful no-op and a settled task keeps its own outcome, and renders a cancelled task as "Cancelled" instead of a generic "Done" on every surface. Text steering stays cooperative; Panic remains the only global stop. (8) Parsed git output is locale-pinned, so a non-English git no longer breaks commit-binding checks.
6.81.1	2026-07-29	fix: one round per look, one verdict per premise — the OSWorld v6.81.0 full-run forensics land as mechanism fixes. (1) Tool results may now carry a typed auto_attach_image capability: the host attaches that local image to the conversation in the SAME round, through the exact implementation the view_image tool uses (one shared body — identical allowed-roots/size/MIME perimeter, identical durable copy under uploads/views, identical message shape), strictly non-fatally. The unix_computer_use screenshot emits it; the measured cost it removes: 3,830 of 16,367 rounds in the v6.81.0 OSWorld run (~21% of the whole round budget) were the mandatory second view_image round per observation, and every task that reached the 200-round cap scored 0. MAX_LIVE_IMAGE_BLOCKS 3→5 (owner decision) so auto-attached screenshots keep some visual history. (2) unix_computer_use: one pointer-coordinate normalizer accepts the malformations models actually emit (the pair packed into x with y absent or duplicated — 109 wasted rounds in one run), y leaves the required-schema so recovery happens before binding, ambiguity still fails loudly; double_click/triple_click register as thin click aliases (111 previously-"Unknown tool" calls); remote_exec's description now states its real contract (fresh bash -lc in $HOME — not the visible terminal, no cwd/history inheritance). (3) OSWorld gate v3: the premise prompt becomes a structured rubric (action → referent → blocking → acquirable → store-or-render → unbound placeholders) replacing the example list whose false kills all judged outcome-meaningfulness instead of action-performability; the confirming challenger is REMOVED on its own full-run ledger (20 invocations, 0 saves, 1 officially-infeasible task lost, 215 worker rounds burned, and it confirmed all four false kills — identical-prompt re-reads are correlated, not independent); the working preamble names the graded traps (live-window re-save, visible-terminal history, pkill self-match). Adapter-only where possible; the three core touches are the attach hook in process_tool_results, the view_image body factored into the shared vision.attach_local_image_to_context seam, and the image-budget constant.
6.81.0	2026-07-26	feat: the benchmark-provenance campaign lands as one release — every launcher admits at a shared gate before touching the filesystem and finalizes a typed outcome on every path; one structural audit enforces that boundary, confinement from the active checkout, and a single manifest publisher across all fourteen launchers; harness exit codes are no longer trusted as run status; the acceptance dialogue reconciles receipts through one typed identity; prompt caching is normalized at every send site; and the owner's context mode becomes explicit and fail-closed. Disclosed limits live in each bench's METHODOLOGY.md.
6.80.0	2026-07-25	feat: the review system learns its own limits — measured tokenizer density, reachable Capability Evidence for pinned reviewers, and fail-fast plan-review binding. (1) The hardcoded CLAUDE_REAL_TOKENS_PER_ESTIMATED = 1.65 multiplier and its substring family gate are GONE: real tokenizer density is now MEASURED at the physical send boundary and stored in a new capability_evidence.json token_density namespace (normalized model identity key, bounded raw-pair retention, throttled writes, cache-bearing usage skipped because Anthropic excludes cache tokens from input_tokens). calibrated_input_token_limit takes the STRICTEST of budget cap / density form / historical margin form, so every review surface (scope, triad, plan, deep) sizes packs at or below today's caps and a model with no observation sizes DOWN from a documented conservative cold-start density instead of up from a chars/4 guess; that cold-start density bounds the COLD path ONLY — it is Claude-derived, and flooring every model with it permanently shrank the pack of any lighter tokenizer (an all-GPT scope + triad lost ~27% / ~36%) with no way for measurement to correct the direction. "Measurement can only ever TIGHTEN" is instead enforced PER MODEL IDENTITY in the store, which keeps the running MAXIMUM: one identity collects observations from every surface (the shipped reviewer is both the scope slot and a triad slot), so a run of prose-dominated doc-only packs would otherwise pull the stored density down and hand the next code-heavy pack a looser cap; the historical absolute-margin form still bounds every cap, so none exceeds its pre-measurement value; the scope limit is computed per CALL (an import-time constant froze the pre-measurement value for the whole process). The main loop's context_fit projection deliberately does NOT use the cold density — the baseline for an unmeasured route is the neutral 1.0, so unknown routes keep trying Max (BIBLE P1) and fresh installs and isolated benchmark servers are not demoted; the measured density supersedes that baseline from the first successful send of a model onward, restoring the old proactive max→low protection as a measurement instead of a guess. Disclosed residual: the only exposed window is a FIRST round whose prompt already exceeds the calibrated window on a fresh evidence store — it fails once with context_overflow, after which loop.py's existing one-shot task-local Low reprojection retries the same model, and the density is measured from then on. A cache-bearing send is still measurable on every provider whose prompt_tokens is cache-inclusive (the assumption pricing.py already encodes); only the direct-Anthropic and GigaChat paths, which report cache tokens outside prompt_tokens, are skipped — without that provider scoping the measurement path would have been vacuous, since the main loop and every review surface always mark a cached prefix. (2) Capability Evidence became REACHABLE for a pinned reviewer: a scope-slot change makes settings-save probe that slot's OWN route and return the existing needs_ack:{route, route_fp, evidence} contract, which settings.js RENDERS through the same confirm -> owner-capability-ack flow the Max gate already uses (an unrendered payload left the owner staring at SCOPE_REVIEW_SUB_FLOOR telling them to ack a route the UI never offered), an off-default pin gets one lazy metadata-only probe, both surfaces are ROUTE-aware rather than model-aware (the lazy probe memoises by route fingerprint and the notice fires on a base-URL change too, reading the slot from the candidate settings — keyed by model alone, a hot OPENAI_BASE_URL change left an unprobed route with no notice and a silent fall to the sub-floor), a stored singular OUROBOROS_SCOPE_REVIEW_MODEL is promoted into the plural BEFORE defaults are applied (the plural default was silently beating the owner's pin), and unrecognised review model ids are reported loudly on save. Fail-closed on absent evidence is unchanged, and a pin is still routing intent, never an owner-ack. (3) Scope review is no longer performed at all in owner-selected low context mode — read from the OWNER-selected mode (get_owner_context_mode), never the effective one, so the friction-free Max→Low auto-downgrade that a plain agent-reachable /api/settings model change can trigger narrows context sizing exactly as before while leaving scope review ON (the downgrade is recorded as derived OUROBOROS_CONTEXT_MODE_AUTO_LOW state, merge-skipped in both directions and cleared only by an explicit owner selection; that flag is TRI-STATE and an ABSENT one resolves FAIL-CLOSED to gate-ON, so neither a settings.json predating this release nor an isolated benchmark server can silently declare a scope-review skip — the three benchmark env allowlists now forward the flag with the mode — and /api/state publishes it as context_mode_auto_low so re-selecting Low on an auto-downgraded install is no longer short-circuited away from the endpoint that clears it) — an owner policy coupling recorded as a typed scope_review status="skipped_low_context_mode" row on the same review-evidence surface, with the triad's blocking staged-diff review unchanged in every mode. OUROBOROS_SCOPE_REVIEW_FLOOR becomes DEPRECATED and ENFORCEMENT-INERT rather than removed (owner decision): its owner endpoint, frozen contract field, route, /api/settings merge-skip, web client, registry shell guard and both browser guards all stay, the stored value is preserved and echoed with an explicit deprecation notice naming the context mode as the control that actually decides, and its getter is gone so nothing consults it. The shell guard also became PRECISE by INVERTED polarity: reaching the key or the owner endpoint is blocked unless the whole command line is demonstrably read-only inspection (per-segment command-head allowlist over the shared shell lexer), so a pure grep OUROBOROS_SCOPE_REVIEW_FLOOR data/settings.json read is no longer blocked while python -c "httpx.request('POST', '…/api/owner/scope-review-floor', …)" is refused — a marker list of write spellings failed OPEN on every spelling it did not enumerate. OUROBOROS_SCOPE_REVIEW_DEGRADED and the audited owner-opt-in degraded advisory scope review ARE removed — a DELIBERATE, DISCLOSED capability removal (CHECKLISTS #21); the replacement for installs with no ≥1M reviewer is low context mode. (4) An unbindable plan-review disposition now FAILS FAST with the claimed and stored fingerprints, the plan-text match, and the always-available escape, instead of being discarded and paying for a whole wave; a disposition may honestly bind the wave it NAMES only when the claimed fingerprint EQUALS the submitted envelope's (a review of [a.py] must not close a submission for [a.py, b.py, c.py] — agent-authored envelope drift is unbindable, not a warning); the binding fingerprint is a pure function of the agent's envelope (host-resolved plan_class/context_level excluded — stored fingerprints from earlier releases are invalidated once, harmlessly); per-slot component hashes are stored for ENVELOPE_MISMATCH diagnostics of that host-resolved drift; a slot the shared prompt cannot fit gets a free deterministic preflight_oversize record and a sub-quorum outcome is loud. (5) Diagnostics: four-way window wording (confirmed / owner-asserted / unknown-conservative / designated-default sentinel), honest prompt_chars_source, one aggregated ladder_steps field in the existing context_manifest, and the deleted floor guard takes a class of false blocks on pure reads with it.
6.79.0	2026-07-25	feat: no-swarm means no swarm, planning scouts are admitted before they spend, and the GAIA adapter asks for honesty instead of lookups. (1) OUROBOROS_MAX_SUBAGENT_DEPTH=0 now truly disables delegation: config._bounded_positive_int_setting gained a min_value (0 for this setting only, 1 everywhere else) so a configured 0 is an owner choice instead of an "unset" value silently rewritten to the default 2 — every previous "no-swarm" run actually delegated two levels deep, and provenance for those rows is recorded, not re-litigated. Both depth gates already refuse at 0 and root tasks (depth 0 themselves) still run. (2) Consequence, tested rather than discovered later: plan_task's planning scouts pass through the SAME delegation gate, so a depth-0 run gets no scouts and plan review completes on its existing degraded_evidence path — one typed refusal per intended scout, an explicit panel omission, no wedge and no second wave on resume. (3) A NEW scout wave is now admitted before launch — worker capacity, the shared review_helpers.review_wave_budget_gate (no second budget authority; it prices one opening round per scout, a deliberate lower bound), and a consumable window — while the recovery/collection path is deliberately NEVER gated, because those handoffs are already PAID and declining them would abandon spend instead of saving it. Each scout's contract deadline is bound to the window in which its handoff can still be consumed (the wave's shared cutoff minus the finalization grace and a margin, the reserve capped at a fraction of a short window) instead of inheriting the parent deadline verbatim; _schedule_task gained the deadline parameter it lacked, and a requested deadline can only TIGHTEN the inherited one. No third heartbeat predicate (settled oscillation). (4) GAIA gains GAIA_EPISTEMIC_INSTRUCTION beside the format and anti-leak constants: an adapter-only DISCLOSURE rule (say when a claim rests on something you did not verify) that explicitly does NOT ask for lookups of facts the model already knows, appended identically by all four solvers, stripped from traces before the leakage scan, wording-locked by tests, and disclosed in gaia/METHODOLOGY.md. Nothing changed in prompts/SYSTEM.md, no typed contract field, no finalization gate — a test pins that scope, and DEVELOPMENT.md's bench-adapter rule gained an explicit carve-out for this instruction class. (5) Harbor readiness: run_tb.py/harbor_installed_agent.py stop assuming TB2.1. The dataset identity is threaded into the adapter, which resolves the per-task wall-clock cap from the exact ~/.cache/harbor/tasks/packages/<org>/<name>/<digest> subtree — the org is not a constant (terminal-bench, gaia and scale-ai coexist in that cache, so the old hardcoded literal made every other dataset run deadline-blind) — with a name-only fallback that REFUSES on ambiguity rather than handing over a foreign dataset's cap; the submission subtree is derived from the dataset instead of a hardcoded submissions/terminal-bench/2.1/; --base-job-config deep-merges an upstream JobConfig UNDER our agents[] block (whose name must stay ours or the submission is permanently invalid); --agent-env/--verifier-env reach harbor's own --ae/--ve with their VALUES redacted out of every artifact THIS launcher writes (manifest official_command, harbor_command.txt, stdout — names only) — and the code's earlier claim that those values are "never written to the run root" is corrected, because it was false on the path where it matters most: harbor persists its OWN JobConfig into the job directory inside the public submission tree (harbor/job.py writes config.model_dump_json(exclude_defaults=True) to <jobs-dir>/<job_name>/config.json, and repeats the same env dicts in the job lock.json plus every trial's config.json/lock.json/result.json), where harbor's templatize_sensitive_env is keyed on the variable NAME only — measured on the installed 0.18.0, a name matching KEY|SECRET|TOKEN|PASSWORD|CREDENTIAL|AUTH is written as value[:4]+"****"+value[-3:] (a partial disclosure of a live credential) and any other name, e.g. MY_BEARER, is written VERBATIM. So scrub_submission_secrets.py — still the single scrubber — gains --env-passthrough NAME=VALUE: the pairs handed to --ae/--ve are swept BY VALUE across the whole tree (harbor's config/lock/result files included, no filename special-case), harbor's own partial form is swept as its own needle, the existing independent zero-leftover verify pass covers both, and a value that cannot be swept safely (too short, not credential-shaped, malformed pair) ABORTS before any write rather than producing a maybe-scrubbed upload; the launcher warns with the key NAMES and records the typed env_passthrough_persisted_by_harbor manifest fact; and the in-container key preflight now reads the authoritative /api/v1/key limit_remaining instead of the total_credits − total_usage arithmetic that lies on a nearly exhausted key (an uncapped key is admitted, not refused). Frontier-Bench (Terminal-Bench's declared successor) is now RUNNABLE readiness rather than a deferred question, and deliberately adds NO frontier_bench/ package: it is a harbor DATASET with a TB2.x-identical task shape, so it needs only the identity frontier-bench/frontier-bench (FRONTIER_BENCH_DATASET) travelling through the SAME seam TB2.1 uses — harbor's --dataset plus the adapter kwarg that selects the per-task cache subtree, which harbor 0.18.0 was verified to populate as ~/.cache/harbor/tasks/packages/frontier-bench/<task>/<digest>/task.toml. The load-bearing correction is about the BACKEND: upstream develops and scores FB on Modal (--env modal), which reads like a hard requirement for a cloud sandbox, but a real FB task's oracle solution was measured at reward 1.0 in 69s on the LOCAL docker daemon through FB's own separate-environment verifier, so no cloud provider, credential or account is needed to score a run locally. Backend choice is therefore explicit and disclosed instead of implicit: --harbor-env reaches harbor's own -e/--env (emitted ONLY when set, so the published TB2.1 argv stays byte-identical), and the manifest plus the disclosure ledger now record harbor_bin, harbor_version and harbor_env_effective — the backend that actually ran, named even when the flag was omitted, with an un-interrogable binary recorded as a visibly-unknown empty version rather than an assumed one. METHODOLOGY.md gains the FB disclosure block: what was measured, that 4 of 74 tasks request a GPU and one of those 1 TB of storage, that per-task agent caps run a median 7200s against TB2.1's minutes, that harbor scores locally so a smoke needs no submission or upload, and that every FB task.toml carries a contamination canary GUID which must never be quoted into a public artifact; its stale venv-hi reference is corrected to the real venv-fb. No Frontier-Bench run was scored and no number is claimed. (6) GAIA and both TB launchers drop their v6.75.0 require_clean=False pins and run the shared clean-seed gate with a recorded --allow-dirty-seed escape, while deliberately adding NO runtime attestation (each sample/trial starts its own server from the checkout under test — there is no evolved volume to skew). No benchmark campaign was run for any of this.
6.74.5	2026-07-22	fix: subagents can read the skill payloads they audit; budget drift compares like with like. (1) v6.70.0 granted read-only scouts read/list/search on root=skill_payload, but the path layer still resolved payloads against the child's isolated drive (data/state/headless_tasks/<tid>/data), which physically has no skills/ tree — every scout was blinded with a bare "Directory not found" (2026-07-21 anime_studio audit swarm: three children produced zero payload reads and the parent died budget_exhausted doing everything alone). resource_root_path now resolves skill_payload against the canonical data root (new canonical_data_root helper: task_metadata budget_drive_root → ctx budget_drive_root → drive_root), so root tasks and isolated benchmark roots are unchanged while children read the real payload; the verb matrix is untouched — write/edit/review stay parent-only, path confinement and control-plane sidecar guards unchanged, native bucket stays out of the data-plane resolver. (2) budget_drift_alert compared the ALL-provider ledger delta against ONE OpenRouter key's usage delta, so real direct-provider spend (Anthropic advisory ~$98/day) latched the alert at ~88% while nothing was wrong. Drift now compares the OpenRouter-only settled ledger delta (by_provider from the attempt ledger; settled-only, reservations excluded) against the key's usage delta, rebaselines silently when the configured key changes mid-session (non-secret sha256 fingerprint) or when a pre-upgrade state lacks the new snapshot, suppresses the comparison honestly while the ledger is integrity-degraded, and status_text renders exactly the same deltas as the computation (the warning event keeps the all-provider delta as context).
6.74.4	2026-07-21	feat: workspace-tree freeze directives (mitigation) + truthful ProgramBench submission contract. Root cause (PB cmatsuoka__figlet smoke): an agent committed a compiling state, then broke the tree with one last uncommitted edit as the acceptance improvement loop hit its pass cap — and the harness ships the LIVE tree (.git dropped), so the verified commit protected nothing. All existing salvage machinery guards the answer TEXT only. Fix, prompt-only (P5) over existing channels (P7): the acceptance rails line marks the last admitted improvement pass (passes_done+1 >= cap, within cap>0) as FINAL, and EVERY workspace-delivery capsule (canonical is_workspace_mode() authority, attribute fallback for light contexts) carries the tree directive — a deadline or cost rail can end the loop between capsules — keep the tree VERIFIED (rebuild, verify, and commit if the task calls for a commit; revert unverified edits); the 10% deadline flush AND the ~80% cost wrap-up gain one shared commit-NEUTRAL tree sentence (acting self_worktree subagents cannot commit; a moved HEAD fails patch capture closed), byte-identical for non-workspace tasks; the ProgramBench instruction now states the true submission model — a source tarball from the CURRENT tree state (uncommitted edits DO ship; .git, root binaries and build/cache noise excluded), run ./compile.sh one final time — replacing the false "fresh checkout" framing. Disclosed residual (mitigation, not closure): a forced tool-less exit — deadline grace or budget stop crossed inside one long round, with no pacing note or capsule in the terminal stretch — can still ship an unverified last edit; the structural verification-freshness seam is a filed follow-up pending an owner decision.
6.74.3	2026-07-21	fix: Windows portability of one v6.74.0 guard test. test_genuine_repo_target_still_blocks built its shell command via an f-string embedding a Windows path (backslashes mangled by shlex) and failed the 3-OS full matrix on windows-latest; the test now passes argv lists. No runtime code changes.
Older releases are preserved in Git tags and GitHub releases. Older 6.x rows (including 6.76.0, 6.75.0, 6.74.1, 6.74.0, 6.73.2, 6.73.1, 6.73.0, 6.72.0, 6.71.2, 6.71.1, 6.71.0, 6.70.0, 6.69.0, 6.68.0, 6.67.0, 6.66.0, 6.65.4, 6.65.3, 6.65.2, 6.65.1, 6.65.0, 6.64.3, 6.64.2, 6.64.1, 6.64.0, 6.63.0, 6.62.0, 6.61.4, 6.61.3, 6.61.1, 6.61.0, 6.60.0, 6.59.0, 6.58.0, 6.57.0, 6.56.0, 6.55.0, 6.54.4, 6.54.2, 6.54.1, 6.54.0, 6.53.4, 6.53.0, 6.51.0), the 5.2.0 through 5.33.0-rc.6 rows, and former 4.0.0 rows are rolled off to respect the P9 changelog cap; their full bodies remain at their git tags.

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License

MIT License

Created by Anton Razzhigaev & Andrew Kaznacheev