Flow finds tools again

TL;DR: This hotfix gets Flow back on track by restoring tool discovery from the tool repository, while also tightening QuickHub behavior and improving a few user-facing touches around tool visibility and QuickHub reliability.

New Features & Enhancements

• Tool visibility: Added the Ask User tool under Alter.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Flow and tool discovery: Fixed Flow failing to find enabled tools.
• QuickHub actions: Fixed shortcut-triggered actions that require input failing to start correctly.
• Hub activation: Restored QuickHub activation after a regression in beta91.
• Hub palette: Fixed the prefix used to open the palette after deleting a context card.

Introducing Auto Attach

Alter now introduces Auto Attach, a powerful new feature that lets you instantly pull your active window, files, or folders into Alter with a simple double-tap of the command key. This opens the door for a brand new Alter experience, and we want your help shaping where it goes next. Let us know how we should push it to the next level.

New Features & Enhancements

• Auto Attach: Added double-tap shortcuts for instantly attaching QuickHub to the active app, with context such as selected files and folders.
• QuickHub attached mode: Added conversation switching from the close pill, automatic selected-file context when attaching QuickHub.
• Shortcut flexibility: Added double-tap Command, Option, and Shift shortcut options.
• Tools and skills: Added a click destination for skills, surfaced connected Applications from the Apps Gallery, and added an action option to disable the Task tool.
• Task and Flow permissions: Better propagation of workspace permissions to Task and Flow tools.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Auto Attach and QuickHub reliability: Fixed crashes when closing attached QuickHub, allowed closing the final remaining tab, handled Enter correctly from text input, opened context strip details reliably.
• Focus and shortcut handling: Prevented QuickHub from focusing the tools manager when opened, ignored command chords for double-command detection, and fixed fullscreen double-command attachment to the current app.
• Attachments and images: Fixed follow-up image attachments, rehomed provisional workspace attachments, removed intermediate image deduplication steps, and improved AppSense screenshot attachment.
• Skills and workspaces: Canonicalized provider tool names, used safer workspace mount aliases, fixed runtime skill permissions for ephemeral workspaces, and fixed path validation for directories in the Task tool.
• Scheduled runs and conversations: Waited for MCP tools in scheduled runs, linked workspace conversations for schedules, and released task conversations with their parent view model.
• Recording and provider stability: Improved recording and transcription failure reporting, and prevented malformed skill names from causing OpenRouter provider errors.
• Tool management: Linked active tools to the remote MCP view from “See all”.

Introducing Subagents

TL;DR: Alter now introduces Tasks, a dynamic subagent system designed to streamline complex, multi-step workflows beyond simple one-shot prompts. This beta also launches the OpenCollider framework to significantly enhance how you brainstorm and collaborate with AI, available on the marketplace.

New Features & Enhancements

• Tasks and subagents: Added the Task subagent tool.
• OpenCollider and marketplace: Added action publishing from the action editor and support for the new OpenCollider framework.
• Calendar context and transcripts: Added Calendar Event metadata to Transcript files, Calendar Event contexts, and calendar event details for transcript context.
• QuickHub and hub workflows: Added source-aware QuickHub activation, shortcut handling while typing, a delete conversation confirmation dialog, and reliable focus restoration after context removal.
• Workspace sharing and attachments: Added share-file workspace tooling, and allowed image workspace attachments automatically.
• Doctor: Added a Doctor diagnostics settings screen, better tool arguments error recovery.
• Active tools: Added an active-tools link to the app detail view.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Context handling: Prevented directory context explosion, preserved context-only user messages.
• Transcripts and meetings: Prevented duplicate speaker crashes, guarded generated transcript titles, refined meeting calendar matching, improved microphone startup error messages, and prevented meeting transcription cleanup hangs.
• Hub and QuickHub stability: Restored input focus after context removal and improved QuickHub activation with source-aware context.
• Tool argument decoding: Fixed tool argument parsing and bundled skill dependency resolution.
• Model display: Shortened lighter model names.
• Apple ASR: Improved Apple ASR error handling.

Speaker Suggestion

TL;DR: Alter now suggests likely speakers for meeting recordings using Apple Calendar attendees, making it easier to identify people in transcripts and search your history by speaker. This beta also introduces a more reliable history indexing system, smoother hub interactions, and a range of fixes across mail, notes, tools, and workspace attachments.

New Features & Enhancements

• Speaker suggestions: Improved speaker label editing and rename suggestions.
• History indexing: Rebuilt search indexing on a more reliable foundation.
• Hub & conversation UX: Added document “Open With” from conversations, replaced the hub’s modal action form with an inline form, and polished QuickHub with close-all support plus tab position indicators.
• App tool controls: Added a one-click way to disable all tools for a given app in the Apps Gallery, and disable tools by default for newly created custom actions.
• Flow: Added Flow discoverability hints.
• Ask User tool: Double click to select a reply and continue.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Mail & tools: Prevented duplicate hub send clicks, bounded unread mail fetching, enabled fetching email content by message ID, made AppleScript-based tools timeoutable, and made generated CSV files safer for Excel.
• Workspace attachments: Preserved OCR for workspace-backed images and improved how workspace image attachments resolve source paths.
• Validation & localization: Improved workspace tool parameter validation and corrected mistranslated UI terms.
• Infrastructure: Updated the MCP library to avoid systematic polling failures and suppressed default workspace instructions where they were noisy.

Back-to-Back Meetings

TL;DR: Alter now handles back-to-back meeting recordings more smoothly, while this beta also improves workspace permissions and shell execution, adds Path Finder and Services menu “Add to Alter” integrations, expands hub keyboard navigation, and polishes the Ask User flow with native question handling and UI fixes.

New Features & Enhancements

• Back-to-back meetings: Improved support for consecutive meeting recordings without awkward handoff between sessions.
• Path Finder & Services integration: Added Path Finder support, deduplicated “Add to Alter” pasteboard items, and added an “Add selected text to Alter” Services menu action.
• Hub & shortcuts: Better text editor height calculation, keyboard search handling, and conversation page scrolling shortcuts.
• Ask User UX: Redesigned the Ask User prompt with keyboard support, added an “Other” option, and now shows user questions natively in the hub.
• Workspace management: Added support for deleting workspace-local files.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Workspace permissions: Clearer empty-capabilities messaging, simpler permission prompts, support for macOS temporary paths, and more reliable persistence of temporary directory grants across a user turn.
• Workspace shell: Bash commands now run through the user’s shell, with support for fish and better heredoc preflight handling.
• Hub & QuickHub: Fixed conversation drop target detection, missing mode context in new chats, first-item switcher focus, model switcher stability, and removed the old spotlight layout.
• Shortcuts & settings: Unified shortcut settings, improved shortcut migration behavior, required exact cycle shortcut matches, and added a clickable Settings link for Quick Actions and shortcut configuration.
• Conversations & questions: Fixed transcript deletion crashes, empty assistant message chrome, retry prompt clearing, loading state between tool calls, and white text on selected Ask User options.
• UI polish: Fixed live resize state invalidation, microphone permission recovery, marketplace detail navigation loops, and the incorrect gear/tag icon in the hub tags popover.
• Workspace assets: Fixed image handling so images are sent to the LLM and copied into the workspace directory correctly.

Finder & Bloom Smart Attach

TL;DR: QuickHub treats Apple Finder (and Bloom) as a first-class workspace: dock the hub to a Finder or Bloom window and Alter automatically uses your current folder and files for context—summaries, organization, and natural-language file work without the copy-paste dance. This beta also brings customizable keyboard shortcuts, richer QuickHub tool/context previews, chat search with #, multiple API key endpoints, expanded locales (Italian, Portuguese, Japanese), and a long list of hub, workspace, and marketplace stability fixes.

New Features & Enhancements

• Finder & Bloom smart attach: Automatically attach the active Finder folder or Bloom panel to chat when using QuickHub—your file manager becomes part of the AI workspace
• Default workspace: default workspace provided for Ask Anything and Plan with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint skills enabled.
• QuickHub: Tools and context details previews.
• Hub & chat: Search your chat history with #; ⌘R retries the last message; usage view updates for add-on requests.
• Keyboard shortcuts: User-customizable shortcuts in Settings.
• API keys: Support for multiple custom endpoints.
• Mouse widget: New “add selection to Alter” item.
• *Actions: Handle failing action parsing (prompt to fix).
• Localization: Italian, Portuguese, and Japanese locales added.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Text Selection: Hardened text selection capture.
• QuickHub & Chats: Smoother conversation window dragging and “Return” key sends message more reliably.
• Dictation & audio: Local+ Parakeet model availability fix; improve microphone state UI.
• Windows & shell: Prevent stale hub reopen; don’t pop the hub open when closing Settings; Dock icon surfaces existing Alter windows instead of the Hub.
• Marketplace: Comments polish and less aggressive polling; install/tool-description link fixes.
• Actions: Preserve default action parameter values.

Hotfix Weekend

TL;DR: Several bug fixes around transcription and better support for exotic latin keyboard layouts. This beta fixes custom vocabulary loading issues that could block dictation, prevents stale transcription context, and smooths out a marketplace install issue.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Keyboard layout support: Added support for exotic Latin keyboard layouts.
• Transcription reliability: Fixed custom vocabulary loading issues that could block dictation and prevented stale audio transcription context from leaking into later transcription flows.
• Marketplace install flow: Fixed Try now failing to find the local action after importing from the marketplace.

Alter Action Marketplace

TL;DR: The Alter Action Marketplace is here. Discover great Actions, install them in a click, make them your own, and publish what you build. This beta also improves the install flow, reorganizes tool management, refines hub input behavior, and includes a round of stability fixes across microphone monitoring, diarization and settings.

New Features & Enhancements

• Alter Action Marketplace: Added the new marketplace to easily distribute and install Alter Actions, including the Skills, Tools and MCP servers they need to work.
• Tool management: Reorganized the tools manager sidebar to make installed tools and marketplace content easier to browse.
• Hub input UI: Merged the mode, action, and send controls into a more streamlined input button.
• Context improvements: Sped up active app context retrieval.
• Meeting prompts: Added a minimum meeting duration for mic monitor stop notifications.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Conversation recovery: Added a retry action for assistant errors in the conversation view.
• Microphone and diarization stability: Prevented stale meeting session control, reduced repeated auto-start prompts after canceling, improved camera attribution handling, and blocked concurrent diarization runs.
• App and settings behavior: Reopened settings correctly from the app menu, stopped polling when the application detail view disappears, kept automation permissions neutral on inconclusive checks, and fixed the tools window navigation sidebar.

MCP Authentication and QuickHub Stability

TL;DR: This beta is mostly a bug-fix release focused on MCP authentication, with a handful of QuickHub behavior fixes so attaching context, showing detached windows, and closing QuickHub feel more predictable.

New Features & Enhancements

• QuickHub behavior: Improved detached window anchoring when shown, made attaching context behave more predictably without closing the QuickHub window, and refined cmd+w, escape, and close-button behavior.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• MCP authentication: Fixed MCP servers authentification failures.

Stability and Computer-Use Polish

TL;DR: This beta fixes the broken Quick Actions shortcuts in both Hub and QuickHub, smooths out permission onboarding and overlays, and adds polished mouse feedback for computer use so every click, scroll, and context grab feels crisp, alive, and a little bit magical.

New Features & Enhancements

• Computer use: Added animated mouse feedback for get-context, scroll, and click actions.
• Permissions & onboarding: Improved permission prompting flow, upgraded permission overlays, and added localizations for the permission experience.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• QuickHub & shortcuts: Fixed shortcuts so they work in both Hub and QuickHub; improved focus behavior in the context strip to avoid stuck items; restored drag-by-title-bar behavior.
• Permissions: Fixed the Alter logo shown in permission flows and stopped incorrectly reporting hangs while checking AppleScript permissions.
• Onboarding & quitting: Stopped incorrectly reporting hangs when closing the onboarding window and quitting Alter.
• Conversation view: Serialized console bridge payloads more safely.
• Input & pasteboard: Fixed an NSPasteboard-related concurrency warning.
• Warnings & cleanup: Removed the deprecated menu highlight color warning for microphone UI, fixed the AttributedString warning related to LiveTranslationView, and removed an excess await warning.