v2.1.5

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🗂 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_files searches 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: read output now always carries line numbers, making it easier to locate and cite specific lines.
• More accurate edits: edit no 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 / edit validate the format of structured files before writing, and parse source files to report syntax errors back to the Agent.
• Background commands: bash can 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 /cancel terminates the command that is currently running.

Docs: File Search

🧠 Context Management

• Context compaction: the new /compact command summarizes and compacts the conversation context on demand, effectively cutting token usage.
• Unified commands: /clear now uniformly clears the current session's context, with /context clear kept as an alias.
• Larger default window: the default context limit was raised, so long conversations start trimming later.

Docs: Context Management

🖥 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.

Download: CowAgent Desktop

Docs: Desktop Client

✨ 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 edit tool bypassing credential protection to read and write ~/.cow/.env.

🛠 Improvements & Fixes

• bash config honored: fixed tools.bash.timeout and tools.bash.safety_mode in config.json being 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 / find judged wrong, browser scripts falsely reported as syntax errors, relative image paths failing to resolve — reducing pointless retries.

📦 How to Upgrade

• Source deployment: run cow update for 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.

Release date: 2026.07.28 | Full Changelog