v8.1.0–v8.4.0 — Locia upper contour (July 2026)
The govern-from-outside loop, closed end to end: a ratifiable Charter gates a course before work starts (8.1), reconcile checks planned-vs-delivered at close (8.2), a versioned role Registrar makes the actors first-class (8.3), and separation of duties is enforced on close — the implementer can't sign off on their own work (8.4).
v8.0.0 — Locia: guiding-thread PM for AI agents (July 2026)
The headline of the 8.0 line: Locia, a
project-management discipline for work run by an AI agent, built into the platform.
It reframes PM as allocating a forgetful executor's attention over a lossless store,
governed from outside — one ★ Star, one ⟋ Course, one ▼ Focus (WIP=1, enforced
server-side). A LociaService derives the authoritative grounding slice
from the board and emits it as UFN, so an agent grounds the same truth every session.
Published as an open standard at locia.kovanex.dev.
8.0.1–8.0.2 add thread authoring (loci apply) and round-trippable task
ids, saner releases verify, and a runner that reaps zombie CI processes.
v7.14.0–v7.15.0 — config & security hardening (July 2026)
Honest CI (dead-infra jobs retired so green means green), a single source of truth for host config, then a security pass: vault privilege de-escalation, real git RBAC (audit-first), and opt-in CA-aware TLS verification across the clients.
v7.11.0 — UFN v2 (June 2026)
A compact one-line record format with nesting and ligatures, end-to-end: kovanex-ctl --ufn list economy and nested get, an MCP server that speaks UFN with a compact-JSON fallback, --json trimmed ~36%, and MCP tool annotations (read-only / destructive / idempotent) plus short-id addressing. Agents read more and spend fewer tokens.
v7.10.0 — Vault Sealed-Boot (June 2026)
The server now sources its own secrets from the vault: on unseal it loads sys/* into config, so the only bootstrap secret on a box is the unseal key. A sealed vault refuses human login (agent device-PSK only — enough to unseal), with a break-glass super-login for the first unseal. HashiCorp-style defer-until-unseal.
v7.9.0 — Developer Experience (June 2026)
Friction gone for humans and agents: reference tasks by #number/short id and projects by name (not 36-char UUIDs); a built-in --retry that rides out transient gRPC flaps; structured --json/--ufn across every read command; tasks delete/start + flag-as-value validation; MCP tool parity; and an AGENTS.md orientation file. v7.9.1 adds kovanex-ctl health — agent-native per-component status.
v7.8.0 — Agent Ergonomics (June 2026)
Structured --json output (and pipeline job ids) so agents stop scraping tables; the MCP server fixed and widened with knowledge-base and problem tools; and v7.8.1's --ufn — a compact one-line-per-record format ~90% smaller than JSON, so agents burn far fewer tokens reading lists.
v7.7.0 — Agent Skill Library (June 2026)
Nine downloadable, agent-native skills over Kovanex — task discipline, CI triage, graph memory (kovamem), root-cause problems, release cutting, cluster health, PR review, audit, and docs — each shipped as a SKILL.md + a versioned bundle. Kovanex becomes an agent-native platform with a skill library.
v7.6.0 — Knowledge Base & UI/PWA (June 2026)
An Obsidian-compatible knowledge base (Markdown vault + backlink graph + search) and root-cause Problems views land in the PWA and the native desktop app. Client binaries (kovanex-ctl, kovanex-mcp) for macOS (Apple Silicon + Intel) and Linux at /download.
v7.5.0 — Semantic Search & Problem Management (June 2026)
k-NN semantic vector search over an embedded HNSW index across tasks & notes — agent-native (the AI supplies embeddings; no bundled model, no external API). Root-cause Problems that link the tasks/bugs they explain as kovadb graph queries. A diff-scoped CI gate blocks newly introduced non-English source.
v7.4.0 — kovadb (June 2026)
Kovanex migrates off its external database onto kovadb — an embedded, pure-Go document + graph + vector store. One file now backs every domain; there is no separate database process to run. The knowledge base (Markdown vault + backlink graph) landed in this line.
v6.5.0 — Developer Experience (March 2026)
Server log streaming (kovanex-ctl logs -f), rich CLI dashboard, pipeline retry failed jobs, cancel-all duplicates. Self-update fix. 30+ GitLab-compatible CI variables. 24 MCP tools including AgentMemory (persistent per-agent notes). Protoc binary install — no apt dependency in Dockerfiles.
v6.2.0 — Agent Intelligence (March 2026)
AgentMemoryService — persistent key-value notes per agent per project. GetAgentContext — rich AI context in one call (diff, commits, pipeline status, blockers, notes). WatchProject — unified event stream replacing 3 separate subscriptions. Pipeline dedup, docker-compose.override.yml, comprehensive smoke tests.
v6.0.0 — Cluster Architecture (March 2026)
Git-native distributed compute. SWIM-based gossip protocol (hashicorp/memberlist), health matrix with weighted average convolution, task scheduler (4 strategies), async repo replication, auto-scaling. Client and runner failover with seed lists. UI cluster page. Device PSK auth — no more KOVANEX_INSECURE. 18 gRPC services, 190+ RPCs.
v5.3.0 — Security & Enterprise (March 2026)
Ed25519 audit log signing, PolicyService with evaluation engine, human approval workflow for pipelines, agent quota interceptor in gRPC chain.
v5.2.0 — Public Infrastructure (March 2026)
Kovanex goes public. Docker Registry at registry.kovanex.dev (pull without auth). Public Git mirror at git.kovanex.dev. One-line installer: curl -fsSL https://kovanex.dev/install.sh | bash. Binary downloads at /download/. Automated publish pipeline on every release.
v5.0.0 — Agent Messenger (March 2026)
AI agents become first-class citizens. PSK authentication, capabilities-based task routing, real-time messaging channels between agents and humans. 9 new RPCs in AgentService, 6 in MessageService. Auto-post events for git push, PR, pipeline, task lifecycle.
v4.5.0 — Disaster Recovery Plan (March 2026)
Comprehensive 12-section operational runbook. Fresh install procedures, crash recovery, backup/restore, TLS troubleshooting, database issues, pipeline debugging, disk management, vault unsealing, upgrade/rollback procedures.
v4.4.0 — Phase 2 Complete (March 2026)
Organization model (org → team → members), namespace isolation with org slug prefix, resource quotas per team (repos, pipelines, storage), RBAC with 4 org-level roles.
v3.3.0 — Phase 1 Security Complete (March 2026)
Bcrypt password hashing, JWT refresh tokens, pre-shared key auth for runners (WireGuard-style), unit tests for core paths, integration tests, version display everywhere, Apache 2.0 license.
v3.1.0 — Embedded Documentation (March 2026)
All docs compiled into server binary via go:embed. Accessible via CLI, HTTP, and gRPC without git repo. Available immediately after fresh install.
v3.0.0 — Team Ready (March 2026)
First release ready for developer onboarding. Kanban scroll fix, developer guide for 5-minute setup.
v2.3.0 — Task-Driven Development (March 2026)
Tasks carry QA scripts and documentation paths. Two-phase release verification (smoke + regression). Auto-generated release notes. Every commit linked to its task via branch naming convention.