What changed in Buzz

Buzz ships several releases a week. This guide is verified against Buzz v0.5.23; the newest release is v0.5.23 (5 Sep 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 v0.5.23, 2026-09-10.

Since this guide was verified

Nothing yet — the guide is verified against the newest release, v0.5.23.

Every release

v0.5.23 — 5 Sep 2026

A small release two days after v0.5.22, mostly fixes. What you will notice:

Invite your own agents from a forum. In a standalone forum, mentioning an agent you own that is not yet a member opens an explicit Invite / Cancel dialog; the post is sent only after the membership add is accepted and re-checked. No silent add-by-mention. Create a project channel and add members notes it under Stream or forum.
Mentions behave. Mention chips show the right identity icon again, survive copy and paste, and a mention of one of two same-named agents binds to the exact one you picked. Mentions of agents that run elsewhere are authorised at the moment of sending, not from a cached picker.
Quieter sidebar. Unread indicators were simplified to emphasise priority activity; runs of "X joined" messages collapse into one line.
Pi agents get the full briefing. The Pi harness preset now receives the same Buzz orientation and skills in its prompt as the built-in agent. The prompt section that carries an agent's persona is now labelled agent-instructions.
Video playback speed is remembered; the Windows build packages its assets correctly again.

Under the hood: relay events reaching an agent are verified before they are routed into its prompt; a busy owner can no longer starve the same agent's sessions in other channels; and a first, generic information-flow control library landed together with a design draft — a broker that would stop an agent from repeating what it read in a private channel into a wider one. Design and plumbing, not a feature; Where Buzz is heading reads it as direction.

Guide impact: applied 2026-09-10 together with the v0.5.22 pass below. Approval gates (WF-08), scheduled workflows, !cancel, guest access, workspace export and key rotation re-verified in source at v0.5.23: none moved. The whole guide is now verified against v0.5.23.

All changes in this release

Added

Agents: Update base prompt; add buzz context and skills to Pi agents (PR)
Invite owned agents from standalone forums (PR)
Preserve mentions across copy and paste (PR)

Fixed

Keep packaged frontendDist relative so Windows embeds assets (PR)
Simplify unread indicators and emphasize priority activity (PR)
Restore mention chip identity icons (PR)
Authorize remote mentions at publication (PR)
Agents: Rename system tag to agent-instructions (PR)
Bind duplicate mention selections to exact recipients (PR)

Changed

Persist video playback speed preference (PR)
Collapse contiguous join messages (PR)

Release · Compare with v0.5.22

v0.5.22 — 4 Sep 2026

A large release (v0.5.21 was folded into it). What you will notice:

Voice notes. Record and send a voice note from the composer on desktop and on the phone. Share and discuss media says what to check before you press record.
Share a whole team. A lead agent with its members can now be published to the community catalog and adopted by a colleague, the same way single agents could. Agents also carry a public description in the catalog. Set up a lead agent covers what sharing exposes.
Agents say what they are. The agent's prompt now spells out its session model: one working context per channel, shared core memory across channels, no shared reasoning. Settings → Experimental features has a default-off switch for one session per thread. Agent memory describes both, and Why does my agent not know what it did in another channel? is the short version.
Addressed agents stay addressed in threads only. The v0.5.19 behaviour of keeping an agent addressed now applies inside a thread; a top-level channel message notifies only the agents you explicitly mention in it. Delegate work to agents was corrected.
Who is available, and who runs where. The availability dot now follows relay presence, not whether a process is running, and a small cloud glyph marks agents that are not managed on this device. Where agents run.
Agents look different. Agent avatars are now squircles; status and huddle indicators sit beside names.
Quick reactions are back on hover, reversing the v0.5.19 change noted below.
New harness preset: Pi. Databricks Unity Catalog models are discovered automatically, under readable names.
Phone: push notifications (first version, through a separate gateway Block runs) and voice notes. The mobile app moved to v0.16 release candidates.
For operators: relay administration now has Operator and Moderator roles, authenticated by key; the federated-identity extension (NIP-FI) is implemented relay-side and configured by the operator — nothing changes in the app yet; owner-to-agent authorisation now expires on its stated time bounds; and the relay reports readiness and database-pressure metrics.

Also in the release notes: a "Bestie" feature. It belongs to Block's internal build and is not in the open-source app — every Bestie component in the public source renders nothing.

Guide impact: applied 2026-09-10 across the pages linked above, plus Agent ownership and the trust chain, Keys replace accounts, The moderation and governance model, Running your own relay, Model vs. harness, Agents as colleagues, Pair the mobile app, and a refreshed maturity map. Approval gates (WF-08) were re-verified unchanged.

All changes in this release

Added

CLI: Add buzz gifs command group and NIP-30 emoji tags on messages (PR)
Add persistent Bestie experience (PR)
Agents: Harness-agnostic effort write path and spawn bridge (PR)
Add databricks fable 5.1 model capabilities (PR)
Add Pi agent preset (PR)
Agents: Add DatabricksAuthCoordinator single-flight OAuth (PR)
Add production NIP-FI federated assertion runtime (PR)
Add voice notes to desktop messages (PR)
Add thread-scoped ACP session experiment (PR)
Add isolated named demo builds (PR)
Add public descriptions to agent personas (PR)
Add protected-build Bestie experiment (PR)
Render agent avatars as squircles (PR)
Use segmented controls for channel creation (PR)
Agents: Surface stop reason and silent-turn WARN in telemetry (PR)
Add team sharing to community catalog (PR)
Implement 30178 team catalog backend (PR)
Humanize Databricks UC model families (PR)
Agents: Discover Databricks Unity Catalog models (PR)
Prioritize unread DMs in overflow navigation (PR)
Projects: Add agent and CLI project-home support (PR)
Restore message quick reactions (PR)
Hyperlink selected composer text on link paste (PR)

Improved

Publish mention sends before waking agents (PR)
Restore project context during startup (PR)

Fixed

Wrap message tables within the available pane (PR)
Unify owned-agent cloud provenance markers (PR)
Derive agent availability from relay presence (PR)
Preserve spacing after multi-word mentions (PR)
Harden profile batch and thread-reply fetches against relay slowness (PR)
Composer: Align wrapped inline chip fragments (PR)
Keep explicit agent profiles bound to their exact key (PR)
Discover authenticated owned relay agents (PR)
Retain automatic mentions only in threads (PR)
Preserve keyring identity during recovery (PR)
Extend shell timeout cap to 20 minutes and align outer budgets (PR)
Scope composer autocomplete to focus (PR)
Humanize databricks goose model names (PR)
Back split thread headers (PR)
Relay: Reject a frame on its own acknowledgement channel (PR)
Surface channel history load failures (PR)
Composer: Polish automatic mentions (PR)
Resolve bundled sidecar on cheap path and bound login-shell spawns (PR)
Complete project empty and context states (PR)
Resolve exact typed mentions on space (PR)
Lift right auxiliary pane above shared header backdrop (PR)
Projects: Allow owners to delete agent projects (PR)
Resurface hidden DMs from live activity (PR)
Keep the draft space when typing right after a mention pick (PR)
Keep project sheets independent from threads (PR)
Accent-colored mention badges that count thread mentions (PR)
Show edited head content in thread panel (PR)
Increase surface contrast (PR)
CLI: Preserve signatures in event reads (PR)
Stop pulsing addressed agents on send (PR)
Prioritize sidebar channel status (PR)

Changed

Show status and huddle indicators beside names (PR)
Hide download action on voice notes (PR)
Enforce NIP-OA authorization time bounds (PR)
Preserve channel description paragraph breaks (PR)
Fade expanded video controls on hover (PR)
Define the agent-to-broker action contract (PR)
Apply access policy when reusing channel agents (PR)
Use paired tags for standing & per-turn context (PR)

Release · Compare with v0.5.20

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 was removed in this release — and restored in v0.5.22, so on a current build the quick reactions are back.
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