gest

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Changelog ​

What's new in gest — told version by version.

v0.4.4 ​

2026-04-04

Security Headers ​

The web server now sets Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options on every response, hardening the default setup against clickjacking and content-type sniffing.

Bug Fixes ​

  • The -q flag on mutation commands was printing the full 32-character ID — it now outputs the 8-character short ID, matching how IDs are displayed everywhere else
  • Store writes use the tempfile crate for proper temporary files, avoiding collisions when multiple agents write concurrently
  • config get storage.project_dir now returns the resolved path instead of null when no explicit override is set (#31)

Performance ​

Iteration orchestration operations (all_phases, assignees, phases_with_incomplete) now use sort+dedup instead of HashSet round-trips, and an unnecessary double-clone has been eliminated.

v0.4.3 ​

2026-04-03

Iteration Cancel and Reopen ​

Iterations can now be cancelled and reopened with dedicated commands. gest iteration cancel <id> marks the iteration as cancelled and automatically cascades to all non-terminal tasks — open and in-progress tasks become cancelled, while done tasks are left untouched. gest iteration reopen <id> reverses the operation, restoring the iteration and its cancelled tasks. The old failed status remains as a deprecated alias for backward compatibility.

Live Reload ​

The web UI now updates in real time. When you change project files on disk, pages connected to the web server receive updates via server-sent events and swap in fresh content without a full reload. The file watcher debounce defaults to 2000ms and is configurable via serve.debounce_ms.

Request Logging ​

Every HTTP request to the web server is now logged with method, path, response status, and elapsed time. Control the verbosity with the serve.log_level setting (default: info).

Web Dashboard ​

The dashboard task card now shows only actionable work (open + in-progress) rather than all tasks. A new iteration status breakdown row shows active, completed, and cancelled counts with links to filtered views.

Bug Fixes ​

  • read_from_editor no longer drops content due to a missing return statement

v0.4.2 ​

2026-04-02

Ergonomics Everywhere ​

This release is all about reducing friction. Nearly every common workflow got shorter.

Command aliases let you move faster: gest t instead of gest task, gest a for gest artifact, gest i for gest iteration, gest grep for gest search. Subcommands gained natural aliases too — new, ls, view, edit, and rm all work where you'd expect. Top-level u and s shortcuts round out undo and serve.

Lifecycle shortcuts — task complete, task cancel, and task block — handle the most common status transitions in a single command instead of task update --status.

Tags got simpler. A unified --tag flag works on both create and update commands, and tag/untag commands accept comma-separated values (gest task tag <id> rust,cli) so you can apply multiple tags in one shot.

Machine-Readable Output ​

Every mutation command now accepts --json for structured output and -q for bare IDs — making gest a first-class citizen in shell pipelines and automation scripts. meta get gained --json and --raw variants for programmatic value access.

Batch and Pipeline Support ​

The new --batch flag reads NDJSON from stdin to create multiple tasks or artifacts in a single invocation. Body and description fields can also be piped from stdin implicitly, so echo "notes" | gest task create "my task" just works.

Create commands gained -i/--iteration to add the new entity to an iteration inline, and task create supports -l/--link for creating relationships at creation time — no follow-up commands needed.

Search Paging ​

Search output is now paged through $PAGER (falling back to less -R) when stdout is a terminal. Piped and redirected output bypasses the pager automatically.

Under the Hood ​

Entity operations are now backed by generic trait-based action functions, and catch-all error variants have been replaced with domain-specific types that produce clearer diagnostics. Tag list tables now render with proper theme formatting.

v0.4.1 ​

2026-04-01

Search Filters ​

gest search now understands structured queries. Use is:, tag:, status:, and type: prefixes to narrow results — negate any filter with a - prefix (e.g. -status:done). Filters of the same type OR-combine, and different filter types AND-combine, giving you precise control without complex syntax.

Reliability and Safety ​

A batch of fixes hardens the store and web server:

  • Entity file moves are now atomic (write-to-temp then rename), closing a TOCTOU race that could leave partial files on disk
  • Unrecognized event types produce a clear error instead of panicking
  • HTML error responses are sanitized to prevent reflected XSS
  • Dashboard errors are logged instead of silently swallowed
  • Task link mutations use a dedicated patch field for atomicity
  • CLI metadata values are parsed as typed TOML (numbers, booleans) rather than always strings
  • Native TOML datetimes are deserialized correctly
  • Integer casts in orchestration replaced with correct types
  • UI text truncation no longer panics on edge-case inputs

v0.4.0 ​

2026-04-01

Undo ​

You can now reverse the most recent mutating command with gest undo. Under the hood, a new SQLite-backed event store captures before/after snapshots of every file mutation. If something goes wrong, gest undo restores the previous state in one step. The event store location is configurable via GEST_STATE_DIR or storage.state_dir.

Tags ​

New gest tag add|remove|list subcommands let you manage tags on any entity. gest tags lists all tags across the project with optional entity-type filtering. Tags are a lightweight way to categorize and find related work.

Activity Timeline ​

Task and iteration status, phase, and priority changes are now recorded automatically as events with author attribution. The show views merge events and notes into a single chronological activity timeline — in both the CLI and the web UI — so you can see the full history of an entity at a glance.

Theming Overhaul ​

Color configuration has been restructured into two tiers: [colors.palette] defines 11 semantic color slots, and [colors.overrides] provides per-token customization. Palette colors cascade through to all tokens that reference a given slot, making it easy to restyle the entire UI by changing a few palette values. config show now displays palette and override counts separately.

Web UI Accessibility ​

The web UI received a comprehensive accessibility pass to meet WCAG 2.1 AA requirements:

  • Semantic HTML landmarks and a skip-to-content link for screen readers
  • Heading hierarchy with proper h1–h6 elements
  • Font sizes converted to rem units respecting browser preferences
  • Color contrast updated to meet the 4.5:1 minimum ratio
  • Focus-visible outlines on all interactive elements for keyboard navigation
  • ARIA labels on form fields and the relationship modal
  • Keyboard-accessible relationship modal with focus trap and Escape-to-close

Cross-Entity IDs ​

ID generation now checks for prefix collisions across all entity types before assigning a short ID, and a new cross-entity resolver can look up any entity by prefix with ambiguity detection. The --no-color global flag is also available for scripting.

Breaking Changes ​

This release bundles several breaking changes:

  • GEST_DATA_DIR semantics changed. It now points to the global root (e.g. ~/.local/share/gest) instead of the project-specific directory. Use the new GEST_PROJECT_DIR env var or storage.project_dir config field for the old behavior.
  • Color config restructured. The flat [colors] section is replaced by [colors.palette] and [colors.overrides].
  • Project discovery tightened. Only .gest/ directories are matched during walk-up discovery; unrelated directories named gest/ are no longer false positives.
  • Empty datetime fields omitted. Task and iteration TOML files no longer write resolved_at = "" or completed_at = "". Existing files with empty strings are still read correctly.

Bug Fixes ​

  • config set now writes typed TOML values instead of wrapping everything as strings
  • Event recording no longer silently skipped when git user.name is unset

v0.3.5 ​

2026-03-31

Task Notes ​

Tasks can now carry threaded notes with author attribution. Human authors are identified automatically from your git config, and agent-authored notes are tagged with --agent. Each note includes a timestamp and renders its body as markdown.

  • Add, list, show, update, and delete notes via gest task note subcommands
  • Notes appear in task show output and on the web UI task detail page
  • Gravatar avatars and agent badges distinguish human from machine authors

Iteration Orchestration ​

New commands make it easier to drive multi-phase work through an iteration without manually juggling task status.

  • iteration status shows progress at a glance
  • iteration next peeks at or claims the next available task
  • iteration advance signals that a phase is complete
  • task list --assigned-to narrows results by assignee
  • iteration list --has-available finds iterations with claimable work
  • gest search now includes iterations in its results

v0.3.4 ​

2026-03-31

Security ​

ID prefix validation now rejects invalid characters, closing a potential path injection vector via crafted entity IDs.

v0.3.3 ​

2026-03-31

Web UI Forms ​

The web UI gained create and edit forms for tasks and artifacts, complete with markdown preview, relationship management, and inline search — so you can manage your project without leaving the browser.

  • Dashboard status cards now link directly to filtered task views
  • New/edit buttons on list and detail pages for quick navigation

Display Improvements ​

Short ID prefixes are now clickable links throughout the web UI. Tags are clickable for quick filtering, and artifact type labels are used consistently across all views.

Bug Fixes ​

  • Store writes now respect whether an entity lives in the active or archive/resolved directory, preventing duplicates on mutation
  • CLI flags (--version, --verbose) and shell completion variants now include help text (#24)

v0.3.2 ​

2026-03-31

Built-in Web Server ​

gest serve launches a local web UI with a dashboard, task/artifact/iteration views, a kanban board, and full-text search — everything you need to browse your project visually (#13–#23).

  • --port, --bind, and --no-open flags control the local server (#15)
  • [serve] config section with port, bind_address, and open settings (#14)

Performance ​

  • Iteration phase counts are now cached instead of recomputed on every read
  • resolve_dot_path walks by reference instead of cloning, reducing allocations
  • Shared helpers consolidated across store operations, CLI metadata handling, and tag/untag commands

Bug Fixes ​

  • Multi-word EDITOR values (e.g. code --wait) are now parsed correctly via shell tokenization
  • Nested metadata set_nested is bounds-checked with a depth limit to prevent stack overflows
  • Version line no longer appears in the --help banner
  • gest search --expand now shows full content instead of truncated snippets (#11)

v0.3.1 ​

2026-03-30

Per-Entity Directory Overrides ​

You can now control where each entity type is stored on disk via GEST_ARTIFACT_DIR, GEST_TASK_DIR, and GEST_ITERATION_DIR environment variables — or the corresponding storage.*_dir config fields.

Performance ​

  • Blocked-by status resolution for task lists now uses a single batched read pass instead of per-task I/O
  • Search filtering avoids redundant string allocations during case-insensitive matching
  • Prefix matching exits early after two matches instead of collecting all candidates
  • Metadata serialization is skipped during search when maps are empty
  • Store functions receive the full application config, removing the need for plumbing changes when new settings are accessed

v0.3.0 ​

2026-03-30

Breaking Changes ​

This release includes two breaking changes:

  • TOML-only configuration. JSON and YAML config files are no longer supported. Rename your config to gest.toml and convert the contents to TOML.
  • Global store by default. gest init now creates the global data store. Use gest init --local if you want an in-repo .gest/ directory.

New UI ​

The entire terminal UI has been rebuilt with an atomic architecture (atoms, composites, views) for consistent, aligned rendering across all commands.

v0.2.3 ​

2026-03-29

Iterations ​

A new entity type for planning multi-phase work. Iterations have their own storage, UI components, CLI commands, and a graph visualization that shows how tasks flow through phases.

Richer Task Fields ​

Tasks now support priority, assigned_to, and phase fields for more structured project tracking.

Search Improvements ​

--expand on gest search now works without --json, showing full detail blocks directly in the terminal.

v0.2.2 ​

2026-03-27

Update Notifications ​

gest version now checks for newer releases and suggests gest self-update when one is available.

Search Improvements ​

The --expand (-e) flag on gest search enriches --json output with full item details.

Theme Tokens ​

New indicator.blocked and indicator.blocking theme tokens let you customize how task list status indicators look.

Performance ​

Reduced unnecessary memory allocations in UI rendering and search, plus extracted shared helpers and removed dead code.

v0.2.1 ​

2026-03-26

Bug Fixes ​

  • Install script now downloads the correct checksum file during installation
  • Self-update no longer fails with a 404 when fetching the target release

v0.2.0 ​

2026-03-26

Shell Completions and Man Pages ​

New generation commands produce shell completions and man pages for your preferred shell (#1).

Markdown Rendering ​

Descriptions are no longer plain text in the terminal. Headings, code blocks, lists, blockquotes, and more are rendered with styled formatting (#2, #3). Artifact and task detail views use this automatically (#4, #5).

Verbose Logging ​

Every command, store operation, and config discovery step now emits verbose logs for easier debugging.

Breaking Change ​

artifact list --include-archived has been renamed to --all (-a), matching the convention used by task and search commands.

Performance ​

Faster unique ID prefix computation and shorter ID encoding.

Bug Fixes ​

Log level semantics now correctly follow the debug=why, trace=result convention.

v0.1.0 ​

2026-03-26

The first release of gest — a lightweight CLI for tracking AI-agent-generated tasks and artifacts alongside your project. Ships with artifact and task commands, TOML/JSON/YAML configuration, search, and editor integration.

Released under the MIT License.