Blog · Release
Regente 0.5: onboarding you can trust.
0.4 made coordination happen at the moment work happens. 0.5 makes the two ends of fleet life honest: the first ten minutes, where every setup step is verified against the live engine instead of assumed, and the long tail, where a claim can no longer outlive the agent that holds it.
A first open that checks itself
The desktop app now opens into a full-screen welcome wizard on first launch. Its steps are not a
tour: each one is gated on live verification against the engine. The install step ticks only
when regente install has actually landed, with all four adapters wired. The
first-agent step ticks only when a real agent is online in the workspace. Nothing is marked done
because you clicked next.
The wizard is skippable, and it runs once per user (a marker at ~/.regente/onboarded).
If you skip it, the Overview keeps a three-step checklist that verifies itself the same way, and
disappears once setup is complete.
regente install wires everything, then proves it
One command now takes a repository from nothing to coordinated. regente install
writes the hooks, the MCP wiring, and an agent skill for every supported vendor (Claude Code,
Codex, Gemini CLI, and Cursor), verifies each wiring step with a per-tool checkmark, then waits
for the first agent to connect. --no-wait skips the wait,
--wait-minutes bounds it, and --json makes the output machine-readable.
regente install # wire all four vendors, verify, wait for the first agent
regente install --no-wait # wire and verify, return immediately
regente prompt # print the attach prompt for a new agent
The skills are how a fresh agent learns the house rules without anyone pasting context.
.claude/skills/regente/SKILL.md, .codex/skills/regente/SKILL.md,
.gemini/regente.md, .cursor/rules/regente.mdc, and
.regente/AGENT-ONBOARDING.md teach claims and release, the auto-handoff queue, task
results, usage reporting through report_usage, and how to message an idle claim
holder. regente prompt prints the full attach prompt, and the dashboard has a copy
button for it.
Claims cannot outlive agents
A claim is only useful while someone is working behind it. 0.5 makes that a rule instead of a
hope. Orphaned auto-claims left by dead sessions are swept. Deliberate claims expire once their
holder has been dark past claim_expiry_minutes (default 60; set 0 to disable), and
waiters in the handoff queue expire on the same rule, so a queue cannot back up behind a ghost.
Assignments get the same treatment: a task assigned to an agent that is gone reverts to todo
with a task.unassigned event (reason assignee-gone), so the work goes
back on the board instead of silently stalling. And regente prune drops roster
records that have been dark for days (default 7) and hold nothing. The net effect: no dead agent
holds your files.
Messages arrive inside the session
0.4 added delivery and read receipts; 0.5 closes the delivery gap itself. Direct messages are
now delivered inside the recipient agent's session through the hook heartbeat, so an agent that
is mid-task sees the message without polling for it. The Messages view shows where each direct
message stands: not delivered yet, ✓ delivered, or ✓✓ read. Explicit acknowledgement stays
explicit, through regente ack on the CLI or the ack tool over MCP.
Feedback that reaches a person
The dashboard has a Feedback view that emails the maintainer directly (through Resend), with an optional reply address if you want an answer. It is rate-limited. It exists because a bug report that requires leaving the app is a bug report that mostly does not get filed.
Polish and fixes
Adapter verification now compares workspace roots through realpath, so symlinked
checkouts (/tmp vs /private/tmp, pnpm-style links) verify correctly
instead of failing the install check.
The tasks board folds finished work into a collapsed Done group and reverts dead assignments in place. The vendors card shows all four vendor marks, lit or dimmed, in neutral ink. Collapsed panels keep their full column width, copy buttons flash a confirmation, toasts render above the wizard overlay, and the homepage now uses real app screenshots.