Release notes

Cortex Shelf

Get the latest — v0.3.7 10 releases and counting

September 2, 2026

Urgent fix for the call hang

If you installed 0.3.6, please update. On some calls the new microphone/camera indicator could hang the app and consume memory without stopping.
System camera events are now coalesced, listeners are only rebuilt when the device set actually changes, and a circuit breaker drops camera watching rather than fighting the system.
“Show microphone and camera on the island” (Settings → Privacy) now really stops the watchers, not just the pill — and ⌥⇧M keeps muting even with it off.
Switching microphones mid-session (connecting AirPods, say) is detected again.
Still 100% local: no account, no telemetry, no server.

September 1, 2026

The island shows when your microphone is open and names the app that's listening — Zoom, Meet, Chrome. No new permission: Cortex Shelf reads device state, never your audio.
⌥⇧M mutes and unmutes your microphone system-wide, without hunting for the meeting window. Hover the pill to mute in one click.
The camera icon opens the mirror, so you can see exactly what it's sending.
Event-driven throughout — nothing polls, and cold start is unchanged. Turn the indicator off in Settings → Privacy.
Still 100% local: no account, no telemetry, no server.

August 29, 2026

Annotate screenshots — arrow, box, highlight, blur and text right on the image, in the Screenshots section, then save or copy.
The island takes the music's color: the rim and the track bar pull the palette from the playing album art.
Quick capture shortcuts — ⌥⇧N turns your selection into a new note; ⌥⇧S sends it to the Shelf, no window needed.
Trust cycle — passphrase-encrypted backup & restore, a panic shortcut (⌥⇧Esc), and "erase everything on this Mac" in Settings → Privacy.
Still 100% local: no account, no telemetry, no server.

August 29, 2026

When your next event has a Zoom, Meet, Teams or Webex link, the collapsed pill shows a Join button — one tap opens the call. The Agenda column gets the same shortcut.
Settings polish: the toggle switches now all line up in the same column on the right.
Still 100% local: no account, no telemetry, no server.

August 29, 2026

The Notes window is now a two-column layout — note list on the left, editor on the right — cleaner and easier to navigate, in the Cortex family's look.
You can now give a note a title in its own field at the top of the editor.

August 29, 2026

Fix: on signed & notarized builds, the Calendar permission prompt in onboarding now appears as it should — adds the matching Hardened Runtime resource-access entitlement alongside the Info.plist usage key.

August 29, 2026

Fix: on macOS 14+, tapping Allow for Calendar during onboarding did nothing — the system prompt now appears as it should (EventKit full-access needs the newer Info.plist usage key).

August 28, 2026

Universal search across Clipboard, Notes, Shelf and Screenshots at once — including text inside images (OCR) — with per-result actions and full keyboard navigation.
A real AI assistant: multi-turn memory, a global ⌥⇧A shortcut that grabs the selection from any app, and stop/regenerate — every send still gated by the review sheet.
Focus that finishes: a Pomodoro with phased cycles, daily stats, an end-of-phase cue, and a "do not disturb" that quiets the island.
Supercharged clipboard: local transforms (JSON pretty, base64, slugify), named encrypted snippets, and a paste-in-sequence queue on ⌥⇧V.
Shelf and Notes grow up: named stacks with retention on the Shelf; markdown, checklists and [[…]] backlinks in Notes.
Automation: a cortexshelf:// URL scheme drives the app from Shortcuts, Spotlight and the command line.
Real English: the app now speaks Portuguese or English to match your Mac's language preference.
Still 100% local: no account, no telemetry, no server.

August 27, 2026

Encrypted clipboard at rest: your clips and images are sealed with AES-GCM, keyed in the Keychain — your most-copied secrets no longer sit in plaintext.
You approve every AI send: before any prompt leaves for your local CLI, a review sheet shows the exact text with sensitive spans (emails, API keys, JWTs, secrets) auto-masked, and an encrypted egress ledger records what left.
Trust Center onboarding that names and justifies each permission before asking — nothing fires implicitly anymore.
Ports → dev servers: the Ports section labels what's actually running (Vite, Next.js, Postgres, Redis…), opens web servers in your browser, and escalates from a graceful stop to a force-kill.
Redesigned Settings with a proper sidebar, a local crash reporter you can copy to support, an honest "music unavailable" state, accessibility (Reduce Motion, VoiceOver), and a lighter, faster launch.
Still 100% local: no account, no telemetry, no server.

August 27, 2026

A productivity layer that lives in the Mac notch — no Dock icon, no window, no login. Collapsed it's a static black layer indistinguishable from the notch itself; the interface only renders while you interact.
Ten sections one hover away: Shelf for parking files, a searchable smart Clipboard, quick Notes, Screenshots with on-device OCR, Music with now-playing controls, a Pomodoro Focus timer, today's Agenda, an open-ports killer, camera Mirror, and a universal Search.
Live notch states: now-playing, a focus countdown, a "next meeting in 12 min" glance, and quick toasts when you copy or drop a file.
Command-palette search — fuzzy, ranked, keyboard-first, opened from anywhere with ⌥Space.
Real locked notes: AES-GCM encryption with the key in your Keychain, unlocked by Touch ID — never plaintext on disk, never in search.
Local-first and private: zero network calls, zero telemetry. AI is optional and streams through your own claude or codex CLI.