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Release Notes

Front Porch AI ships often, with frequent patch and beta releases.

This page is a historical archive covering releases up through the v0.9.8 series. For everything newer — including the current stable release and nightly builds — see the GitHub Releases page, which is always the most complete and up-to-date record.

Beta releases install to a completely separate data directory (FrontPorchAI-Beta) with their own settings, so they never touch your stable installation.

v0.9.8-Beta Series

Initial Beta Release: 2026-04-25 (v0.9.8-Beta)
Latest Tagged Beta: v0.9.8-Beta12 (2026-05-12)
Status: Superseded — v0.9.8 and later releases shipped; see GitHub Releases for what came after

This series introduces the largest set of user-facing features since v0.9.0 and includes extensive under-the-hood refinements, especially to the Realism Engine and hardware compatibility.

Major Features (from README "What's New")

  • 🎭 Character Expressions — Live emotion-driven avatar swapping.
    Dual-path classification (fast local ONNX distilbert model or full Realism Engine LLM path). In-app one-click download of the ONNX classifier with progress overlay. Supports any SillyTavern-compatible expression pack (26 emotion categories). Sidebar or fullscreen cinematic modes with intelligent fallback.

  • ⚡ KoboldCpp Performance & Control — Flash Attention, Context Shift, mlock, explicit --usecublas GPU ID, and Prefill Batch Size now enabled by default where appropriate. New collapsible Advanced Launch Options panel in Settings. RTX 50-series (Blackwell) GPU detection fixed. ~20–40% faster generation on supported hardware.

  • 🔒 True Beta/Stable Isolation — Separate data directory, preference namespace, and update-check logic. Optional one-time copy of stable database on first beta launch.

  • .kcpps Preset Support & Context Management — Load .kcpps launch presets from KoboldCpp. When a preset is active, context size and several other generation parameters are controlled by the preset (UI dims and shows explanatory tooltip). Centralized in StorageService.contextSize.

  • Other Notable Additions

    • Custom chat background image uploader with per-chat persistence.
    • Google Fonts picker for chat text styling.
    • Per-character chat bubble color persistence (survives PNG export).
    • Expandable Scenario field and improved persona editor in Character Creator.
    • KoboldCpp log viewer and backend lifecycle improvements.

Later Changes (post-v0.9.8-Beta12, on the 0.9.8-Beta branch)

These changes landed on the beta branch after the last tagged beta of the series.

Fixes

  • Prevented runtime crash in Tooltip widgets ("Either message or richMessage must be specified") when no .kcpps preset was active (multiple files: settings_page.dart, character_creator_page.dart, chat_settings_dialog.dart, model_settings_dialog.dart).
  • Realism Engine: increased eval token limits for thinking models (Qwen3 etc.), hardened JSON output params, fixed interruption handling during regeneration, proper cancellation/abort paths, and spatial awareness fixes when passage of time is disabled.
  • Bond/Trust slider ranges and stale clamps updated to ±300 to match character creator; short-term bond tier naming aligned.
  • Arousal delta cap and threshold scaling improved; arousal bar display fixes.
  • Various UI: log text copyable, .kcpps preset validation before start, session picker and background edit widget tree fixes.
  • RAG/lorebook: constant entries now persist correctly, improved deduplication and wildcard/word-boundary matching.
  • macOS: bundle name fixes for Metal shader compilation; proper DMG packaging in CI.
  • CI/build: multiple YAML indentation and packaging fixes (removed Windows zip from matrix, proper beta/stable release workflows).

Improvements

  • Consolidated all context size logic and .kcpps preset parsing into StorageService.
  • Realism Engine escape hatch and better one-shot eval handling for remote APIs (system prompt separation for impersonate).
  • UI/UX: make Scenario field expandable, UI Settings dialog scrollable, improved hover tooltips on realism chips, numeric input boxes alongside sliders in chat settings.
  • Persona/description fields consolidated; Author's Note moved for better visibility.

Documentation & Maintenance

  • Extensive cleanup of accidental files, gitignore updates (.opencode, .sisyphus).
  • Continued test coverage and analyzer warning reduction.

v0.9.7 Series

Date Range: 2026-04-06 – 2026-04-21

A focused series of stability and polish releases, heavily centered on the Realism Engine, character editor, and web UI parity.

v0.9.7.8 (2026-04-21) — Release v0.9.7.8 — character description fix + web UI overhaul
v0.9.7.7 (2026-04-19) — Release v0.9.7.7
v0.9.7.6 (2026-04-15) — Global realism toggles, time anomaly reactions, and character description fixes
v0.9.7.5 (2026-04-13) — Character editor redesign, editable Realism Engine, stability fixes
v0.9.7.4 (2026-04-13) — Character generation pipeline stability & NSFW interview
v0.9.7.3 (2026-04-10) — Learned Facts overhaul, Web UI creator parity, phased Realism Engine recovery
v0.9.7.2 — Inserted "What's New" notes and related fixes
v0.9.7.1 (2026-04-08) — Realism Engine prompt overhaul, Chaos Mode timing rework, KoboldCpp stability
v0.9.7 (2026-04-06) — Windows build fix (spell_check_plugin)

Themes across the series

  • Realism Engine — Prompt engineering, recovery phases, global toggles, time anomaly handling, passage-of-time respect, baseline preservation on regeneration.
  • Character Tools — Major editor redesign, description fixes, preservation of realism extensions on create/edit/duplicate.
  • UI & Creator — Promote AI Character Creator to sidebar, web UI feature parity, numerous stability fixes in generation pipeline.
  • Build & CI — Analyzer noise reduction (574 → 268 issues), Dependabot updates, test additions for ChatService, Realism state, and integration layers.
  • Story / Novel — StoryPipelineService recreation on backend change.

v0.9.6 Series

Date Range: 2026-03-27 – 2026-04-06

v0.9.6 (2026-03-31) — Release v0.9.6: Local Image Gen, Easy Mode Character Creator, and UI Updates
v0.9.6.6 (2026-04-06) — Documentation and restructuring updates
v0.9.6.5 (2026-04-06) — Dependabot + docs updates
v0.9.6.4 (2026-04-05) — Windows spellcheck / ODR build bypass
v0.9.6.3 – v0.9.6.1 — Patch releases for character generator web server, file handling, and minor fixes.

Key Additions

  • Local image generation backends (A1111, Forge, SDNext, Draw Things) with live model switching, LoRA support, and per-generation model selection.
  • "Easy Mode" improvements and web UI parity for character creator and Porch Stories.
  • Numerous fixes around image gen avatars, crop callbacks, and provider ordering.

v0.9.0 – v0.9.5

v0.9.5 (2026-03-27) — Porch Stories: AI Novel Generator
Five-stage autonomous pipeline (concept → outline → draft → edit → publish) with skeuomorphic reader and audiobook TTS read-along. Distills character chats into coherent story timelines.

v0.9.4.1 (2026-03-24) — Crop library API compatibility update.

v0.9.3.4 – v0.9.3.1 (March 2026) — macOS file picker / updater / installer fixes; TTS auto-play and configurable endpoints.

v0.9.3 (2026-03-15) — Preserve four-part version display in UI.

v0.9.2 (2026-03-14) — Character evolution, user persona injection, Rust embed server (ONNX RAG), TTS fixes, RAG memory improvements.

v0.9.1 (2026-03-11) — CI / Node.js 24 compatibility updates.

v0.9.0 (2026-03-09) — First stable release under AGPL-3.0 (earlier versions were GPLv3).
Merged alpha work including the full AI Character Creator (quick concept → complete V2 card, alternate greetings, lorebook auto-gen, editor passes: Anti-Puppet, Consistency, Quality Polish).

v0.9.0-alpha3 (2026-03-05) — CivitAI integration for image model search/download.
v0.9.0-alpha2 (2026-03-03) — AI Character Creator, multi-tone greetings, editor passes, KoboldCpp model manager.
v0.9.0-alpha1 — CI version sync fixes for app_version.dart.

v0.8 Series

v0.8.3 / v0.8.2 (early March 2026) — Backports of Linux segfault fixes, .desktop shortcuts, icon, and settings rename from the 0.9 alphas. Character data loss prevention on folder operations.

v0.8.1 (2026-02-27) — Fix for custom install directory breaking database.

v0.8.0 (2026-02-27) — Stable release: process cleanup, cloud sync reliability, orphan PNG cleanup.

v0.8.0-beta series (Feb 2026)

  • XTC sampler, persona cloud sync, Director Mode (multi-character group chat control).
  • Backyard AI (.byaf) importer.
  • Model loading status, right-click context menus, smarter stop sequences, buffer duration settings.
  • ROCm GPU support, Linux process shutdown fixes, Ko-fi integration.

Earlier Versions (v0.7 and below)

Rapid early development focused on core functionality.

  • v0.7.2 / v0.7.2.1 (2026-02-23) — Custom models folder with safe recursive scanner, cross-platform "Open Folder", fixes for character folder display.
  • v0.7.1 (2026-02-22) — CI path fixes for PyInstaller.
  • v0.7.0 (2026-02-19) — Multi-engine TTS debut (Kokoro local 50+ voices, OpenAI, Piper lightweight fallback).
  • v0.6.1 (2026-02-19) — Version display fixes, AppImage self-update, impersonate revamp, context size controls in chat settings.
  • v0.6.0 / v0.5.x (Feb 2026) — Expandable fields, alternate greetings, example dialogues in edit dialog; installer and packaging refinements.
  • v0.0.4 series (2026-02-17) — External API support, swipe navigation, thought chip, Continue button, chat import/export, persona titles.
  • v0.0.3 series (2026-02-16) — Early sidebar UI fixes, Alt Greetings UI, smooth output buffer documentation.
  • v0.0.1 – v0.0.2 (2026-02-14/15) — Initial public releases, macOS rework, CI/CD Windows build path fixes.

These early versions established the foundation: V2 character card support, local KoboldCpp integration, basic chat with rich text, persistent sessions, and the beginning of the Realism Engine and RAG memory features.

How to View Full Changelog

# View commits between two tags (example)
git log v0.9.7.8..v0.9.8-Beta12 --oneline

# List all tags (version-sorted)
git tag -l | sort -V

# Show the tag annotation/message for a specific release
git show v0.9.8-Beta12

# Full diff between any two points
git log --oneline v0.9.5..HEAD

You can also browse the commit history or Releases directly on GitHub.

This archive covers releases through v0.9.8-Beta12 (May 2026). Newer releases are documented on GitHub Releases.

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