Skip to content

What changed in Buzz

Buzz ships several releases a week. This guide is verified against Buzz v0.5.20; the newest release is v0.5.20 (26 Aug 2026). The first section says, in plain terms, what has changed since the guide was last verified — where a page here may be behind the app you are running. The full history follows, one entry per release, generated from Block's own release notes with build and release plumbing removed and a link to each pull request kept.

Last checked: Buzz v0.5.20, 2026-09-02.

Since this guide was verified

Nothing yet — the guide is verified against the newest release, v0.5.20.

Every release

v0.5.20 — 26 Aug 2026

A small release. GIF search is in the composer — a GIF button (KLIPY) next to the emoji picker in channels, threads and DMs. Also fixed: the automatic mention preference is now respected after you send, so an agent you turned automatic mentions off for is no longer re-added on the next message.

Guide impact: Share and discuss media notes the GIF search and that it is an operator opt-in. Applied 2026-09-02.

All changes in this release

Added

  • Add KLIPY GIF search to composers (PR)

Fixed

  • Respect automatic mention preference after send (PR)

Release · Compare with v0.5.19

v0.5.19 — 25 Aug 2026

The largest release of the cycle. What you will notice:

  • An addressed agent stays addressed. With the automatic mention preference on, an agent you @mention becomes a persistent recipient: your following messages keep going to it, a small avatar tray in the composer shows who is being addressed, and removing the chip clears it. Cmd+Shift+M (Ctrl+Shift+M) toggles the current recipient. Delegate work to agents describes the standing-state behaviour and when to switch it off.
  • Tool calls pass a permission check. The built-in Buzz agent runtime now asks for permission before every tool call instead of running tools unconditionally. Whether you see a prompt or the call is approved automatically is decided by the client's permission policy (BUZZ_ACP_PERMISSION_POLICY), the same layering the other harnesses use. It is an action-level control on one harness, not a workflow approval gate — the guide keeps the two apart in Grant an agent access to real systems, Set up a lead agent, Run a project with agent oversight and The moderation and governance model.
  • Huddles on the phone. A first version of Huddles in the mobile app: join from the phone, talk, mute, choose the speaker, and hear desktop agents when they speak. Setting agents up and reading transcripts stay desktop-only for now. On the desktop, Huddles were moved back to the previous audio protocol, and you can once again talk over an agent that is speaking. See Hold a voice huddle with agents and Pair the mobile app.
  • Workflows are easier to set up. When you build a trigger, Buzz now offers the filter values it can see rather than asking you to type them, and the wording around setting up and activating a workflow was clarified. Create a workflow or scheduled task describes the v0.5.18 editor; its screenshots are still to be taken against the new surface. Approval gates (WF-08) were re-verified unchanged.
  • Search highlights the matching words in results and in the messages you open from them.
  • Mentions are counted in channel notifications, and a routing fault that sent some mention alerts to the wrong place was fixed.
  • Images: step through every image in a thread from the lightbox; zoom controls work again; Cmd + / Cmd − scale the whole window properly.
  • A simpler message action rail. Hovering a message now shows Add reaction · Reply · Copy link · More; the row of quick-reaction emoji shortcuts is gone.
  • Buzz's own links render once. A buzz:// project, repository, issue or pull-request link now appears as a single inline chip with details on hover, without the duplicate preview card underneath.

Under the hood, channel switching, thread reads and the Projects surface were made cheaper, and relay operators can now delete a community from versioned media buckets.

Also in this release, for operators: a relay now refuses to start without its own signing key (earlier builds fell back to a shared identity), vulnerability reports go through GitHub's private reporting form, and a draft federated-identity extension (NIP-FI) was published — a specification, not a feature.

Guide impact: applied 2026-09-02 across the pages linked above, plus watch-item notes on Keys replace accounts, Agent ownership and the trust chain and Running your own relay, and a refreshed maturity map. The whole guide is now verified against v0.5.20.

All changes in this release

Added

  • Persist agent addressing across composer messages (PR)
  • Navigate images across message threads (PR)
  • Support community deletion in versioned media buckets (PR)
  • Agents: Gate LLM tool calls on session/request_permission (PR)
  • Workflows: Discover trigger filter values (PR)
  • Simplify the message action rail (PR)
  • Add mobile Huddles voice MVP (PR)
  • Messages: Keep agents addressed across messages (PR)
  • Workflows: Clarify workflow setup and activation (PR)

Improved

  • Persist channel heads, collapse thread reads and reply sends (PR)
  • Make the Projects surface render-cheap (PR)
  • Stop the Projects fan refetching on re-entry and running after leave (PR)
  • Keep the member roster off the channel-switch path (PR)

Fixed

  • Messages: Preserve inline agent mentions with persistent addressing (PR)
  • Make lightbox zoom controls interactive (PR)
  • Fix TipTap editor mount race (PR)
  • Fix mobile Huddle agent voice turn states (PR)
  • Polish inline chip states (PR)
  • Restore icon-only remote marker (PR)
  • Composer: Wrap Buzz chip labels without orphaning icons (PR)
  • Bound thread /query and surface load errors, not false-empty (PR)
  • Messages: Route edits to the owning composer (PR)
  • Align jump-to-latest pill with composer height (PR)
  • Emit singular mention feed category so alerts route correctly (PR)
  • Hide selection formatting tray on composer right-click (PR)
  • Stabilize members dialog scrolling (PR)
  • Keep member runtime status off the UI thread (PR)
  • Remove Buzz entity link previews (PR)
  • Composer: Preserve caret when inserting mentions mid-message (PR)
  • Restore true zoom by scaling the root rem (PR)
  • Restore human barge-in over agent TTS in huddles (PR)

Changed

  • Highlight search terms in results and messages (PR)
  • Show mention counts in channel notifications (PR)
  • Downgrade desktop Huddles to audio protocol v2 (PR)
  • Clarify huddle message destination (PR)

Release · Compare with v0.5.18

v0.5.18 — 21 Aug 2026

Added

  • Messages: Show compact Buzz link metadata (PR)
  • Workflows: Reply in-thread from send_message action (PR)
  • Stamp thinking effort on call-completed log line (PR)
  • Workflows: Add workflow editor (PR)
  • Refine context-aware Projects collaboration (PR)
  • Close Buzz window with Cmd+W (PR)
  • Make Projects workspaces selectable (PR)
  • Make the Projects overview follow the selected section (PR)
  • Add appearance preference previews (PR)
  • Refine repository-aware project workspaces (PR)
  • Add font size and conversation density preferences (PR)
  • Close five Claude Code agent-config gaps (PR)

Improved

  • Split discover_acp_providers into cheap and forced paths (PR)
  • Resolve references without directory scans (PR)
  • Move five hot renderer paths from JS into Rust (PR)
  • Parallelize relay agent directory rebuild (PR)

Fixed

  • Simplify duplicate agent provenance (PR)
  • Sender names in notifications + macOS click-through routing (PR)
  • Clarify add agents channel action (PR)
  • Restore recent channel sorting (PR)
  • Isolate main timeline stacking context from focus drawer (PR)
  • Make reconnect repair lossless (PR)
  • Fix cross-owner relay agent mentions in owner-only builds (PR)
  • Preserve huddle speech boundaries (PR)
  • Curate Databricks alias-aware labels for 5 missing endpoints (PR)
  • Distinguish duplicate agent devices (PR)
  • Show complete repository trees (PR)
  • Restore emoji recents (PR)
  • Media: Accept portrait video resolutions (PR)
  • Hide archived channels from #/Tab autocomplete (PR)
  • Morph the drawer panel icon instead of sliding it (PR)
  • Exclude archived agents from nest, order regeneration (PR)
  • Emit camelCase config-write payload fields (PR)
  • Downscale large avatars for agent-share PNG body (PR)
  • Preserve early relay auth challenges (PR)
  • Delay hover disclosures by default (PR)
  • Preserve balanced layout when sidebar collapses (PR)

Changed

  • Finish Projects navigation and context chrome (PR)

Release · Compare with v0.5.17

v0.5.17 — 18 Aug 2026

Fixed

  • Bound remote agent mention authorization (PR)
  • Bind presence retry timers (PR)
  • Eliminate mounted-view CPU burn — compositor-safe shimmer, observer append fast path, poll-tick disk reads (PR)

Release · Compare with v0.5.14

v0.5.14 — 15 Aug 2026

No user-facing changes; build and release plumbing only.

Release · Compare with v0.5.11

v0.5.11 — 12 Aug 2026

Added

  • Agents: Idle re-sleep for woken lazy pools (PR)
  • Add durable whole-community deletion (PR)

Improved

  • Persist channel snapshot hash (PR)
  • Coalesce thread-activity localStorage writes (PR)

Fixed

  • Agents: Raise output limit and allow 3 recoveries (PR)
  • Defer foreground resume work (PR)
  • Preserve agent mention separator after send (PR)
  • Proxy sent preview media (PR)
  • Preserve live channel timelines (PR)
  • Launch Databricks OAuth from passive model discovery (PR)

Changed

  • Batch observer-store publications per relay envelope (PR)
  • Refine channel settings and profile panels (PR)

Release · Compare with v0.5.10

v0.5.10 — 12 Aug 2026

Added

  • Add glass appearance and cohesive settings (PR)
  • Add Send to channel for thread messages (PR)

Improved

  • Coalesce read state localStorage persistence (PR)

Fixed

  • Remove 0.5.9+ perf regressions, speed up get_channels (PR)
  • Bound initial timeline retention (PR)
  • Fix macOS attachment picker lifecycle and allow inert HTML downloads (PR)
  • Preserve fresh channel timelines (PR)
  • Suppress fresh focus-return refetches for channels and home-feed (PR)
  • Preserve theme when opening communities (PR)
  • Resolve YouTube videos through oEmbed (PR)
  • Agents: Harden Databricks OAuth token cache and callback (PR)
  • Reliably render previews sent right after they resolve (PR)
  • Restore Buzz entity link cards (PR)

Changed

  • Improve desktop search scoping (PR)

Release · Compare with v0.5.9

v0.5.9 — 10 Aug 2026

Added

  • Time-based sweep for stale localStorage caches (PR)
  • NIP-AM agent-usage backend — P2 emission/transport/archive + P4a aggregation/D6 (PR)

Fixed

  • Quiesce renderer polling while hidden (PR)
  • Restore member invitations to private channels (PR)
  • Bound nine unbounded localStorage stores (PR)
  • Resolve overlapping member mentions (PR)
  • Preserve Welcome banner dismissal (PR)
  • Agents: Retry LLM completion on malformed 2xx JSON body (PR)
  • Welcome banner overlap and missing dismiss control (PR)
  • Prevent horizontal clipping in Prompt Context modal (PR)
  • Agents: Recover from 400-shaped image rejections; unbound benchmark agent rounds (PR)

Changed

  • Polish desktop onboarding flow (PR)

Release · Compare with v0.5.8

v0.5.8 — 8 Aug 2026

Added

  • Unify add agent flows (PR)

Fixed

  • Agents: Budget summarizer reasoning separately so it cannot starve the handoff summary (PR)

Release · Compare with v0.5.7

v0.5.7 — 7 Aug 2026

Fixed

  • Externalize boot