Dev Log: Launch recipes, email scheduler rewrite, capability descriptions, addon migration

This entry covers three days of work (Apr 7–9).

Launch Recipes

The old tutorial system (/tutorial + auto-greeting) has been replaced by launch recipes — structured onboarding flows that guide agents through their first interactions.

What changed:

• Recipes are a new step in the first-run wizard, between capabilities and agent details
• Adaptive (default recipe): progressively reveals features across the agent’s first few conversations instead of dumping everything at once
• Running agents can switch recipes mid-life via /setup — triggers nirvana + fresh start
• Each agent tracks recipe progress in recipe_state.json
• Recipe assets are embedded in the binary and bootstrapped to ~/.lingtai-tui/recipes/
• Migration m008 auto-migrates existing agents

Removed: /tutorial command, TutorialConfirmModel, greet/ embed, buildGreetPrompt, auto-greet path, Greeting setting.

Email Scheduler Rewrite

The kernel’s email scheduling subsystem (email schedule) has been rebuilt around a proper state machine.

Old system problems:

• Used .cancel sentinel files — no pause/resume, no crash recovery
• Agent restart lost in-flight schedule state
• List view didn’t show status

New system:

• Every schedule record has a status field: active → completed, or paused
• Cancel = Pause: cancel renamed to pause; new reactivate action resumes
• Crash recovery: startup reconciliation pauses all in-flight schedules, preventing mass-send after restart
• Self-heal: reactivate detects “crashed right after final send” and auto-marks as completed
• Trilingual i18n for all schedule actions

Mail System Improvements

• Sender field split into separate address and name in notifications
• New-mail check trailer now conditional on truncation — no more spurious “you have mail” noise
• Email tool description clarified: internal address space (agent names) vs external (IMAP), reply-routing behavior documented

Capability Descriptions + Provider Toggle

The first-run capability selection page now shows descriptions on hover.

• Narrow terminals (< 110 cols): one-line summary below the grid
• Wide terminals (≥ 110 cols): right-side description pane with full text + live provider metadata from check-caps
• All 16 capabilities and 3 addons described in en, zh, and wen (literary Chinese uses canonical vocabulary: 阅卷之器, 飞鸽传书, 游历之器, 藏经阁…)

Provider toggle: capabilities with multiple compatible providers (web_search, vision, talk, draw, listen) now show a Tab picker. Only providers usable with the current preset are offered — e.g., on a MiniMax preset, web_search offers minimax and duckduckgo.

Addon Migration

Addon config path moved from user-level (~/.lingtai-tui/addons/) to project-level (.lingtai/.addons/<addon>/config.json). Different projects can now use different mailboxes/bots.

Other addon changes:

• Setup migrated from hardcoded pip-install to the skill system — the agent helps you configure
• /cpr and /refresh use import check instead of pip install — much faster
• One-time migration notice for legacy addon comment blocks
• Fixed JSON error swallowing in config reads

Avatar System

• Network rules (action=rules): admin-gated rule distribution across the avatar tree via system/rules.md + .rules signal files
• Birth prompt: new avatars seeded with parent-identity prompt + social contract
• Principle path fix: relative principle_file resolves correctly for spawned avatars

Molt Fixes

• molt_count preserved across refresh and restart (was resetting to zero)
• Broken file-load replaced with i18n warning ladder
• {pressure}/{remaining} placeholders format correctly
• Canonical vocabulary enforced: 凝蜕 (zh), 转世 (wen)

Rebrand

Lingtai Agent → Lingtai Orchestration / 灵台相阵 across all UI strings.

Agent Agora

• /agora: browse published agent networks
• /agora publish: 5-step publishing flow (scrub → package → upload → verify → generate recipient recipe)
• Imported networks show welcome banner and pre-fill orchestrator details during rehydration

Other Fixes

• Vision local provider (mlx-vlm) hidden from check-caps — too early to advertise
• /cpr, /refresh, /clear now surface errors instead of failing silently
• CJK character width calculation fixed for input height
• TUI no longer auto-relaunches intentionally stopped agents
• Preset picker supports deleting saved presets

Versions

• TUI: v0.4.37
• Kernel: v0.5.18 (PyPI)

brew upgrade huangzesen/lingtai/lingtai-tui
pip install --upgrade lingtai