Changelog.

Reminders

New with Pro and during the trial: reminders on your cards. Click a card's clock, or right-click it and choose Remind me, then pick a time such as In 1 hour, or At a time… for any day up to six days ahead.

When the time comes, the card moves to “Needs you” without interrupting the agent. If your Mac was asleep or Cowork Island was closed, the reminder rings as soon as it is running again.

To clear a reminder, choose Remove reminder in the clock's menu, which works on every plan.

A card with a reminder is protected from automatic archiving and cleanup, and it keeps its reminder when Cowork Island restarts.

In Settings > Notifications, Follow-up Reminder is now called Second notice. It works as before.

Just done

Sessions you mark done, or that close and leave a Done card, now gather for five minutes in a Just done block under “Needs you”. Click a row's ✕ to send it back to its group sooner.

When you mark a card done, or its session closes cleanly, while the panel is open, the card glows green for about two seconds.

The Done button is now a ring with a faint tick, so you can see what it does. When you click it, the tick draws itself in green.

Shortcuts and Spotlight

Cowork Island now works with Apple's Shortcuts app and, on macOS 26 or later, with Spotlight: the free Count Agents action tells you how many agents need you. Type Agents That Need Me in Spotlight to see the answer.

With Pro or during the trial, more actions can list your sessions and take you to one, or to the next one that needs you.

Session names and project folder names are shared with these actions only if you turn on Share session names and folders with the Shortcuts app in Settings > General > Privacy.

Panel and cards

New: the ⓘ button in the panel's top bar opens Tips, which explains the tabs, the cards and their buttons. Most hover pop-ups are gone, so pointing at buttons no longer covers the panel.

A question card's button now says where it takes you, such as Open in terminal or Open in Claude; on Free it opens the Pro window.

If a question or a reminder arrives while your list is open, the card moves to “Needs you” and everything you had open stays open.

Cards in “Needs you” now have the same buttons as your other cards, so you can mark one as priority, open its folder or, with Pro or during the trial, set a reminder right there.

Usage meters

With Pro or during the trial, click a usage meter to see its details: what is left and when it resets.

On every plan, usage meters now also refresh signed-in accounts you aren't using, at most every 15 minutes, while the panel or Settings > Usage is open (a Codex account needs Codex on in Settings > Agents). Turn off Refresh accounts you're not using in Settings > Usage to stop it; folders that switch off non-essential traffic are never asked.

With Pro or during the trial, a Claude account that is no longer signed in on this Mac says Not signed in on this Mac, and the account names Cowork Island has learned now survive a restart.

A Claude account that is no longer signed in on this Mac leaves the meters 7 days after its last reading, and with Pro or during the trial you can remove it sooner with its ✕ in the list the gauge button opens.

When you use up a limit, its meter now says limit reached instead of looking partly left.

Codex plans with only a weekly limit now say No 5-hour limit, and plan badges no longer show internal codes. Claude readings are also less likely to get stuck on old figures or show a misleading age.

Agents

Cowork Island now picks up sessions from additional .claude profiles in your home folder, such as ~/.claude2.

Codex runs that scripts start are now hidden like Claude Code's unless they need you; turn on Show automated runs to see them all.

When Pi or Oh My Pi asks before running a risky command, you can now answer in its own terminal or on the island, whichever you reach first. Restart Pi or Oh My Pi after updating to get this.

Gemini CLI cards now leave Working as soon as Gemini replies. If Cowork Island quits or crashes while Gemini CLI or Google Antigravity waits on the island for your approval, the request is now refused.

When Cowork Island can only guess that an agent has finished, its creature no longer sparkles and the Session complete sound doesn't play.

With Pro or during the trial, clicking a Codex task from the ChatGPT app now takes you to the app, opening the task when it can, instead of Terminal. A card from before the update does this once its task is active again.

With Pro or during the trial, clicking a Codex chat that runs through Codex's shared background service now finds its herdr terminal pane more reliably, and tells you where to look when it can't.

Pro and purchases

Paste a discount code into the Pro window's key box and press Activate, and Cowork Island now offers to open the checkout with the code applied.

If you don't own Pro yet, the Pro window is redesigned around the ten Pro mascots, with six lines on what Pro adds and your trial status.

The Pro window no longer shows crossed-out prices, and it tells you which currency you will be charged in when it differs from your Mac's region.

Buy Pro or a mascot pack from inside Cowork Island and come back within 24 hours of opening the checkout: the purchase turns on by itself, with no key to copy. If it can't, paste the license key shown after you pay.

The Mascot Shop is redesigned around the mascots: the pack you choose stands large at the top, and one button buys it.

When your Pro purchase turns on by itself, or with a key pasted into the Pro window, the window celebrates with a tick, fireworks and the ten mascots hopping, then says You're Pro. A mascot pack that turns on by itself while the Mascot Shop is open makes its mascots hop too.

Privacy

With Share usage statistics on, reports now also say whether a session has appeared on the island since 2.1 and how many times you have opened the Pro window, up to 100, never what's in your sessions. If you are updating, these wait until you close the 2.1 What's new window, and turning the switch off in Settings > General > Privacy deletes them from your Mac.

The License Agreement in Settings > License is updated for 2.1, including buying from inside Cowork Island, the usage meters and the new statistics.

Export diagnostics… in Settings > About now hides your home folder path in two places it missed before.

Fixes

Quitting an app, restarting herdr or closing several sessions at once no longer fills the list with Done cards.

When macOS asks to let Cowork Island use the local network, the request now says why: to reach the Remote Macs you add over SSH.

New look

The row of filter chips under the panel's top bar is now a row of tabs: All, Working, Pending, Done and Priority. By default, a click on a tab shows only its sessions, and ⌘-click adds a tab to the view or takes it out, so you can see Working and Priority together. Every tab except All shows how many sessions it holds. The panel keeps your tabs when it closes and when Cowork Island restarts. Sessions that need you stay in the “Needs you” area above the list, whichever tabs you pick. Before, a click on a chip hid or showed that kind of session.

Focus now works through the tabs. The Focus switch is still in the panel's top bar, on the right, now marked with a crosshair symbol instead of the word Focus; point at it to see what it does. Turning it on selects the Working and Priority tabs (Working alone if you hid Priority), which shows what Focus showed by default, and turning it off brings back the tabs you had before you turned it on. The switch also turns on when you pick just those two tabs with ⌘-click, and turning it off then goes back to All. Focus's section in Settings is gone. If Focus was on when you update, the panel opens on the tabs your Focus showed.

Backlog is now part of Pending, which holds every session where the agent stopped and the task isn't done, however long ago that was. The card's clock still shows how long it has waited. The card menu no longer has Move to Pending and Move to Backlog, and Move Pending sessions to Backlog after is gone from Settings.

You can hide the Pending, Done and Priority tabs in Settings > Cards > Visible Tabs. All and Working always show. To make the tabs work like the old chips, turn on Click combines tabs in Settings > Advanced > Panel & Cards: a click then adds or removes a tab, and ⌘-click shows only that tab.

Each state has its own colour, on its tab, on the card's state word and on its marks: Working is green, Pending rose, Done blue and Priority purple. Before, Done was mint. The square next to a folder group's name also uses new colours that are easier to tell apart, so a group's colour may change once.

Cards now keep their archive, priority and pin buttons in view. A button that isn't set is a quiet grey that gets brighter under the pointer, and a set pin or priority mark looks as it did. A card showing “Needs you” has its ✕ in that place instead, shown while the pointer is on the card. Before, the archive button, an unset pin and an unmarked priority button appeared only while the pointer was on the card.

The buttons that answer questions and permission requests now read Deny, Allow once, Always, Dismiss, Back, Confirm and Submit instead of capitals, and the tabs and the state word on each card, such as Working, are written the same way. In English, buttons and menu items that capitalised every word now capitalise only the first, so Rename Session… reads Rename session….

With Pro or during the trial, and Show usage meters on, the top-left corner of the open panel shows a button with a gauge symbol and, on the same line, two small bars for your main account: 5h for the 5-hour limit and 7d for the weekly limit. Point at the bars to see the figures. Click the gauge button to choose your Main account and to tick the Claude Code accounts and Codex configurations you want at the bottom of the panel. Each ticked account that Cowork Island finds on this Mac gets a row there, with its plan when known and two rings, one for each limit. A ring shows what is left of the limit and the day and time it resets, or No reading when there is none; to see the share used instead, turn on Show used instead of left in Settings > Usage. An account whose last reading is old keeps its row, marked No recent reading, and for your main account those words take the place of the bars. While Cowork Island is still reading usage as the panel opens, such an account shows nothing until the reading is done. Before, the panel picked up to four accounts by itself and showed small bars with a countdown.

The first time, Cowork Island ticks one account for you: the one closest to a limit. If you use several accounts, add the others with the gauge button. Your main account is the first one you ticked unless you choose another. Your choices, their order and your main account are kept when Cowork Island restarts, and a change in usage never swaps one account for another.

Point at an account's row, or click it, to see the full reset date and the time left. When 90 % or more of a limit is used, its label says running low, or high when the meters show what is used, and a reading more than 10 minutes old says how old it is.

Your usage rows now also show under permission requests, questions and finished-task cards. On Free, the compact reading of the account closest to a limit moves from the top of the panel to the bottom and shows what is left by default, and the corner offers Usage settings.

The panel now opens 0.2 seconds after the pointer reaches the island, instead of 0.5. Delay to open on hover, in Settings > Panel, sets the wait from Instant to 1 second. A click on the island now opens the panel at once; before, it did nothing. With Collapse the panel when the pointer leaves on, a panel that opened because the pointer passed over the island closes at once if the pointer leaves along the top of the screen within 0.3 seconds, without moving down into the panel.

Claude

Claude Code, Claude Chat and Cowork now share one group, Claude, whether they run in the terminal or in the Claude app. Sessions in a herdr or zellij workspace, including ones that join it through their project folder, keep that workspace's group. Before, Claude Chat and Cowork had sections of their own, marked APP.

In the Claude app's combined Chat and Cowork mode, a chat's card now stays Working while Claude waits for something inside its own window, such as a connector sign-in, and right after you answer Claude or approve a tool. It shows as finished once, when Claude marks the task done. Before, the card could show the task as finished too early, with the completion chime and pop. With current versions of the Claude app, such a chat is also marked finished when the island loses its reading of Claude's window right at the end.

While it runs, the Claude app can stop saving its chat list on this Mac. When that happens, Cowork Island no longer removes the chat and Cowork cloud cards it already shows. Chat cards still leave after their usual 30 minutes without activity, and a card showing “Needs you” stays. While Cowork Island watches the Claude app, the panel says Cowork Island can't see your Claude chats and, if you're signed in, suggests quitting Claude and opening it again. With no cards in the panel, the island says Claude unseen. Before, the cards could disappear without a word.

A Claude Code session in the Claude app's Code tab no longer shows as finished after 30 seconds without a tool running. A long think or a long answer now keeps it Working until Claude Code reports the end of the turn.

With Pro or during the trial, clicking a Claude chat's card opens that chat in the Claude app, and clicking a Cowork task's card brings the Claude app forward. Either click opens the Claude app first if it is closed. Before, these clicks brought Claude to the front only while it was open, and with Claude closed they could bring a terminal forward instead.

When Cowork Island watches the Claude app, Dispatch now has a Cowork card of its own while it works on this Mac. When Dispatch asks you something, its card shows “Needs you”, as Cowork tasks do, and you answer in the Claude app. The tasks Dispatch starts keep their own cards. Before, Dispatch itself had no card, so its requests never reached the island.

Cards and groups

Conversations outside herdr and zellij workspaces are now grouped by tool instead of by folder. Unless you have pinned or reordered groups, Claude comes first, then Codex, which brings together Codex in the terminal and in the ChatGPT app, then the other tools by name. A tool's group shows its icon when Cowork Island has one, otherwise a coloured square, and supported CLI and regional editions share their tool's group, so Cursor CLI sits in Cursor. A conversation outside herdr whose folder belongs to one herdr workspace's project joins that workspace's group. Before, these sessions were grouped by folder, folderless ones shared a Terminal section, and the apps had sections of their own.

You can move a conversation to any group, Claude and Codex included, by dragging its card or with Move to another group… in its menu. The move applies to that conversation only and is kept when it resumes, when Cowork Island recognises it. New conversations are still grouped automatically. Before, a card could only be moved into a project group.

After you move a card or a group, the bottom of the panel offers Undo, for example Moved to Claude · Undo, which puts everything back where it was. After a click in the open panel, ⌘Z does the same until the panel closes or you switch to another app. Undo and ⌘Z take back up to your last 5 moves and archives, most recent first, one press at a time; several moves of the same card in a row count as one. A card you moved also has Back to followed by its own group's name in its menu. A group you empty by moving its last card now stays, marked Empty · drop a card here, until the panel closes, so you can drop the card back. While you drag, the destination group is outlined, and dropping a card on a group's name puts it at the top of that group. An open group's header menu has Move group up and Move group down. Before, a group vanished as soon as its last card left it.

Your group order, pinned groups and folded groups carry over to the new groups. So do the cards you had moved to another group and the order you had put cards in, for each conversation Cowork Island finds again when 2.0 first starts.

Marking a card done now takes effect at once, even while its agent works: the card shows Done, moves to the Done tab and stops counting as working. The agent keeps running. The mark lifts by itself when you send that session a new prompt, when it asks you something new, or when Cowork Island sees new work start. Before, a working card you marked kept showing Working until it rested, and the mark stayed until you removed it.

Subagents look much as they did in 1.3.2. With Show subagents on, they show as small squares under the card's mascot, on every card except Cowork's, and the card counts them in words, for example 3 subagents · 2/3 completed, with 1 background task on its own line. A green square is now a subagent that completed and an empty square one that is running; × marks one that stopped and a short dash one whose end is unconfirmed, such as one that was running when Cowork Island restarted. Under the mascot you see up to 7 subagents, the latest ones, and one very small gear for background tasks, in no more than two rows; the words give the full count. On a card showing “Needs you”, only the subagents that stopped show. Before, the squares were green for running subagents, at most 4 showed, each background task had its own gear and the words were in capitals. The Subagent dots under the mascot setting is gone, so the squares always show under the mascot.

Pending and Done now tidy themselves. A session that stays quiet there for 2 days moves to Archived, and comes back by itself if it starts working again. Sessions that need you, working sessions, and Priority and pinned sessions stay, unless a Priority or pinned card's Claude Code session no longer exists. Opening a card or jumping to it starts its 2 days again. Archive Pending and Done after, in Settings > Cards > Tidying Up, sets the period from 1 day to 1 week, or Never. As before, archived sessions are removed when Keep archived sessions runs out, after 1 week by default. An archived Codex session in the terminal is kept as long as Cowork Island can tell it is still open.

The first time 2.0 runs, Pending and Done sessions already quiet for longer than that period move to Archived. The first time you open the panel after that, a line says how many, with Undo, for example Archived 14 sessions idle for more than 2 days · Undo. After a click in the open panel, ⌘Z presses that Undo too, until you switch to another app.

Right-click the Pending or Done tab to archive everything in it at once, for example Archive all 23 in Pending. Priority and pinned sessions stay. The Undo line that follows stays at the bottom of the list, even when the panel closes, until you undo it, restart or use Archive group, or until none of its sessions is left to restore; if it archived a single session, it goes when the panel closes. If you then archive a card or a tab, or move a card or group, that Undo comes first, and this one waits under it until the panel closes. ⌘Z presses this Undo too, after a click in the open panel and until you switch to another app.

Settings

Settings has eleven pages instead of fifteen: General, Mascots, Panel, Cards, Notifications, Sound, Agents, Usage, Advanced, License and About. Panel and Cards take over from Appearance and Behavior: Panel holds the island, its position, the panel and when the island hides, and Cards holds the cards, Visible Tabs and Tidying Up. Agents now also holds the Claude App settings. General now holds five keyboard shortcuts and Share usage statistics, beside Language and Launch at login. Advanced is a new page for technical rows, such as Auto-approve tools, Custom CLIs, Remote Macs and the hook repair buttons, and Uninstall… there now asks first. Searching Settings finds a moved row on its new page. Settings that only moved keep their values; the changes to removed and combined settings are below.

Answer Codex CLI questions, named in earlier release notes, is now in Settings > Advanced > Agents.

Agent sub-sessions is gone, and Cowork Island always does what Merge into the main session did: background copies, codex exec helpers and other sub-sessions join the card of the session that started them, when Cowork Island can tell which one it is. A sub-task whose parent has no card can still get a card of its own when it needs you. If you had chosen Show separately or Hide, sub-sessions now merge.

Hidden Sessions and Ignore Hooks From Folders are now one list, Hidden folders…, in Settings > Advanced > Sessions. Sessions from a hidden folder stay off the panel unless they need you, are pinned, are marked Priority or are waiting at a usage limit. Folders you had in Ignore Hooks From Folders are marked No automatic approval: Cowork Island now reads their events, and Auto-approve tools doesn't answer their permission requests, so the agent's own permission handling applies. Before, Cowork Island ignored every event from those folders.

Webhook Forwarding is gone. Cowork Island no longer sends hook events to a URL.

Some pairs of rows are now one control. Haptic feedback on hover is one menu with Off, Light, Medium and Strong. Conversation preview offers Off, With the arrow and Arrow or hover. Startup sound lists Off and the five sounds. These choices carry over. Advanced has a new Animate mascots switch: a mascot animation you had stopped stays stopped, and any other speed becomes the normal one. Watch Cowork tasks and Watch Claude Chat sessions are now one switch that watches the Claude app, chats and Cowork together, in Settings > Agents > Claude App. If only one of them was on, the switch starts on.

These settings are gone and Cowork Island keeps their default behaviour: Click outside to collapse, Switch the island between active sessions every, Stay closed while the session's terminal is in front, Tool calls kept per session, Show model tag, Show elapsed time, Show the account on cards, the Message sent sound, Hide locked mascots, the preview's height and hover delay, and the Follow-up Reminder's choice to include sessions that need you. Mute When no longer offers The screen is locked or asleep. When Cowork or Claude Chat asks you something, the chime now follows Approval needed in Settings > Sound.

Keyboard shortcuts are now switched on and off one by one, and Enable keyboard shortcuts is gone. If you had it off, each shortcut is turned off, so none of them works until you set its key again.

Settings > Mascots starts with How Mascots Are Shared: Per session, Per project, Per agent and One mascot, each with a line that explains it. Per agent is new and, like Per project, part of Pro: each app keeps its own mascot, one for Claude Code, another for Codex, another for the Claude app. Chats and Cowork tasks in the Claude app now count as one app and one project, so they share a mascot, even a Cowork task with a chosen folder. The separate mascots for Cowork tasks and Claude Chat sessions are gone: a mascot chosen for either now applies to the whole Claude app, and if both had one, the newer one stays. Include Orelo is now a free switch. Orelo's look can be Classic, or Starlight once you have unlocked it, and Orelo shows on your newest card at once. With One mascot, you can pick any mascot you own, Orelo included.

Shortcuts app (Pro)

New with Pro and during the trial: Cowork Island can run one of your shortcuts from Apple's Shortcuts app when a card starts showing “Needs you”. You build the shortcut to do what you want, for example show a notification, speak, or send a message to your phone. Turn on Run a shortcut when an agent needs you in Settings > Notifications > Shortcuts App, choose the shortcut, and press Test to try it. It is off by default. On Free, the section shows with its Pro mark.

With it on, the shortcut runs once when a card starts needing you and still needs you a second later: for a new question, a permission request, or an unseen error that appears on an existing card. This works for every agent, including questions you answer in another app. Cards that start needing you at the same moment share one run, and Mute When applies to it. It doesn't run for what was already waiting when Cowork Island started. It receives one line of text, such as Claude needs you or 2 agents need you, and never the session's title, folder or question.

Fixes

When you stop a Codex turn with Esc, its card now rests marked INT, with no finished sparkle, chime or pop, in the terminal and in the ChatGPT app. Before, Cowork Island treated it as a finished turn.

The finished-task notice, whether it opens the panel for 5 seconds or shows a dot on the island, now appears only when a turn really finishes: not while a non-monitoring background task it started is still running and is less than an hour old, and not after you stop the turn with Esc, when Cowork Island can tell.

The open panel now stops at the bottom of the screen, above the Dock. When everything doesn't fit, the session list, the “Needs you” requests and the usage rows scroll on their own, and a long question or permission request scrolls inside the panel so you can reach every option. Before, on a small screen the panel could run past the bottom of the screen.

A background task that a session leaves running after its turn now keeps the card Working for at most an hour from the task's start. After that, the task no longer keeps the card Working, as with a monitoring task. A background task less than an hour old, a running child task or a running subagent can still keep it Working. Before, the card stayed Working for as long as the task ran. When Cowork Island restarts, it restores the background tasks of Claude Code sessions that are still running. A card that was Working because of a background task comes back Working, with its timer, unless a request or a usage limit comes first; if the task started more than an hour ago, or is a monitoring task, the card comes back at rest. A defunct process left behind by an agent no longer keeps a card on Working.

A few messages that always showed in English now use the language Cowork Island is set to: the replies in Settings > Advanced when you add a custom CLI or install on a remote Mac, and Updating tasks, shown while an agent updates its task list.

Claude Code sessions in the terminal that use another profile, set with CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR (for example ~/.claude2), now stay on the island like those of your main profile. If Remove idle sessions after clears the card of a resting session that is still open, its card comes back, when Cowork Island can see its process. Before, such a session disappeared until it did something again.

A card no longer shows [回复完成] as its last line when a turn ends without text.

A question, a permission request or a finished-task notice that appears in the open panel within 0.5 seconds of the pointer leaving it now stays in view. Before, with Collapse the panel when the pointer leaves on, the panel still closed once those 0.5 seconds were up.

When Pi, Oh My Pi or OpenClaw waits for your approval to run a risky shell command, such as rm -rf or sudo, dismissing its card from “Needs you”, with the ✕ or from the card's menu, now denies the command. Other activity in that session, such as a new prompt or a change herdr reports in its pane, no longer lets the command run either: the request waits on its card until you answer it. Before, both could let the command run.

Claude Cowork

In Settings, the page for the Claude app is now called Claude App, and its Cowork switch reads Watch Cowork tasks. The panel's Cowork and Claude Chat sections keep their names.

Pro trial

The free 7-day Pro trial now starts by itself, with no card and no account. On a new install, it starts when you close the welcome card, which says so. If you quit the app with the card still open, it starts the next time you open the app. Each Mac gets one trial. Reinstalling the app or clearing its preferences does not reset the server's record of your trial. A provisional trial started automatically while offline ends if the server later confirms that this Mac has already used its trial.

If you update to 1.3.1 on Free and this Mac has never had a trial, the trial starts when 1.3.1 first starts. A line at the bottom of the panel tells you once: You have 7 days of Pro, free: every session and the jump. No card. Close it with ✕. While the trial runs, the “Unlock Cowork Island” card in the panel shows the days left. As before, when the trial ends, Cowork Island goes back to Free.

To start the trial, Cowork Island sends our licence server the same request as the Start 7-day trial button: a hashed ID of this installation. If the licence server cannot be reached, a provisional trial starts on your Mac and is checked with the server at a later launch. If the server returns a temporary error or an answer the app cannot verify, nothing changes, and Cowork Island asks again the next time it starts. Before, the trial started only when you pressed Start 7-day trial. Until this Mac has had its trial, that button is still there if you want to start it yourself. The privacy policy has the details: https://coworkisland.com/privacy/

Prices

Prices in Cowork Island now follow the region set on your Mac. In the euro area they are in euros, and everywhere else they are in US dollars. These are the currencies our payment provider charges. Before, every price in the app was in euros. The app follows our payment provider's list of euro regions, so a Mac set to Bulgaria sees US dollars, as it does at checkout.

Only a Mac set to the US shows the dollar sign. Other regions that pay in dollars see prices such as USD 9.99. In the US, Canada and India, the prices you pay now end in + tax, because the tax is added at checkout. As before, the total shown at checkout is what you pay. In English, euro prices now read €9.99 instead of 9,99 €.

Orelo

Meet Orelo, a rabbit drawn from scratch for Cowork Island. It takes the place of the original mascot. If you chose that mascot anywhere, Orelo now shows there, with nothing to change. In Settings > Mascots it is called Orelo (Classic), and Include Orelo in the rotation adds it to the cast. The Starlight look moves to Orelo too. Orelo breathes more gently and dozes when idle.

Claude Code

A background copy of a Claude Code conversation, one you park with ← or start with claude --bg, now joins its session's card as soon as it acts. Its questions and permission requests show there right away, marked Sub-task, instead of on a card of its own. A working copy no longer shows a second card for up to 2 minutes. This works with Settings > Agents > Agent sub-sessions set to Merge into the main session, the default, or Hide.

A background copy that is only waiting for its first prompt no longer shows as “Needs you” on its session's card. Claude Code's agent view lists such a copy as Idle, and the island now leaves it at rest too. The same goes for a copy that Claude Code marks as blocked without saying what it needs.

Claude Code's agent view keeps a spare background session ready for your next task. It no longer gets a card of its own until you give it a task.

When an MCP server asks you to fill in a form or open a link during a Claude Code task in the terminal, the card now shows “Needs you”. You answer in Claude Code. Before, the card kept showing Working, and after a few minutes could even show the task as finished while the form waited. For Claude Code 2.1.76 and later, Cowork Island adds two hook entries to Claude Code's settings so the card changes at once. Cowork Island removes your form answers from the event before it reaches the island.

When you stop a Claude Code turn with Esc, or answer No to a question or permission request in the terminal, the card now rests at once, marked INT, without showing the turn as finished. This also works in herdr. Before, the card could keep showing Working, or go back to it, and then show the turn as finished a few minutes later.

A Claude Code session that you resume under another Claude configuration folder (CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR) now keeps one card, once its first process has ended. Before, it could get a second card next to the first.

Two fixes for Settings > Agents > Agent sub-sessions. Switching from Hide to Show separately no longer leaves the main session's card on Working. Switching to Hide now also removes the rows for helpers that a codex exec run started.

Claude Chat

If the island loses its reading of the Claude app's window right at the end of an answer, it now still marks the answer as finished as soon as the saved chat shows the complete reply, and Settings > Notifications > On completion applies. Before, the card could go quiet without it.

The jump

With Pro or during the trial, clicking a card for a Claude Code session in the Claude desktop app's Code tab now brings the Claude app to the front, even if you started the Claude app from a herdr pane. Before, the click could focus that pane, or say the session was no longer tracked. The click opens the Claude app, not the session itself.

Usage meters

With Pro or during the trial, each Claude account's usage meter now keeps its own numbers after you switch accounts with /login while other sessions still run on the previous account. This needs Read usage from Claude Code's status line, in Settings > Usage.

Cowork Island now offers Read usage from Claude Code's status line once. With Pro or during the trial, if you use Claude Code on a Pro or Max plan and its meters have nothing to show, a line at the bottom of the panel offers it, with Turn On…, which opens Settings > Usage. The line itself turns nothing on. New installs see the same option on the welcome card. Turning it on can add an empty status line to Claude Code, which hides the tips under its prompt, and both places say so first.

With Pro or during the trial, and with the status line reading on, Settings > Usage no longer asks you to turn it on when a Claude account has no limits yet. It now says that Claude Code sends them on Pro and Max plans while a session runs. Claude Code configuration folders you add later are now connected to the status line by themselves, when Cowork Island starts or when you open Settings > Usage. If a new folder has no status line, an empty one is added, which hides the tips under Claude Code's prompt.

Codex

With Answer Codex CLI questions on, in Settings > Agents > CLI Status > Codex > Advanced, the question panel now says: If its terminal was closed, answering here lets Codex continue in the background. With the same setting on, a Codex question waiting on a card no longer disappears when a permission request arrives on that card.

Licence

About once every two weeks, Cowork Island checks your licence. If that check comes back with fewer purchases than you hold and does not say why, Cowork Island now keeps what you have and checks again next time. A refund still removes what was refunded.

The licence terms included with the app are updated for 1.3.1: prices in US dollars, the trial that starts by itself, and the trial request, which is now the only call the app makes by itself on a Mac with no licence key and with Check for updates automatically and Share usage statistics both off.

Claude Chat

Claude Chat cards now appear on every account. Cowork Island reads all three ways the Claude desktop app stores chats, including the newest one. A chat with a new message in the last 30 minutes gets a card while the Claude app is open on your Mac. Opening an old chat does not give it a card. Cowork Island reads the chats in the background, so reading them does not hold up the island.

A Claude Chat card that shows Working now keeps showing it for up to 30 minutes after the chat's last activity. Before, a long answer, such as a research report, could look finished after about 5 minutes.

While Claude answers in the Claude app, the chat's card now shows Working, on every account. When Claude asks for permission to use a tool, the card shows “Needs you” with the line Answer in Claude. You answer in the Claude app. The island chimes and opens for it the same way it does when Claude Cowork asks you something. Cowork Island sees this in the Claude app's window, from its buttons, and never reads the text in it. For this, Cowork Island needs Accessibility access. In System Settings, open Privacy & Security > Accessibility and turn Cowork Island on. A chat you open in a separate window cannot be read this way.

You can now archive Claude Chat cards like any other card, one with Archive session or all of them with Archive group. To bring one back, use Restore in the Archived list. An archived chat now keeps its title when you restart the app. Before, you could only dismiss a chat card.

Codex

Codex 0.157 and later runs your Codex sessions in the terminal through one shared program in the background. Cowork Island now never stops that program. It also never answers a Codex permission request in your place. Before, in some cases, it could do either.

For now, this has two costs for Codex sessions in a terminal. A jump may say that Cowork Island cannot find the session. After you close its terminal tab, the card can remain until Codex reports that the session has ended. Idle cards follow Settings > Behavior > Remove idle sessions after. Cards still working or waiting for your answer can remain longer.

Cowork Island now recognises Codex in ChatGPT 26.924 and later, which changed where Codex sits inside the app.

When Codex in the ChatGPT app asks you more than one thing at a time, answering one in ChatGPT now clears only that one from its card. Before, answering one could also clear another that was still waiting.

Sub-tasks

Work that a Claude Code session starts in the background now shows on that session's card. Before, some of it could still get a card of its own. Scripts run with claude -p and codex exec runs join the card as soon as they start. A background copy of the conversation joins it once Cowork Island's next check finds it, within about 2 minutes. If the copy asks you something before then, the request shows on a card of its own.

Once they have joined, their questions and permission requests show on that card, marked Sub-task. Cowork Island never answers them by itself.

This follows Settings > Agents > Agent sub-sessions. It works with Merge into the main session, the default, and with Hide. With Hide, their questions and permission requests still show. Show separately gives each one its own card, as before. If the session that started one has closed, it gets a card of its own only when it needs you.

With Hide, permission requests from hidden Codex subagents, Cursor tasks and plugins now wait for your answer, on the card of the session they belong to or on a card of their own. Before, Hide could allow them by itself.

The island

Renaming a card now changes only that card. Other sessions already running in the same folder or terminal pane keep their own names. Before, another card there could take the new name too.

After you answer a question or a permission request with one click, the island closes, and moving the pointer onto it opens it again. Before, you had to move the pointer away from the island first.

The island keeps opening when you point at it after a display change, such as connecting or disconnecting a monitor, or when a Handoff icon appears in or leaves the Dock. Before, if the pointer was resting on the island at that moment, the island could ignore it until you moved the pointer away.

Pinning or renaming a card from Codex in the ChatGPT app, Claude Chat or Claude Cowork now changes only that card. Before, pinning a Claude Chat or Claude Cowork card pinned every card in its section. Codex app cards sharing a folder could share a pin or name. You can now rename Claude Chat and Claude Cowork cards as well. The new name shows only on the island. Pins you set on these cards before 1.3 no longer apply, so pin again the ones you want.

You can now drag a card to a new place inside its app section or the TERMINAL section. Terminal sessions without a project folder or an existing workspace section now share one TERMINAL section, whatever tool they use. Before, each tool had its own TERMINAL section. Codex terminal sessions in this group move here from CODEX · APP, which now holds only Codex conversations from the ChatGPT app. Unless you have moved or pinned your sections, TERMINAL now comes before the app sections. You can now pin the TERMINAL section and each app's section, as you could already pin a folder's section. While you drag a card or a whole section of an app, the line that shows where it will land now has the colour of that app's icon.

When Claude finishes answering in Claude Chat or Claude Cowork, the island now does what you chose in Settings > Notifications > On completion, as it does for terminal sessions. When Claude Cowork or Codex in the ChatGPT app waits for your answer, the island now opens by itself, with the same settings as for terminal sessions.

An archived Claude Cowork card now stays in the Archived list until you restore or remove it, or until Keep archived sessions removes it. Before, it could disappear when Cowork stopped running. It also keeps its title when you restart the app. A Cowork session with no folder selected now gets the Mark as done tick, like other cards.

Usage meters

A usage meter could disappear from the panel, in one case until you restarted the app. Three causes are fixed. During a long Codex task, the Codex meter now keeps its last reading until that reading is 30 minutes old, instead of disappearing at once. With Read usage from Claude Code's status line on, Claude Code's frequent updates no longer stop the Codex meter from updating while the panel is open. A reading dated in the future, after a change to the Mac's clock, no longer hides a meter.

Usage statistics

Cowork Island now sends us usage statistics. We use them only to count totals, such as how many Macs run each version and plan. A report goes out about a minute after the app starts, then about once a day while it runs. Each report holds a random ID created on your Mac, the app version and build number, your plan, the days left if you are on a trial, your macOS version, language and region, and three details we use for counting. It never holds your name, your licence key or anything from your sessions.

The statistics are on by default. To turn them off, switch off Share usage statistics in the What's new window or in Settings > About. If you are updating, nothing is sent until you close the What's new window for 1.3. If you quit the app with that window still open, it opens again the next time you start the app. The privacy policy has the details: https://coworkisland.com/privacy/

Energy use

Cowork Island uses less energy, most of all while the ChatGPT app is open. Every 30 seconds, it now asks Codex only for what its Codex cards need, and asks nothing when there is no Codex card. Before, it asked for your 50 most recent Codex conversations each time. Its regular check for new sessions, for every agent, also reads each running program once instead of several times. A card that stopped at a usage limit after its session ended no longer makes Cowork Island repeat the same cleanup every 3 seconds. As before, the card stays while the limit lasts, unless you archive it.

Licence activation

Activating a licence key is more reliable. When the licence server is busy, Cowork Island now says: The licence server is busy. Try again in a minute. Before, it said: Couldn't reach the licence server. Check your connection and try again. On our side, the licence server now has its own request limit with our payment provider, instead of sharing one with other services. It can also retry a busy request once by itself. These server changes also help earlier versions of the app.

Pro licence

The Pro plans now count computers instead of Macs. In the Unlock Cowork Island window, they read 1 computer, 2 computers and 3 computers. The licence terms included with the app say the same. Where the app means the Mac you are using, as in Deactivate this Mac, it still says Mac.

Claude Chat

Claude Chat cards are back. Recent versions of the Claude desktop app, such as 2.2553, save chats in a new format on accounts that use its new chat view. Cowork Island could not read that format, so it showed no Claude Chat cards on those accounts, whatever version you had. It now reads the new format, and the old one still works. A chat you use in the Claude app on your Mac gets its card again, and a chat that Claude marks as running shows as Working from its first message. With the new format, opening an old chat or restarting Claude does not bring back old cards. If the same work shows as both a Claude Chat card and a Claude Cowork card, only the Cowork card stays.

Claude Code

Clicking a Claude Code card that comes from Claude Code's own list of sessions, not from Cowork Island's hooks, now does something. When Cowork Island can tell which terminal the session runs in, clicking the card takes you there. That is a jump, so on Free it opens the Pro window, like every jump since 1.2. When it can't tell, a card that shows Check Claude Code also shows where to answer: Answer in Claude Code, or In Claude Code's agent view for a background agent. Before, clicking these cards did nothing unless the session ran in herdr.

Settings

A change in Settings > Shortcuts now works straight away. Before, a new or cleared shortcut, or turning Enable keyboard shortcuts on or off, only took effect after you restarted the app.

Answer Codex CLI questions has moved to Settings > Agents, under the Codex row, in a section called Advanced. The section opens by itself when the option is on. The option is still off by default and works as before. The page it came from, Cowork, Chat & Codex, is now called Cowork & Chat.

Searching Settings for Codex now also finds Settings > Usage when that page shows your Codex usage.

In Settings > Cowork & Chat, two rows now say Claude Cowork instead of Cowork: Watch Claude Cowork sessions and Mascot in Claude Cowork sessions. The Watch Claude Cowork sessions and Watch Claude Chat sessions rows now wear an icon in Claude's colour, and so does the Cowork row in Settings > Agents.

Fixes

The panel now closes when you close the archived list, or finish renaming a card, with the pointer away from the island. Before, it could stay open.

The What's new window and Settings > About now read the release notes in the background, so they open without holding up the app.

For a Codex conversation in the ChatGPT app, the card's Answer in ChatGPT line no longer changes to Answer in Codex in the moment after you answer.

Codex

Cowork Island now finds a running Codex conversation, in the ChatGPT app or in a terminal, even if it started a week or more ago, or if many other Codex conversations, such as its subagents, have started since. Before, the panel could miss it. Codex cards that showed a folder name now show the conversation's name from Codex, the same one the ChatGPT app shows, when Codex has one.

The ChatGPT app keeps new hooks switched off until you trust them, so Cowork Island's Codex hooks, which tell the island what Codex is doing, stay silent until you do. When the ChatGPT app is installed and those hooks are waiting, Cowork Island now asks you once to trust them. The prompt appears on the Codex row in Settings > Agents, and on the welcome card that opens the first time you run the app, once you switch Codex on there. For conversations in the ChatGPT app, trusting them lets Codex tell the island its status as it happens: when it starts working, what it is doing and when it finishes. Codex in a terminal uses the same hooks, so trusting them also lets you answer its permission requests on the island. Allow asks Codex to trust Cowork Island's own hooks and nothing else. When Codex accepts, the Codex row shows that the hooks are connected.

If Codex can't be reached or refuses, nothing is changed, and the prompt shows how to do it yourself in ChatGPT: Settings > Hooks > User config, then Trust on each Cowork Island hook. If you say no for now, Cowork Island remembers it, and the prompt does not come back by itself. Until you allow it, your Codex conversations and their status still show on the island, but permission requests from Codex in a terminal do not reach it, so you answer them in the terminal. The Allow button on the Codex row asks again. The Codex row also shows whether the hooks are connected, still need you to allow them, or are switched off in Codex. On a Mac with the Codex command-line tool and no ChatGPT app, no prompt appears, and you trust the hooks in the terminal as before.

A Codex conversation that is already in the middle of a task when Cowork Island first finds it now shows as Working straight away. Before, it could wait until its next turn to show as Working. A Codex process working in a project folder is now matched to your own conversation there, not to a subagent that started after it.

Codex's own background tasks, such as its memory upkeep or the automatic review it runs before approving an action for you, no longer get a card or show up as subagents. Neither do conversations the ChatGPT app hides. While Settings > Agents > Agent sub-sessions is set to Merge into the main session, the default, or Hide, cards an earlier version made for them are removed.

If a subagent is running in the ChatGPT app and the conversation it belongs to has no card, that conversation now gets one, named as in the ChatGPT app, without ever making a second card for it. The subagent shows on that card instead of on a card of its own named after a folder. This applies when Settings > Agents > Agent sub-sessions is set to Merge into the main session, the default. With Hide, the conversation gets its card and the subagent stays hidden. With Show separately, subagents keep their own cards, named after their folder, and, with Pro, clicking one now opens the conversation it belongs to.

Cowork Island no longer takes OPENAI, the provider's name, for a Codex conversation's model. It now reads the model from the conversation's latest turn, so the card's model tag shows the model the conversation uses. A card that 1.1 saved with OPENAI can keep it until Codex reports the model again.

A Codex card now shows the prompt you actually wrote. It no longer shows the text Codex and the ChatGPT app add to it behind the scenes, such as suggested plugins, AGENTS.md instructions and details about your setup, or the extra text the ChatGPT app puts around your answer to a question.

When Codex asks you a question in the ChatGPT app, its card now shows as “Needs you”, with the question and the line Answer in ChatGPT. You answer in the ChatGPT app, not on the island. With Pro, clicking the card opens that conversation in ChatGPT. Codex questions in a terminal work as before.

When a Codex conversation in the ChatGPT app is set to Ask for approval and Codex asks for a permission, such as internet or file access, its card now shows as “Needs you”, with a line that names what it asks for, such as Asks for internet access, and the line Answer in ChatGPT. You answer in the ChatGPT app, not on the island. With Pro, clicking the card opens that conversation in ChatGPT. This works even if you have not trusted the hooks.

When a Codex conversation in the ChatGPT app is set to Approve for me, Cowork Island now steps aside and leaves its permission requests to Codex, instead of holding them on the island for your answer. The card does not show as “Needs you” for them. This also covers subagents hidden by setting Settings > Agents > Agent sub-sessions to Hide. Before, the island allowed their requests by itself, even under Approve for me.

When you archive a conversation in the ChatGPT app, its card now leaves the island shortly after. Before, it left only after 6 hours idle. The card comes back if you use the conversation again.

Free and Pro

On Free, clicking a session now opens the Pro window instead of taking you to it. This covers every way to jump: every session card, the question and approval bars, the Go to terminal and Return to Codex buttons, and the jump shortcuts. Until now, only the jump to a session that shows as “Needs you” was Pro. Seeing which sessions need you, answering or approving a supported request from the island, and the folder icon that opens a card's folder in Finder are not jumps, so they work as before. The Pro window's list of features now says this too. The 7-day trial and Pro are unchanged.

Mascots

The mascot you pick under Settings > Mascots now shows on the island. The setting is now called Island mascot instead of Backlog mascot, and a new Show row sits under it. Set to When nothing is running, the default, the closed island wears your pick whenever no session is working or needs you, and a session that is working or needs you still shows its own mascot. Set to Always, the island wears your pick even while a session is working or needs you, and that session's status still shows. Before, the island kept showing the mascot of one of your sessions, and your pick appeared only when there were no sessions at all.

Every paid mascot in the mascot menus now wears a padlock, including one you picked before its collection locked, and the padlocked mascots sit together at the end of each menu, after everything you can pick. Picking one still opens the Mascot Shop or the Pro window. The header over locked mascots now says what unlocks them, such as Included with Pro or In the Office pack, instead of See Pro or See the pack.

Updates and setup

After you update to 1.2, a What's new window opens once with the main changes. Release Notes opens these notes, and Got it closes the window. It never opens on a new install, and it waits until the welcome card and Settings are closed. To see it again, open Settings > About > What's new in 1.2.

If Cowork Island runs from a place where it cannot update itself, such as straight from the disk image, the welcome card and Settings > About now show one line: Move Cowork Island to your Applications folder to get updates.

Settings > License now has a Privacy Policy row, which opens the privacy policy on coworkisland.com in English, whatever the app's language. Settings > About now has a Website row, which opens coworkisland.com. Searching Settings for privacy or website finds them.

Fixes

In Settings > Agents, saving a change now dims only the row you changed, instead of the whole page for up to about 5 seconds. An error on a row now stays when you leave the page, until a change to that row works. When Claude Code's settings file can't be read, its row keeps offering Remove Hooks instead of switching to Reinstall Hooks, which turned the hooks back on. Cowork Island no longer overwrites Kimi's settings file when it can't read it, and Uninstall now tells you when it could not write Kimi's or Cline's file.

On the welcome card, Esc now closes the card even when nothing in it has focus, and VoiceOver says Connecting… once when Codex starts connecting.

Some automated Claude Code runs, which a script or another session starts without a terminal, showed up as empty cards. They no longer get a card of their own. While one is running, it counts as a subagent on the card of the session that started it. If the app cannot match it to one session on the panel, the run is not shown.

With Pro or during the trial, if Cowork Island is not turned on in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility, a jump to a session in Ghostty or Terminal can now show a message on the card. The message has a button that takes you to that setting. Cowork Island uses this permission to restore a minimized window.

After you switch Cline off in Settings > Agents, its row stops showing Cline as connected.

If Cowork Island cannot remove a leftover ALWAYS rule from Codex's config.toml, it no longer leaves another copy of that file each time it tries again. Copies already there are not removed. They sit next to the file as config.toml.cowork-island-<id>.bak, and you can delete them.

Updating from 1.0

If you update straight from 1.0, you also get everything in 1.1, including the update check. About once a day, while the app is running, it asks the website whether a newer version exists. Nothing downloads or installs unless you accept it. Switch it off under Settings > About > Check for updates automatically. If you never touched that switch in 1.0, this update turns the check on; if you turned it off yourself, it stays off.

Updates and setup

This version arrives with the update check switched on. About once a day, while the app is running, it asks the website whether a newer version exists. Nothing downloads or installs unless you accept it. Switch it off under Settings > About > Check for updates automatically. If you never touched that switch in 1.0, this update turns the check on; if you turned it off yourself, it stays off.

Tools the app finds on your Mac now connect on their own. Codex, Cline and any tool you add yourself stay off until you switch them on. Anything you switched off in 1.0 stays off.

The first time you open this version, one card shows which tools are connected, offers to turn on Codex, and tells you that macOS will ask for Automation the first time you jump to a session.

Settings > Agents offers to turn Codex on when it is installed but switched off.

Sessions and controls

Claude Code sessions with no hooks installed now appear in the panel and join Needs you when one is waiting. Without hooks the app cannot read the conversation, so these cards show no preview and you answer in the terminal.

Archive a session card and you can undo it. The row of small buttons at the foot of a card now has space between them.

Point at the Working, Pending or Backlog chip and it says what the word means.

Fixes

A permission rule 1.0 could write when you clicked ALWAYS left Codex unable to load its configuration. ALWAYS now appears only where the rule can be written safely, and while Codex is switched on in Settings > Agents this version removes a rule 1.0 left behind, keeping a copy of the file beside it as config.toml.cowork-island-<id>.bak, which you can delete.

In the window where you activate a Pro key, the way back is easy to see, the cursor shows in the key field, and the message when a key does not activate says more.