1.0.0

We're excited to announce Char 1.0.0, our first stable release! This release consolidates all the improvements from our nightly builds into a polished, production-ready experience.

Platform Support

• macOS support for Apple Silicon (aarch64) and Intel (x86_64)
• Linux support with AppImage and .deb distributions
• Standardized artifact naming with architecture info

Speech-to-Text Providers

• Deepgram - Full support with API key validation and keyword handling
• Gladia - Complete support with code switching, partial transcripts, multi-channel audio, custom vocabulary, and speaker diarization
• OpenAI - Realtime and batch transcription
• AssemblyAI - Streaming and batch transcription
• Soniox - STT provider support
• Whisper Large V3 - Local STT option
• Language detection and multi-language support across providers

AI & LLM Support

• Google Generative AI provider
• OpenAI and Anthropic model providers
• Ollama support with CORS fix
• LLM configuration error rendering in editor

Audio & Recording

• Scrolling waveform visualization in the listen button
• Fixed recording issues with headphones (sample rate, distortion)
• VAD (Voice Activity Detection) improvements with continuous masking
• AGC (Automatic Gain Control) with VAD integration
• Dual-websocket mode for multichannel support with local STT
• 24k sample-rate on macOS to minimize resampling
• Linux audio support via PulseAudio with headphone detection

Search & Indexing

• Tantivy-based full-text search replacing Pagefind
• Language detection and language-aware tokenization
• Multi-collection indexing for scalable search
• Search results with highlighted matches

Folder Management

• Create, rename, delete, and move sessions between folders
• Reveal session in Finder
• Folder detection based on directory structure

Export

• PDF export with typst-based formatting
• JSON export with batch support
• VTT export with speaker information
• Transcript export improvements
• Tab-aware export menu (memo, enhanced, transcript)

Editor

• Tiptap document JSON validation
• List navigation and backspace behavior improvements
• Tab and shift-tab support for list indentation
• Prompt editor with readonly ranges support
• 20x faster tiptap JSON to markdown export with custom Rust implementation

Chat

• Dedicated chat editor with slash command support
• Chat trigger on hover near bottom
• Resizable chat window

Settings

• Unified settings.json configuration
• Prompt, shortcut, template, and extensions tabs
• Custom template support
• App settings organized into tabs

Window & UI

• Window size based on screen size
• Persistent window position and size across restarts
• macOS traffic light button positioning
• Native menu support
• Keyboard shortcuts for tab navigation
• Tab restore functionality
• Progressive blur effect at scroll ends
• Responsive search with manual expansion
• 20% rendering optimization for long transcripts
• Fancy NotFound and ErrorBoundary components

Onboarding

• Redesigned onboarding experience with background music
• Free trial support
• Auto model and provider selection for Pro trial
• Back navigation in permissions and configuration screens

Updates & Distribution

• OTA (Over-the-Air) updates with cache support
• Tray menu with update check, status dialogs, and settings
• Changelog tab shown automatically after updates
• CLI update command
• Homebrew distribution

Notifications

• macOS notification enhancements
• Notification collapse animation
• Auto-start trigger improvements

Plugins

• JS Plugin - JavaScript code evaluation via rquickjs
• Notify Plugin - Filesystem watching with debouncing
• Overlay Plugin - Floating controls with click-through behavior
• Hooks Plugin - Event handling with 5-second timeout for user scripts
• Listener2 Plugin - Batch and subtitle functionality
• Updater2 Plugin - Update check functionality
• Deeplink2 Plugin - Type-safe deep link handling
• Network Plugin - Network availability monitoring

Calendar

• Calendar picker UI with permission handling
• Contact view opens in new tab when clicking participant chip

CLI

• Experimental CLI support
• CLI installer in app menu
• --help and --version flags

Developer Experience

• Deno-powered extensions runtime with iframe-based isolation
• Separate devtool window
• E2E tests using Linux WebDriver
• PostHog analytics fixes
• Sentry monitoring integration

Other Improvements

• Prevent closing tab or quitting app during active listening
• Session failure error surfacing in listen button tooltip
• Disable listen button when offline with non-local model
• Title generation after meetings
• Inline codeblock wrapping
• Sound effects playback fixes
• Keyboard navigation improvements