Changelog

[0.1.0] Ember — Initial Release

Watchfire orchestrates coding agent sessions (starting with Claude Code) based on project specs and tasks. Define what you want built, break it into tasks, and let agents work through them autonomously — with full visibility into what's happening.

Daemon (watchfired)

The always-on backend that manages everything:

• Agent orchestration — Spawns coding agents in sandboxed PTYs with terminal emulation, one task per project, multiple projects in parallel
• Git worktree isolation — Each task runs in its own worktree (watchfire/<task_number>), auto-merged back on completion with conflict detection
• macOS sandbox — Agents run inside sandbox-exec with restricted filesystem/network access
• File watching — Real-time detection of task completion and phase signals via fsnotify, with polling fallback for reliability
• Session logs — Every agent session recorded to ~/.watchfire/logs/ with YAML metadata
• System tray — Menu bar icon showing daemon status, active agents with colored project dots, and quick stop/quit actions
• Secrets folder — .watchfire/secrets/instructions.md for providing agents with external service credentials and setup instructions, injected into the system prompt
• Issue detection — Monitors agent output for auth errors (401, expired tokens) and rate limits (429), with real-time notifications to clients
• gRPC + gRPC-Web — Single port serves both native gRPC (CLI/TUI) and gRPC-Web (Electron GUI)
• Auto-discovery — Writes connection info to ~/.watchfire/daemon.yaml so clients find it automatically

CLI (watchfire)

Project-scoped command-line interface:

• watchfire init — Initialize a project (git setup, .watchfire/ structure, .gitignore, interactive config)
• watchfire task add|list|edit|delete|restore — Full task CRUD with soft delete/restore
• watchfire definition — Edit project definition in $EDITOR
• watchfire settings — Configure project settings interactively
• watchfire agent start [task|all] — Start agent in chat, single-task, or run-all-ready mode
• watchfire agent wildfire — Autonomous three-phase loop: execute ready tasks → refine drafts → generate new tasks → repeat
• watchfire agent generate definition|tasks — One-shot generation commands
• watchfire daemon start|status|stop — Daemon lifecycle management
• watchfire update — Self-update from GitHub Releases
• Terminal attach — Raw PTY streaming with resize handling and Ctrl+C forwarding
• Self-healing project index — Auto-registers projects, updates moved paths, reactivates archived projects

TUI (watchfire with no args)

Interactive split-view terminal interface:

• Split layout — Task list (left) + agent terminal (right) with draggable divider
• Left panel tabs — Tasks (grouped by status), Definition (read-only + $EDITOR), Settings (inline form)
• Right panel tabs — Chat (live agent terminal), Logs (session history viewer)
• Agent modes — Chat, task, start-all, and wildfire with phase display (Execute/Refine/Generate)
• Issue banners — Auth required and rate limit detection with recovery guidance
• Keyboard navigation — Vim-style (j/k), arrows, tab switching (1/2/3), panel focus (Tab)
• Mouse support — Click to focus/select, scroll, drag divider to resize
• Task management — Add, edit, status transitions (draft/ready/done), soft delete — all from the keyboard
• Auto-reconnect — Reconnects to daemon on disconnect with status indicator
• Help overlay — Ctrl+h for full keybinding reference

GUI (Electron)

Multi-project desktop application:

• Dashboard — Project cards with task counts, status dots, active task display
• Project view — Tasks, Definition, Secrets, Trash, Settings tabs with collapsible right panel (Chat, Branches, Logs)
• Add Project wizard — Three-step flow: project info → git config → definition
• Branch management — View, merge, delete, and bulk-manage worktree branches
• Agent terminal — Live streaming via gRPC-Web with input support
• Global settings — Defaults, appearance (system/light/dark theme), agent path config, update preferences
• Daemon lifecycle — Auto-restarts daemon if it dies, handles binary updates gracefully

Agent Modes

Mode	Description
Chat	Free-form conversation with the agent at project root
Task	Work on a specific task in an isolated worktree
Start All	Run all ready tasks in sequence, one at a time
Wildfire	Fully autonomous loop: execute → refine → generate → repeat until done
Generate Definition	One-shot: agent analyzes codebase and writes project definition
Generate Tasks	One-shot: agent reads definition and creates task files

Task Lifecycle

draft → ready → done (success ✓ or failure ✗)

• Tasks are YAML files in .watchfire/tasks/
• Agents detect completion by writing status: done to the task file
• Daemon auto-merges the worktree branch, cleans up, and chains to the next task
• Merge conflicts abort the chain to prevent cascading failures

Build & Distribution

• macOS DMG — Universal binary (arm64 + amd64) with GUI, CLI, and daemon bundled
• Code signing & notarization — Developer ID certificate with hardened runtime
• Homebrew — brew tap watchfire/tap && brew install watchfire
• Auto-update — GUI via electron-updater, CLI via watchfire update, daemon checks on startup
• CI/CD — GitHub Actions: lint, test, build matrix (arm64/amd64), sign, notarize, draft release