rune
released this
2026-08-31 15:09:28 +02:00
| 0 commits to main since this release
New features
- Apple Intelligence can now use tools - Files, bash, calendar, mail, contacts, Paperless, and Maps all work on-device now, not just plain chat. Built as a real persistent session rather than replaying the whole conversation on every message, so it keeps its own memory of what it's done - and on macOS 27, that memory survives closing and reopening a saved conversation, not just the current session. Apple's on-device model has a small context budget (8K tokens, not the 4K originally documented), so External MCP servers (Obsidian, Homepage, etc.) aren't included - their tool descriptions are outside Confab's control and can easily be too large on their own. Confab's own built-in tools are unaffected. Still Beta, since Apple's framework itself is still under active development.
- Hugging Face as a chat provider - Chat with models through Hugging Face's Inference Providers router using an account you may already have, instead of signing up somewhere new. The model list and pricing are fetched live from Hugging Face rather than a fixed list, and a "Custom Model ID…" option in the model picker lets you try any model hosted there even if it's not in that list. Some backends require your own API key on Hugging Face's side - Confab explains this clearly if you hit it, instead of a bare error.
- Mail integration is live - Let the AI search your Apple Mail inbox, read messages, and save attachments to disk (e.g. to hand off to Paperless) via AppleScript - no separate credentials needed. Every action, including reads, requires your approval. This shipped in beta form last release but was hidden behind a kill switch after first-time permission grants appeared broken on the macOS 27 beta; turned out to be a missing entitlement in Confab itself, not an OS bug, and is now fixed and confirmed working.
- External MCP Servers: edit existing servers, and clearer Node.js troubleshooting - You can now edit an already-added server's settings instead of deleting and recreating it. If a server can't be reached because its command (usually
npx) isn't on Confab's PATH, a "Get Node.js" button walks you through installing it - a copyable command, a one-click install if Homebrew is detected, or a link to the official installer otherwise.
- Liquid Glass, phase 1 - The Settings tab bar, the new MCP sidebar, and the model picker's filter chips now use macOS 26's Liquid Glass design language.
Bug fixes & improvements
- A real crash risk fixed before release - Some rare tool results could crash the entire app instead of failing gracefully, due to a subtle gap in how Apple's own JSON library reports certain kinds of invalid data. Found while building the Apple Intelligence tool-calling work above; fixed for every provider's tool-calling path, not just the new one.
- External MCP: pasting a JSON args array no longer mangles it - Most MCP server docs show their example config as a JSON array (e.g.
["-y", "mcp-remote", "..."]). Pasting that directly into the Arguments field used to corrupt it into broken tokens; it's now parsed correctly.
- External MCP: toggling a server on/off no longer corrupts its settings - Flipping the enable switch was silently discarding a server's transport type, environment variables, URL, and auth token back to stdio defaults. Fixed.
- External MCP: editing a connected server now actually reconnects it - Saving changes to an already-running server's settings used to appear to do nothing, since the live connection kept using its old configuration. It now restarts with the new settings.
- Mail Automation permission fixed for real - What looked like a macOS 27 beta bug (first-time permission grants never appearing, not even in System Settings) turned out to be a missing entitlement in Confab's own build configuration. Fixed and confirmed working.
- Off-screen window self-heals - If Confab's window ever ends up positioned off every connected screen (stale window-restore data), it now recenters itself automatically instead of requiring a quit and relaunch to recover. A "Reset Window Position" menu item is also available manually.
- Settings "Test Connection" buttons no longer need a tab switch to activate - Sync, Email, Paperless, Anytype, and Jarvis's Test Connection buttons stayed disabled until you clicked away and back, because of how secure text fields report their value. Now checked at the moment you click, not while typing.
- Crash-recovery draft could reappear after a clean save - The draft file wasn't being cleared when you saved normally, only on discard, so the "restore unsaved conversation?" prompt could reappear even after you'd already saved. Fixed.
- Liquid Glass rendering bugs - Two real rendering issues from the phase 1 rollout above: glass surfaces occasionally showed as solid opaque blocks instead of translucent glass, and applying a color tint to a glass surface made it look like a plain filled button instead of frosted glass. Both fixed; glass surfaces now rely on their icon/text color alone to signal selection state.
- Continued translation catch-up - More strings that had slipped through past translation passes (mostly around Mail, plural handling, and this release's new Hugging Face/External MCP/Apple Intelligence UI) are now translated into Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German, and French. As always, translations are AI-generated - if anything reads oddly in your language, reach out via the contact link in Help.
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