0.5.0 Beta Release

Serene Pub 0.5.0-beta is a major public beta release that adds multi-user accounts and multiplayer, local embeddings & RAG, scene summarization and a brand-new narrative graph, in‑app KoboldCPP management, Android builds, and extensive UI and accessibility improvements. Back up your config before upgrading.

Highlights

• Multi-tenant accounts & multiplayer: run a shared instance and invite others into stories.
• Local embeddings & RAG: built-in embedding and ranked retrieval without third-party services.
• Narrative graphs & Scenes: automatic scene summarization and a new narrative graph to track relationships over time.
• KoboldCPP Manager: download, run, and manage KoboldCPP and models from inside the app.
• Android APK + desktop builds included; document view and accessibility improvements.

What’s new (user-facing)
Added

• KoboldCPP Manager — download and run KoboldCPP as a subprocess; manage models and load configurations in-app.
• Multi-tenant user accounts & multiplayer — run shared story instances and bring other users’ characters along.
• Summarization — summarize chat history into World, Character, and History entries for RAG context.
• Scenes — summarize spans of messages into scenes; completed “days” become history entries consumed by the context infill engine.
• Narrative graph — build and update a graph of character relationships from scenes over time.
• Local Embedding & RAG pipeline — run embeddings locally for a multi-step ranked retrieval pipeline.
• Document View & accessibility improvements — core loop features with ongoing accessibility work.
• Built-in documentation browser.
• Android APK — full app on mobile (Ollama Manager & KoboldCPP Manager remain desktop-only).
• Overhauled onboarding wizard.
• Improved character/persona import/export and lorebook export.
• Character galleries, pinned images beside chats, per-user background images, and color scheme customization.
• Character/persona browsing integration with charavault.net.

Changed / UX improvements

• Major onboarding and import/export rewrites for smoother workflows.
• UI polish across sidebars, galleries, and context templating tools.
• Packaging and download-size optimizations for desktop builds.

Known issues & caveats

• Narrator queries of side-character lore are functional but still being refined.
• Full-screen sidebar layouts can be expanded, but complete full-screen layout designs are not finalized.
• Android builds exclude user accounts and Ollama/KoboldCPP manager features — local model managers are desktop-only.

0.5.0 Release Candidate 4

• Hotfix: Logging in did nothing when accounts were enabled. Session cookies were marked HTTPS-only, so browsers discarded them over plain HTTP — which is how the desktop app runs by default. Cookies are now marked HTTPS-only only when the connection actually uses HTTPS.

0.5.0 Release Candidate 3

This will be the final release-candidate unless a major feature needs to be fixed and thoroughly tested. This is nearly identical to what will be released for 0.5.0-beta, save UI polishing, documentation and minor bug fixes.

RC3 broke release-candidate standards a bit because I realized I made a poor architectural choice for how graph node data was handled. Leveraging lorebook bindings for side-characters and personas with graphs built on top of that data suddenly made way too much sense in hind-sight.

• Optimized download sizes to varying degrees - Linux x64 download size reduced by 75%
• New: Upgraded lorebook bindings to support side characters, not just explicitly linked personas and characters.
• New: Character lore supports side characters from the lorebook bindings.
• Overhauled narrative graph building - relationships are extracted far more reliably now
• Exposed narrative graph prompt configuration controls
• Narrator can query and pull side character lore, though it's not very intelligent about it yet.
• Refactored: Scenes now reference present and mentioned characters explicitly by lorebook bindings instead of by name/string. This is semi-destructive for those upgrading from prior PR/RC builds, it may help to run re-process on your scenes.
• Refactored: Merged narrative graph nodes into lore-book bindings, also semi-destructive, you may want to rebuild your graphs after you're scenes are up-to-date
• Added aliases and summary fields to persona and characters. Character bindings linked to them will automatically update when edits are made.
• Sidebars can now be expanded full screen on desktop, how-ever full screen layouts do not yet exist for the sidebars
• Optimizations and fixes made to charavault browser
• Other audits and fixes
• Added a new Precise/Extraction immutable sampling config as a good baseline to set for summation and prompt building.
• Bumped the default sampling configs context limit

0.5.0 Release Candidate 2

• Fixes and improvements to the context infill engines
• Reworked post history instructions, exposed additional controls for Chat Character and Narrator prompt configs
• Reworked the context templating UI and updated the default template
• Sidebars can now be toggled to full screen (sidebar layout overhauling full screen not in scope for 0.5.0)
• KoboldCPP Manager subprocess no longer eagerly starts on launch
• Lots of test coverage added, now a requirement for all tests to pass when building Release Candidates and above

Likely to expect 1 more RC before official release, save bugfixes.

0.5.0 Release Candidate 1

At this time I'd appreciate any and everyone who can put their hands on this and test, provide feedback, just because the testing pool is so small at this time.

0.5.0 Release Candidate 1
This marks the point where feature additions, large changes are locked in. There will be minimal changes between now and the formal 0.5.0 release. I'm wavering between sticking with "Alpha" or moving on to call it a "Beta" software... either way 0.5.0 puts Serene Pub right on that cusp. In no way does that suggest SP is a nearly a feature complete project. But I've got a lot of faith in what it exists as today. There may be rough spots and bugs still existing though, this RC campaign is to iron those out.

To recap a "short" list of major new features since v0.4:

• KoboldCPP Manager, automatically download and run KoboldCPP as a subprocess, download models and load configurations on the fly
• Multi-tenant user accounts & multiplayer, turn your instance into a place to run stories with your friends and even bring their characters along
• Summarization, summarize chat history into World, Character and History entries
• Scenes, summarize a span of messages into scenes, when the "day" is complete, summarize them into history entries for the RAG Context Infill engine to feed the AI
• Narrative graph, scenes over time can be used to update and build a network of character relationships, who secretly holds a grudge against who, who's publicly announced a friendship?
• Embedding and RAG, install and run embedding directly within serene pub without 3rd party software and installs. A multi-step ranked retrieval of information most relevant to the latest messages in the conversation
• Document View & Accessibility. 0.4 had a terribly failed attempt at including accessibility. 0.5.0 features a document view with core loop features to hopefully allow virtually anyone who uses a computer with a disability to use Serene Pub, get setup, chat and even bring their friends along.
• Built in documentation browser
• Android APK, the full Serene Pub application on your phone, the only excluded features are Ollama Manager, KoboldCPP manager
• Overhauled onboarding wizard
• Overhauled chara card and lorebook import and exporting
• Character galleries, and pin images beside chats
• Global background images (per user)
• Color scheme customization
• Character/persona browsing, charavault.net integration
• And more that I'm forgetting.

0.5.0 Pre-Release Build 17

• Reworked logic for exporting characters and persona, can now export lorebooks. Lorebooks can include binded characters and personas
• More UI polishing
• The new context builder tool should be mostly functional
• Character/persona gallery moved to it's own tab in the sidebars. Can re-order images.
• Forgot to mention last night, character import library has been completely reworked. Charactervault.net has been added as a source. Go to character sidebar and click "Browse". New .env variable ENABLE_UNSAFE_CHARACTER_BROWSING=true bypasses Serene Pub's SFW filters when browsing character vault.

0.5.0 Pre-Release Build 16

v0.5.0-pr-16

additional character filtering

0.5.0 Pre-Release Build 15

v0.5.0-pr-15

Fixes

v0.5.0-pr-14

Fixes, WIP world narration chat prompt

v0.5.0-pr-13

Bump ver