🗂 Workspace & File Preview
The chat page gains a visual view of the workspace: documents, web pages, and images the Agent produces can be previewed in place. Both the Web console and the desktop client support it.- Workspace browsing: browse the files under the workspace directory from the panel, with search and download to local.
- File preview: HTML pages, documents, and images open directly in the side panel, and file paths in a reply are rendered as clickable cards.
- File references: drag a workspace file into the conversation, or use
@in the input box to reference files and directories and pull them into the context.
🔧 Core Tool Improvements
A systematic pass over file search, read, write, edit, and shell tools, strengthening the Agent’s file handling and coding abilities.- New file search tool:
search_filessearches the workspace by content or by file name, backed by ripgrep by default — markedly faster on large directories. Thanks @Maaayhan (#2982) - Line-numbered read output:
readoutput now always carries line numbers, making it easier to locate and cite specific lines. - More accurate edits:
editno longer rewrites the surrounding indentation on a fuzzy match, and no longer lands on the wrong occurrence when the text repeats; replace-all was added; a file modified outside the Agent is now flagged. - Write-time syntax checks:
write/editvalidate the format of structured files before writing, and parse source files to report syntax errors back to the Agent. - Background commands:
bashcan run a command in the background, for long-running work such as starting a service or following logs; the default timeout for foreground commands was raised. - Cancellation takes effect immediately: clicking stop or running
/cancelterminates the command that is currently running.
🧠 Context Management
- Context compaction: the new
/compactcommand summarizes and compacts the conversation context on demand, effectively cutting token usage. - Unified commands:
/clearnow uniformly clears the current session’s context, with/context clearkept as an alias. - Larger default window: the default context limit was raised, so long conversations start trimming later.
🖥 Desktop Client
- Native on Mac: fixed the macOS arm64 installer carrying an x64 backend, substantially speeding up the main process and the browser tool on Apple Silicon machines.
- Feishu channel added: fixed the Feishu channel missing from the client. The Feishu SDK is now a trimmed dependency (about 1 MB) downloaded on demand the first time the channel is enabled. Thanks @EvanProgramming (#2988)
- Update prompt: the update dialog for a given version only opens automatically once.
- Bundled search backend: the Windows client ships with ripgrep, so file search works out of the box.
✨ One-Click Prompt Optimization
The Web input box can now expand what you typed into a more complete and explicit instruction, and the optimization rules support custom templates. Thanks @sufan721 (#2989)🔒 Security Hardening
- MCP and file-write hardening: fixed an attack chain exploitable through prompt injection — malicious content could lead the Agent into rewriting the MCP config, and from there run arbitrary commands and steal keys. Thanks @Correctover (#2968)
- Credential file protection: fixed the
edittool bypassing credential protection to read and write~/.cow/.env.
🛠 Improvements & Fixes
- bash config honored: fixed
tools.bash.timeoutandtools.bash.safety_modeinconfig.jsonbeing ignored. Thanks @EvanProgramming (#2986) - Memory workspace path: fixed the workspace path being resolved incorrectly in the global memory config. Thanks @Maaayhan (#2992)
- Conversation history protection: fixed memory index self-repair that could clear conversation history along with it.
- Session deletion: fixed a reply still in flight writing a deleted session back into the list.
- Browser launch: fixed launching a duplicate instance when the browser was already running.
- Accurate tool results: fixed misleading failures from several tools — exit codes from
grep/findjudged wrong, browser scripts falsely reported as syntax errors, relative image paths failing to resolve — reducing pointless retries.
📦 How to Upgrade
- Source deployment: run
cow updatefor a one-click upgrade, or pull the latest code and restart. See the upgrade guide. - Desktop client: check for updates and update with one click inside the client, or get the latest version from the download page.