Release notes: LingTai TUI/Portal v0.10.1 and kernel v0.15.1

This is a patch window, not a new feature window. The previous release brought token telemetry into the cockpit’s default view; this one closes two loops it left open — let the source TUI update itself the way the Homebrew TUI already could, and give the kernel safer state-write plumbing plus a new way to drive a Claude subscription as an LLM provider.

The headline is the self-update story finishing. v0.10.0 taught the Homebrew TUI to update itself; source and user-local installs were still stranded on whatever binary they last built. This release brings the same update-in-place — manual and on startup — to those installs, so the TUI can keep itself current however it was put on disk. Behind it, the kernel routes more of its state writes through shared, tested helpers and stops letting spill and refresh failures pass silently.

What changed

TUI / Portal v0.10.1

• The source / user-local TUI can now update itself, finishing issue #404 for installs that are not Homebrew-managed: a manual self-update command (#416), a source-install self-update backend (#417), and a startup prompt that offers the update when on-disk source drifts behind the published TUI (#418). v0.10.0 shipped the Homebrew updater backend; v0.10.1 brings the same story to source installs.
• Cockpit polish: a live agent-activity indicator on the mail view footer (#422), mail view copy mode (#402), and the live /viz ghost-avatar visibility fix (#354).
• A doctor pass: a saved redacted report bundle with a privacy notice and export hint, install-method detection, and a diagnostic-section layout clarification (#406, #407, #409, #449, #450).
• Reliability: wait for headless agent readiness before proceeding (#365), plus dev-guide release-workflow docs and README install-method output (#448).

Kernel v0.15.1

• A new claude-code LLM provider: drive a Claude subscription through the claude CLI as an LLM provider (#525, originally proposed in closed PR #299).
• An MCP manual sidecar contract with bundled manuals: the documented sidecar anatomy and minimal contract (#529, #530), bundled manuals for curated MCPs (#528), and a Telegram media guidance manual (#526).
• Safer kernel state writes: shared _fsutil filesystem / JSON / JSONL helpers (#510, #522), and a session-recovery / ToolExecutor helper consolidation in turn.py that renames _post_send_housekeeping to _turn_boundary_housekeeping (#511, #523).
• Honest spill and refresh visibility: expired-spill artifact messaging (#192, #291), refresh-permanent-failure visibility (#292), and a headless runtime liveness proof (#351).
• Clearer Codex pre-molt summarize guidance (#531).

Why this matters

A self-update path that only works for Homebrew installs leaves source and user-local users stranded on stale binaries; finishing #404 means the TUI can keep itself current however it was installed, and tell the operator when it is behind. On the kernel side the theme is the same one v0.15.0 set — make the runtime honest and safe under long autonomy. Shared filesystem helpers reduce the number of hand-rolled, slightly-different state writes that a fleet can corrupt; spill and refresh failures that used to pass silently now surface; and the claude-code provider widens how an operator can back the runtime without changing the cockpit they already use.

Validation

Both versions were validated from clean release worktrees off origin/main.

Kernel v0.15.1 was validated at the version-bump commit 2d23801 (on base 834ce8b):

• python -m compileall over src and tests (clean);
• full pytest: 3034 passing, 4 skipped, 0 genuine failures — three subprocess-import “failures” were proven to be local-environment artifacts (the spawned child does not inherit PYTHONPATH=src and the package is not pip-installed in the validation interpreter) and pass green on re-check with PYTHONPATH=src;
• python -m build produced the sdist and wheel, and twine check PASSED on both;
• the only delta vs origin/main is the single pyproject.toml version bump from 0.15.0 to 0.15.1.

TUI/Portal v0.10.1 was validated at candidate head 418e470 (the build version is injected via make ... VERSION=v0.10.1, with no source bump):

• git diff --check against v0.10.0 was clean;
• Portal web npm ci && npm run build passed, Portal go test ./... passed, and make build produced the TUI and Portal binaries;
• caveat, non-blocking: two internal/config install-detection tests failed only on the maintainer’s machine because local dev symlinks under /usr/local/bin and /opt/homebrew/bin resolve out of the Homebrew prefix; the gate classified this as host / test-isolation sensitivity, not a v0.10.1 runtime regression, and verified the underlying classifier returns homebrew correctly on a clean path;
• release hygiene note: the portal/web toolchain reports dev / build-time npm audit advisories (vite, launch-editor, js-yaml); the shipped portal assets are static, so these are not in the runtime.

Note on artifacts: the locally built kernel wheel is macOS-arm64 platform-tagged, so the portable sdist is the artifact on PyPI.

Release links

• Kernel release: https://github.com/Lingtai-AI/lingtai-kernel/releases/tag/v0.15.1
• Runtime package source: https://pypi.org/project/lingtai/0.15.1/
• TUI/Portal release: https://github.com/Lingtai-AI/lingtai/releases/tag/v0.10.1
• Homebrew tap: https://github.com/Lingtai-AI/homebrew-lingtai

For regular users, LingTai’s managed project environments remain the normal way the runtime package is resolved. The PyPI page is the published runtime package source and a useful verification point, not the primary end-user upgrade story.

Direction

With self-update finished across install methods and the kernel’s state writes routed through shared, tested helpers, the runtime is steadier under long unattended sessions. The next steps build on the telemetry the previous window surfaced — act on what the numbers show, and keep widening provider choice without disturbing the cockpit operators already know.