What's New

A summary of notable changes across the herdctl packages. For the full technical details of every release, see the CHANGELOG.md in each package directory.

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Agent Distribution System

February 24, 2026 · @herdctl/core@5.6.0 · herdctl@1.4.0

Agents can now be installed, managed, and shared like packages. Use herdctl agent add <source> to install agents from GitHub repositories or local paths, with automatic validation, environment variable scanning, and fleet configuration updates. The new herdctl agent command group includes list (view all installed and manual agents with tree view support for sub-fleets), info (detailed agent metadata), and remove (clean agent removal). The herdctl init command has been split into herdctl init fleet (create fleet template) and herdctl init agent (interactive agent wizard) for clearer workflow separation. Agent repositories use a herdctl.json metadata file to declare author, description, version, and required environment variables.

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Web Chat Info Sidebar with Session Actions

February 23, 2026 · @herdctl/web@0.8.0

The web chat interface now includes a toggleable info sidebar showing real-time session statistics and actions. View context window usage (input + cache tokens) with a progress bar indicating approximate fill percentage, see API call counts, and access session metadata including message count, model, working directory, and creation date. A “Continue in Claude Code” button generates the resume command for picking up conversations in your terminal (disabled for Docker agents). The sidebar persists your open/closed preference and automatically hides on smaller screens. Fleet startup is now more resilient: chat platforms (Web, Slack, Discord) initialize in parallel so a slow connection on one platform won’t block others from starting.

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Tabbed Sidebar with Spotlight Search

February 22, 2026 · @herdctl/web@0.7.0 · herdctl@1.3.9

The web dashboard sidebar has been redesigned with two tabs: Fleet for browsing your agent hierarchy, and Chats for viewing recent conversations across all agents. The Fleet tab now includes search filtering and collapsible agent rows. The Chats tab shows recent conversations with search, inline rename/delete actions, and current-chat highlighting. Press Cmd+K (or Ctrl+K) to open a Spotlight-style quick picker for instant new chat creation. Agent detail pages now include a Chats tab showing all conversations for that specific agent. Recent session state syncs in real-time across all views when you create, rename, or delete chats.

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Architecture Documentation Consolidation

February 22, 2026

The herdctl documentation site now features a comprehensive Architecture section with 14 authoritative pages consolidating 65+ scattered PRDs, specs, implementation plans, and handoff documents. Each page (Overview, Configuration, State Management, Runner, Scheduler, Job System, Chat Infrastructure, Discord, Slack, Web Dashboard, CLI, Docker Runtime, Work Sources, HTTP API) is written as factual present-tense documentation verified against source code. The old 5-page Internals section has been replaced with redirects to the new architecture pages. All diagrams have been migrated from Mermaid to D2 for professional-quality rendering with consistent brand colors.

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Chat Session Management Improvements

February 22, 2026 · @herdctl/web@0.6.0 · @herdctl/core@5.5.0 · herdctl@1.3.8

The web dashboard now includes comprehensive chat session management features. Delete chat sessions directly from the sidebar by hovering over a chat to reveal trash and pencil icons. Deleted sessions are removed immediately with a confirmation step. Additionally, you can now configure how agent messages are displayed: choose between “separate” mode (each assistant turn as its own bubble) or “grouped” mode (consecutive turns merged into one). The preference is saved in your browser and can be toggled via a new chat settings control. Also includes a critical fix for session cross-contamination when SDK session mappings were missing, ensuring each web chat always starts with the correct conversation context.

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Inline Chat Session Renaming and Dashboard Improvements

February 21, 2026 · @herdctl/web@0.5.0 · @herdctl/core@5.4.3 · herdctl@1.3.7

Chat sessions in the web dashboard sidebar can now be renamed inline. Click the pencil icon (visible on hover) to edit the session name, press Enter to save or Escape to cancel. Custom names take precedence over auto-generated previews. This release also fixes agent link navigation issues (jobs now store qualified names like herdctl.engineer for correct routing) and renames the schedule expression field to the more intuitive cron field (the old name still works for backward compatibility). Misconfigured schedules now log warnings only once instead of spamming every scheduler tick. The dashboard’s “Recent Jobs” section no longer appears empty when no jobs have run in the last 24 hours.

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Shell Escaping Fix for Docker CLI Runtime

February 21, 2026 · @herdctl/core@5.5.0

Fixed a critical bug where special characters in prompts ($ and backticks) were being interpreted by the shell instead of passed literally to agents running in Docker CLI mode. Previously, prompts containing dollar signs (e.g., “Analyze $1234 in sales data”) would have $1 consumed by shell variable expansion, silently corrupting the agent’s input. All prompts are now properly escaped before being passed to Docker containers.

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Pre-commit Hooks and iOS Safari Fix

February 21, 2026 · @herdctl/web@0.4.0

Added pre-commit hooks to enforce code quality checks before commits. Fixed an iOS Safari issue where focusing on the chat input field would trigger aggressive auto-zoom, making the interface difficult to use on mobile devices. The input field now uses a 16px font size to prevent Safari’s zoom behavior.

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Software Engineer Agent and Documentation Diagrams

February 20, 2026 · @herdctl/core@5.4.0

Introduced a new built-in software engineer agent with persistent conversation state for multi-turn development workflows. The agent maintains context across sessions, making it ideal for iterative code reviews, debugging, and implementation tasks. Additionally, the documentation site now includes comprehensive Mermaid diagrams across multiple pages, visualizing architecture, data flows, and system interactions.

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Code Quality Tooling

February 19, 2026 · @herdctl/core@5.4.1 · herdctl@1.3.4

Added Biome for linting and formatting across all packages, replacing the previous linting setup. The new tooling provides faster, more consistent code formatting and better integration with modern development workflows. Also removed dead code identified by a knip audit, reducing bundle size and maintenance surface area.

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Tool Call Visibility for Slack and Web

February 19, 2026 · @herdctl/slack@1.2.0 · @herdctl/web@0.2.0 · @herdctl/chat@0.3.0 · @herdctl/core@5.3.0

Slack and Web chat integrations now display tool calls and results, matching Discord’s existing functionality. When agents use tools like Bash, Read, Write, or Grep during conversations, the results appear as formatted messages (Slack) or collapsible UI components (Web) showing the tool name, input summary, execution duration, and output preview. Shared tool parsing utilities (extractToolUseBlocks, extractToolResults, getToolInputSummary, TOOL_EMOJIS) are now in @herdctl/chat for reuse across all platforms. Slack adds a configurable output block (matching Discord) with tool_results, tool_result_max_length, system_status, and errors settings.

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Web Dashboard

February 18, 2026 · herdctl@1.2.0 · @herdctl/web@0.1.0 · @herdctl/core@5.2.0

A brand-new web dashboard for monitoring and interacting with your fleet in the browser. Start it with herdctl start --web (optionally --web-port <port>) and get real-time fleet status via WebSocket, live agent output streaming, interactive chat with any agent, schedule management with trigger/enable/disable controls, and job management including cancel and fork. Supports dark, light, and system themes.

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Shared Chat Infrastructure (@herdctl/chat)

February 17, 2026 · @herdctl/chat@0.2.0 · @herdctl/core@5.0.0 · @herdctl/discord@1.0.0 · @herdctl/slack@1.0.0

Introduced the new @herdctl/chat package, extracting shared session management, streaming response handling, message splitting, DM filtering, and error handling out of core and into a dedicated library. Discord and Slack managers now live in their respective platform packages (@herdctl/discord and @herdctl/slack) instead of in @herdctl/core, and FleetManager dynamically imports platform packages at runtime. This is a breaking change for anyone importing DiscordManager or SlackManager from @herdctl/core directly.

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Slack DM Support

February 18, 2026 · @herdctl/slack@1.1.0 · @herdctl/core@5.1.0

Slack bots can now respond to direct messages, not just channel mentions. DM support uses the same enabled/allowlist/blocklist configuration model as Discord, giving you fine-grained control over which users can DM your agents.

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Slack Integration

February 17, 2026 · @herdctl/slack@0.2.0 · @herdctl/core@4.1.0

Connect your agents to Slack channels. Users can @mention the bot to start conversations, with replies continuing in-thread. Built on Bolt with Socket Mode, Slack agents support per-agent connector architecture, file uploads via an injected herdctl_send_file MCP tool, markdown-to-mrkdwn conversion, and channel-to-agent routing. Includes a full examples/slack-chat-bot/ to get started quickly.

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Verbose Logging and Colorized Output

February 17, 2026 · herdctl@1.1.0 · @herdctl/core@4.1.1

Added a --verbose / -v flag to herdctl start and the HERDCTL_LOG_LEVEL environment variable (debug / info / warn / error). Log output in the terminal is now colorized to match the style of herdctl logs, and internal debug messages are hidden by default, significantly reducing noise during normal operation.

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Discord Tool Result Embeds

February 16, 2026 · @herdctl/discord@0.2.0 · @herdctl/core@4.0.0

When an agent uses tools like Bash, Read, or Write during a Discord conversation, the results now appear as rich embeds with the tool name, input summary, duration, and truncated output. System status messages and errors are also surfaced. All embed types are individually configurable via the new output block in your agent’s Discord chat config.

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Cron Schedule Fix

February 11, 2026 · @herdctl/core@3.0.2

Fixed a bug where cron schedules would fire once and then never again. The scheduler was incorrectly skipping to the next future occurrence when the scheduled time arrived. Cron and interval schedules now trigger reliably on every configured occurrence.

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Security Audit Agent

February 6—9, 2026 · @herdctl/core@3.0.1

Added path traversal protection to prevent agent names like ../../../etc/passwd from escaping the intended state directories. Agent names are now validated against a strict pattern at both the config schema level and file path construction level. Also added a built-in security audit agent with sub-agent orchestration for automated daily fleet security reviews.

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Flattened Permissions Config

February 4, 2026 · herdctl@1.0.0 · @herdctl/core@3.0.0

Breaking change. The nested permissions object in agent and fleet YAML has been replaced with flat, SDK-compatible fields: permission_mode, allowed_tools, and denied_tools at the top level. Bash allow/deny commands now use Bash(cmd *) patterns in allowed_tools / denied_tools instead of the old permissions.bash.allowed_commands syntax. This gives you a 1:1 mapping to Claude Agents SDK options with no hidden transformation.

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Docker Container Runtime

February 3, 2026 · @herdctl/core@2.0.0

Agents can now run inside Docker containers for full isolation, consistent environments, and resource control. Configure docker.enabled: true in your agent or fleet YAML to use it. Supports the anthropics/claude-code image, ephemeral containers, CPU/memory limits, volume mounts, environment variable injection, automatic git auth when GITHUB_TOKEN is provided, and both SDK and CLI runtimes. A tiered security model restricts dangerous options (like network, volumes, and host_config) to fleet-level config only, preventing agents from granting themselves elevated privileges.

Also introduced runtime selection between SDK and CLI: set runtime: cli to use claude -p invocation and preserve your Claude Max subscription tokens, or keep the default runtime: sdk for the Claude Agent SDK path.

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Docker Session Persistence Fix

February 3, 2026 · @herdctl/core@2.0.1

Fixed Docker-based session resumption, which was watching the wrong file path (~/.claude/... instead of .herdctl/docker-sessions/), causing conversation continuity to break in containerized agents. Also improved Discord notification formatting by moving agent output to the embed description field (4096 character limit) instead of a field value (1024 character limit).

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Init Template Fixes

January 30, 2026 · herdctl@0.4.3

Fixed herdctl init templates that were generating invalid YAML (workspace.path instead of workspace: path) and including a hardcoded default model. Templates now produce correct config and let the SDK choose its own default model.

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System Prompt Fix

January 27, 2026 · herdctl@0.4.2 · @herdctl/core@1.3.1

Fixed custom system prompts being silently ignored. The SDK expects a plain string for custom prompts, but herdctl was passing { type: 'custom', content: '...' }. System prompts defined in your agent YAML now work correctly.

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LLM-Friendly Documentation

January 27, 2026 · herdctl@0.4.2 · @herdctl/core@1.3.1

Added an llms.txt and llms-full.txt endpoint to herdctl.dev, plus a self-maintaining example that uses herdctl agents to keep their own documentation up to date.

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.env File Support

January 27, 2026 · @herdctl/core@1.3.0

The config loader now automatically loads a .env file from the same directory as your herdctl.yaml. System environment variables take precedence over .env values. You can also pass a custom path via the envFile option in loadConfig(). This makes it much easier to manage secrets like DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN without exporting shell variables.

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Per-Agent Config Overrides

January 27, 2026 · @herdctl/core@1.3.0

When referencing an agent in your fleet config, you can now add an overrides block to customize schedules, hooks, permissions, or any other field for that specific fleet. Overrides are deep-merged after fleet defaults, so you only specify what you want to change.

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Sessions Command

January 27, 2026 · herdctl@0.4.0 · @herdctl/core@1.2.0

New herdctl sessions command to discover and resume Claude Code sessions. When agents run with session persistence, herdctl tracks session IDs so you can list them, filter by agent, and resume any session with herdctl sessions resume <id>. Supports partial ID matching, agent name lookup, JSON output, and verbose mode.

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Project-Embedded Agents and Discord Streaming

January 27, 2026 · @herdctl/core@1.1.0

Agents that point at existing Claude Code projects (via the workspace field) now correctly inherit the project’s CLAUDE.md, skills, commands, and other configuration. A new setting_sources option lets you control this explicitly. Discord messages are now streamed incrementally at natural paragraph breaks instead of batched at the end, providing a much more responsive chat experience.

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Discord Conversation Continuity

January 27, 2026 · @herdctl/core@1.0.0 · @herdctl/discord@0.1.0

Discord conversations now persist across messages using Claude Agent SDK session resumption. When you chat with an agent in a Discord channel or DM, subsequent messages carry the same session ID so Claude remembers the full conversation context. Session IDs from failed jobs are not stored, preventing invalid session accumulation.

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Discord Chat Integration

January 27, 2026 · herdctl@0.3.0 · @herdctl/core@0.3.0 · @herdctl/discord@0.0.4

Initial Discord bot integration. Connect agents to Discord channels where users can @mention the bot to trigger conversations. Responses are streamed back to the channel with automatic message splitting at Discord’s 2000-character limit. The @herdctl/discord package is bundled with the CLI, so npx herdctl start includes Discord support out of the box.

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Lifecycle Hooks

January 26, 2026 · @herdctl/core@0.2.0

Added a hook system for agent job lifecycle events. Define after_run hooks in your agent YAML to send Discord notifications, run cleanup scripts, or trigger follow-up actions whenever an agent job completes or fails.

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Schema Validation

January 26, 2026 · @herdctl/core@0.1.0

Agent and fleet configs now go through strict Zod-based schema validation. Unknown or misplaced fields produce clear error messages instead of being silently ignored. Also fixed the herdctl trigger command to actually execute jobs instead of just creating metadata files.

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Initial Release

January 26, 2026 · herdctl@0.0.2 · @herdctl/core@0.0.2 · @herdctl/discord@0.0.2

First public release of herdctl with core fleet management, agent configuration, scheduled jobs, the trigger command, and the @herdctl/discord package.