Live Beta — free to use during beta. Paid tiers are marked "Free during beta" until monetization launches.

Updates

⚠ 2026-09-01 — big update: re-download recommended (account recovery, launchers, Auto-cascade)

A large batch of improvements landed on 2026-09-01. Highlights: account recovery tokens (restore your paid account on a new machine), Workers Auto (cascade) free-tier rotation, a one-click re-download of your Marketplace content, an auth-reliability fix, and a full desktop launch experience — an AI menu entry, the cockpit-start command, a branded splash, and V1/V2 side by side.

We're in beta — reinstalling fresh (or re-downloading the bundle) is the normal way to stay current. Grab the latest from the Download page.

What's new in AI Cockpit.

2026-09-01

Account recovery, Workers Auto-cascade, and a full launch experience

  • Account recovery tokens — a one-time code shown when you first create your account restores your paid account and tier on a reinstalled or new machine. Recover right from the app; admins can reset a token
  • Workers — Auto (cascade) — pick this and free-tier workers are used in a priority order, automatically advancing to the next when one hits its daily quota (or a rate limit), for constant free AI. Reorder the priority in Workers settings
  • Marketplace — restore your content — a "my downloads" filter plus a one-click restore that re-downloads everything you previously downloaded and everything you published, so a fresh machine is quick to set up again
  • Auth reliability — fixed a case on newer systems where sign-in/validation could report "server unreachable" and leave a paid account stuck on Free
  • Desktop launch experience — the installer adds AI Cockpit to your applications menu (under an "AI" category) plus cockpit-start / cockpit-stop commands; launching shows a branded splash, then opens Cockpit in a clean app window. Install both versions and AI Cockpit V1 (No-Account) gets its own menu entry and cockpit-v1-start — only one version runs at a time
  • Browser/launch polish: opens a fresh window reliably (no more hijacking the app tab), and a login guard keeps the browser's display flags in place across browser updates
2026-08-24

Downloads refreshed to the current build — please re-download

  • The install bundle now ships the current install_cockpit.sh. The 2026-08-23 overhaul (V1/V2/both, offline, hardware-aware, telemetry, guided prompts) was already written, but the download had kept serving a pre-overhaul installer — so anyone who downloaded before today got the old one. Fixed: re-download to pick it up
  • New bundle shape (dist-based): extract → cd cockpit → sudo bash install_cockpit.sh, which installs from the bundled dist/cockpit_v2.tar.gz / cockpit_v1.tar.gz. Both the automated and manual-copy paths in the Setup & Manual guides were updated to match
  • Tool downloads brought in line with fixes that had only been live in the browser: Drive Migration Calculator (per-drive transfer time now honors per-drive rates), Palette Generator (WCAG luminance threshold), Subscription Sleuth ("Semi-Annual" label), and Veil-10 (large-input encode fix)
  • Every downloadable archive on the site was audited to confirm it contains the latest version of each file it bundles
2026-08-23

Installer overhaul — V1/V2/both, offline installs, hardware-aware, guided prompts, and install telemetry

  • One installer, your choice of version: pick V1, V2, or both at the start. "Both" installs V2 at /cockpit and V1 at /cockpit-v1 side by side. The edition is now derived from the version instead of a separate question — V2/both use the full account edition (needs at least a free account, no card), V1 uses the fully-local stand-alone edition
  • Every prompt now explains what each option means and its implications in plain language, shows the default (Enter = …), and supports proper line editing — backspace, arrows, ctrl-u — so typos are fixable
  • Offline installs: the installer detects no connection and skips every download gracefully (packages, CLIs, Ollama/LocalAI, models, account) while still deploying the local app + web files — ideal for a private, offline V1 setup. V2 warns that its account and models need a connection later
  • Hardware-aware: detects your CPU model + cores, RAM, and GPU/VRAM and recommends a local-model size that actually fits (so a 4 GB card isn't handed a model it can't run)
  • Cross-distro package completeness: the package lists no longer assume a fresh Linux Mint — every tool the app shells out to (unzip, ping, lspci, and GNU coreutils/grep/sed on Alpine, etc.) is installed explicitly on apt/nala, pacman, dnf, zypper, and apk, plus the Docker image
  • Ollama now keeps its own default model location instead of being forced to a custom path, and detects a pre-existing custom location to warn you before continuing. One consistent per-user npm location for the agent CLIs (no more root/user split)
  • New: anonymous install telemetry so we can find and fix installs that fail and see where they stop — reports only OS/distro, your version+edition choice, coarse hardware, and any OS error, with usernames and file paths stripped out; never your name, files, or IP. On for V2 (opt out with COCKPIT_NO_TELEMETRY=1), opt-in for V1
  • Verified end to end on a real Linux Mint 22.3 machine: V1 + V2 both installed and serving, the 50 open Power Combos seeded, all three agent sessions running, and the Claude + Gemini CLIs authenticated and responding
2026-08-18

Fixed the install counter showing zero; Windows installer hardened; Card 2 defaults to Gemini

  • Found and fixed the real reason the stats page showed zero installs despite real downloads: the first-run setup ping sent edition: "full", but the endpoint receiving it only accepted "v2" — every real install's completion signal was silently rejected. New installs now register correctly; installs completed before this fix were never counted and can't be recovered retroactively
  • install_windows.ps1 hardened: added a Windows-build preflight check (fails with a clear message instead of a confusing error three steps in on unsupported Windows versions), wrapped both WSL detection calls so a never-initialized WSL install no longer crashes the script, fixed the Linux-user-exists check to key off the actual exit code instead of output text, and switched the generated sudo password to a cryptographically secure generator
  • Card 2 now defaults to Gemini CLI (Google's free-tier API key works directly, no subscription required), restricted to Flash models only. Groq remains available as a background/fallback option but is no longer the default
  • All of the above CI-verified: install_windows.ps1 syntax-checked on a real Windows runner, install_cockpit.sh --unattended run end-to-end on a disposable Linux runner (exit 0)
2026-08-08

Full account and Stand-alone unified into one download; real installer bugs fixed; Everywhere relay activated

  • Full account and No-Account (Stand-alone) editions are now one codebase and one download (cockpit_install.tar.gz) — the installer asks which you want partway through instead of shipping two separately-maintained tarballs. Stand-alone's zero-network-calls promise is now enforced by a runtime flag file, checked before the one call that used to be edition-specific (an anonymous first-account-created ping)
  • Fixed real installer bugs found during testing: a nala update flag mismatch, a home-directory permission bit that could block service accounts (ollama) from starting, and a missing group membership that could deny ollama write access to its own models folder
  • New: a manual-install .zip for anyone who'd rather hand-copy files than run the install script — includes a new step-by-step Manual Install Guide for Linux, macOS, and Windows, plus the existing Setup/User guides. The install scripts are still bundled inside in case you change your mind partway through
  • Everywhere relay (remote phone/tablet access) is now actually wired up and reachable — was previously sold but had no activation path. The local rig now auto-starts the relay poller on cockpit_start.sh (self-gates on entitlement), and the Account panel has a real "Everywhere — pair a device" button linking to the phone-pairing page
  • Scope doc for Everywhere relay corrected — it was marked "NOT BUILT" but the backend/client were already real and functional, just not connected to the install flow or UI; that gap is what got fixed
  • All of the above CI-verified end-to-end (both editions, install to a running server) on Linux Mint/Ubuntu, ARM Linux, and macOS; Windows installer syntax-checked (full WSL2 run still needs a human on real hardware)
2026-08-03

New: Local AI Models Guide, complete Power Combos catalog, Marketplace title fix

  • New: a Local AI Models Guide, in plain language — real ollama pull/local-ai run commands and Hugging Face URLs for every model in the pool, organized by RAM/VRAM tier and what each one is good/weak at. Published on both ruggi.site and maestro.ruggi.site (Backups pages and its own dedicated page)
  • New on maestro.ruggi.site only: the Power Combos paper — how Parallel/Sequential/Judge patterns work, why Dual Mode on Supplier Card 3 is AI Cockpit's real differentiator, and multiple real usage examples per domain (coding, office, language, image, learning, data, creative, accessibility)
  • New: a complete combo catalog page — all 705 combos (free + premium, all three backends), each with its description, what it's good for, and a worked example, browsable by backend/tier/category
  • Fixed: several premium combo packs had 2-3 entries sharing the same name (same task, different underlying models) — Marketplace listings and downloaded combos were indistinguishable. Renamed by total model size (e.g. "... — Lite / Standard / Pro") across titles and the actual downloadable payload
  • Model files themselves are no longer hosted on the server — the guide instead points to the real upstream sources (Ollama's registry, Hugging Face) directly
2026-08-01

Pre-release pass: sitewide polish, QA infra, live demo, account management, real Marketplace pool

  • New QA infrastructure: temporary test accounts across all tiers, a re-runnable manual test plan, and real per-OS install CI runs (Linux, ARM Linux, macOS, Windows)
  • New: right-click is now suppressed sitewide (ruggi.site + maestro) except the browser's own title bar — copy/open-in-new-tab etc. are handled by a themed menu instead. F12 devtools unaffected
  • New: ruggi.site tool upgrades — Drive Migration Calculator (unit selector, custom transfer types, per-drive rate), Palette Generator (per-color pickers, Save-as, Saved Palettes with import/export), Media Subtitles (ARM Linux/macOS/Windows sections), a proper HTML page for the Claude Code Linux Mint guide (previously PDF-only), VeilStream's source-view link now opens a Download/View modal instead of a blank page
  • New: the live Web Demo's Supplier Slots now offer real predetermined options (Claude/Gemini/Codex/Groq/Qwen Code, Ollama/LocalAI/Dual), default to Claude · Groq · Dual, and Card 3's model/combo lists are populated for both backends. Unscripted prompts get Lorem Ipsum filler instead of a meta "not available" message. Workers and Tools panels also ship with real sample entries
  • Fixed a real bug in Card 3's Supplier Slots (v2 and demo): picking "Dual — Ollama + LocalAI" wrapped the long name into garbled-looking text on the collapsed card — now shows a short "DUAL" label with the full name as a tooltip
  • maestro.ruggi.site: renamed "Open on phone/tablet" to a distinctly-styled "Everywhere Relay" button; the homepage download counter now only counts real app downloads (v2/v1/Docker), not per-platform helper binaries; Q&A gained search and sort (by date/author/topic); the Account page is now a real account manager — editable profile, a Subscription tab, and a payment-method flow that's wired up but stays inert until billing goes live
  • New: the Marketplace page on maestro.ruggi.site now browses the same live content pool the in-app Marketplace uses — real titles, kinds, and download counts, no login required to look. The in-app Marketplace's kind filter also gained the "User Combos" option it was missing
  • Download page: the old per-platform cockpit_auth binary buttons are gone — that section now just explains the manual (non-scripted) install path and links back to the real tarball/zip downloads. Fixed a spacing bug that pinned the Docker card too close to the section above it
  • Fixed: Quick Utils' search icon overlapped the placeholder text — moved to the right side like a normal search field
2026-07-31

Dual Mode + Power Combos: real feature parity, mixed-backend combos, and a real bug hunt

  • New: the Ollama and LocalAI panels on Card 3 are now structurally identical — same master row (total count, filter, "+ new", collapse/expand-all), same categorized combo groups (Code, Office, etc.), same "Needs both backends" section, same model list with a sort control. Only the accent color and the model curation depth differ (Ollama's Tier 1-4 is hand-curated; LocalAI's is one real group, since it has no equivalent per-model data)
  • New: "Needs both backends" combos are now merged across both catalogs — a dual combo saved while Card 3 was set to Ollama shows up in the LocalAI panel too, and vice versa, instead of only appearing wherever it happened to be saved
  • New: missing-model combos are unselectable and disabled, but a combo you authored yourself stays editable even while it's missing a model — the whole point of opening Edit is to fix that. Hovering a missing combo now says which backend each missing model is missing from (e.g. "foo:3b (Ollama), bar:7b (LocalAI)")
  • New: the Combo Editor's model fields are now real dropdowns built from your actually-installed models (Ollama + LocalAI), not free-text — a newly authored combo can no longer reference a model you don't have. Model lists are alphabetized. Switching a step's backend correctly resets the model pick instead of carrying over an incompatible one
  • New: engine-level support for vision/multimodal steps (LocalAI's vision-capable models) — an images field now flows end-to-end from the combo API through to both Ollama's and LocalAI's actual wire formats. No shipped combo uses it yet; this is the plumbing a real one needs
  • Simplified: Card 3's Supplier Slots now only offers Ollama, LocalAI, or Dual — LM Studio and llama.cpp were listed but never actually wired up for Power Combos or the model picker. Either is still usable as a custom Worker. Also removed the dead "Custom..." option, which had no handler and silently broke Power Combos if picked
  • Fixed a real bug: the Combo Editor's Ollama model list could show up empty — dual_model.php's model-listing endpoint was gated behind Dual mode (so it errored whenever Card 3 wasn't literally set to "Dual") and, underneath that, used shell_exec('ollama list'), which silently fails under most web-server users. Both fixed — model listing now works regardless of Card 3's provider, via Ollama's own HTTP API
  • Fixed: saving/deleting/publishing a combo only refreshed the Ollama panel — an edited combo's row stayed stale on the LocalAI panel (or in "Needs both backends") until a hard reload. Both panels now refresh together
  • Fixed: a dual (mixed-runner) combo's missing-model check used to validate every referenced model against only one backend's installed list — a model genuinely installed on LocalAI could wrongly show as missing when checked from the Ollama catalog. Each model is now checked against its own step's actual backend
  • Installers: Ollama and LocalAI model suggestions now come with "Good for:" notes, and pressing Enter installs the whole suggested set by default (previously required typing "all"). Linux installer now also installs ffmpeg/pandoc, matching macOS
  • Fixed: the cockpit_auth licensing binary was missing from every downloaded tarball (see the notice above) — also added .zip downloads and Docker edition selection (v2/v1) this week
2026-07-29

Ollama + LocalAI together in regular chat, not just Power Combos

  • New: Card 3's model list now shows every Ollama model and every LocalAI model together — pick one of each and both stay loaded side by side (VRAM permitting)
  • New: a real fit-check runs every time you pick a model while the other slot is filled — if the two wouldn't fit in your detected VRAM, the other slot is freed automatically instead of silently over-committing
  • New: with both loaded, sending a prompt first asks both models to rate their own confidence (a quick 1-10, not a full answer), shows both scores, then lets you pick a winner or run the two together — parallel, sequential, or judge, the same patterns Power Combos already use
  • Picking just one model (either backend) works exactly like before — nothing changes unless you actually use the new dual slot
  • Known limit, shown right in the UI: LocalAI has no confirmed reliable "unload model" API, so freeing its slot updates the app's own state honestly but can't guarantee the model actually leaves memory yet
2026-07-28

Dual-mode Power Combos, CI-verified installers, real AMD GPU detection

  • New: Power Combos can now mix Ollama and LocalAI in the same run — both servers run genuinely in parallel (not switched back and forth), each step tagged with which one it uses. A pre-flight check confirms every server a combo needs is actually reachable before it runs, instead of failing partway through
  • New: the Docker bundle now installs and runs LocalAI alongside Ollama too, matching what the native install already did
  • New: hardware detection rewritten as a plain shell script — no compiled binary, no recompile needed for tweaks — and extended to detect real AMD GPU VRAM too (read straight from the kernel's own driver, not a vendor tool), not just NVIDIA
  • New: install scripts gained an unattended mode, and our CI now runs the real installers end-to-end on Linux, ARM Linux, and macOS — a genuine install, not a hand-rolled approximation of one, so a failure there means a real bug. Windows gets a lighter syntax check for now (WSL2 can't run end-to-end on cloud CI without nested virtualization)
  • Fixed: 7 real installer bugs this new CI caught and closed the same night — a text-editor package missing on plain Ubuntu, a file-permission ordering bug on Linux, an Ollama startup race, a wrong Homebrew path on Apple Silicon macOS, PHP never actually loading into macOS's web server, and two Windows-script timing/verification gaps
2026-07-27

Real hardware detection, LocalAI support for Power Combos

  • New: AI Cockpit can now detect your actual CPU cores, RAM, and GPU/VRAM (NVIDIA only, for now) and use it to raise the local-model auto-load ceiling past the old fixed 4B default — safe fallback to the original limit whenever hardware can't be read. Built and CI-compiled for Linux, macOS, Windows, and ARM; only Linux has actually been run on real hardware so far
  • New: Power Combos now work with LocalAI as Card 3, not just Ollama — same 50 free combos, translated to LocalAI-compatible model identifiers (same underlying models, different naming convention). Combos correctly hide themselves if Card 3 is set to anything else (LM Studio, llama.cpp) since those aren't wired up yet
  • Fixed: switching Card 2 to Groq showed a false "not installed" warning — Groq doesn't use a local binary at all, it routes through the encrypted Workers key store. The Supplier Slots picker now correctly shows key status instead of a misleading binary check
  • Fixed a real (if narrow) bug before it could ever affect anyone: installing a LocalAI combo pack would have silently overwritten Ollama's encrypted combo files — each backend now writes its own file
2026-07-26 – 2026-07-27

Bug sweep, Q&A board, Docker option, and honest beta labels

  • New: a Q&A board — ask a question with no account (guest posts stay up 7 days), sign in to answer or keep yours permanent
  • New: a Docker option for Windows/macOS — one bundle, Cockpit and Ollama share a container since the app talks to Ollama on a fixed local address
  • Fixed a real bug: the Power Combos panel was silently empty on every install (a response-shape mismatch between the backend and the UI) — the 50 free bundled combos now actually show up and have been tested working
  • Fixed: fresh installs could end up with the app looking in the wrong folder for your projects (the installer created one folder, the app defaulted to a different one) — Linux, macOS, and Docker installers all corrected
  • Fixed: the Supplier Slots picker (Card 1/2 alternate CLI choice) now correctly shows which CLI is actually configured after a normal page load, not just right after changing it
  • Kestrel Frontier and the Everywhere relay are both now clearly labeled Beta in the app itself, not just announced
  • Labeled the macOS installer, Windows installer, and Docker bundle Not Tested Yet on the download page — all written and reviewed carefully, but not yet run for real on their target platform. If you try one, please tell us how it went
  • Assorted site accuracy fixes: stale terminology, broken/incomplete stats tracking, and several documentation gaps found and closed
2026-07-25

Live Demo — try it before you install

  • New: a browser-based Live Demo — the real UI, real themes, real chat flow, no install and no signup, hosted right on our server
  • Agent replies are canned/scripted (no real Claude/Gemini/Ollama calls, no local-machine access) so it's safe to host publicly, but every screen, panel, and interaction is the genuine app
  • Linked from the homepage, Features, Pricing, Docs, and every guide page — look for the "▶ Live Demo" button
2026-07-24

Live Beta is here

  • AI Cockpit is out of "under development" and into open beta — download it and use it today, free
  • New: a No-Account Edition download alongside the registered build — same local app, zero SaaS account, ever, no network calls to our server, no Marketplace/remote-control features
  • The registered build now asks for a free account once at first run (no card) — local features stay free forever either way
  • Platform downloads added: native binaries for Windows, macOS, and ARM Linux / Raspberry Pi, alongside the existing Linux package
  • Kestrel Frontier rebalanced — slower pace, real multi-round combat, raids, and a proper win screen
  • Q&A page, Marketplace, and Setup/User Guides all fixed and verified live
  • Paid tiers marked "Free during beta" until monetization actually launches
2026-07-10

Combo catalog expanded to 235, Delegate task routing, in-app guides

  • Power Combo catalog grown from 50 to 235 recipes across 30 categories
  • New Delegate feature — set keyword/phrase rules that auto-route matching tasks to a chosen worker, combo, or Ollama model, regardless of active mode
  • User Guide and Setup Guide now open inside the app itself (searchable, with back/forward navigation) instead of an external browser tab
  • Collapse/expand added across all supplier dropdowns (Ollama tiers, Workers, Tools, Power Combos)
  • Full theme editor — every palette color is an editable swatch, export/import as JSON
2026-06-27 – 2026-07-02

Marketplace, Combo Store, and per-user data separation

  • Community Marketplace: browse, download, and publish Skills/Tools/Capabilities/Combos, with compatibility badges before you download
  • Power Combo Store — curated premium combo packs as a Content-tier perk
  • Multiple local users on one machine now get genuinely separate data — own tools, skills, combos, and SaaS account per login
  • Account Portal — profile and subscription management (registered-machines panel and creator payouts still in progress)
2026-06-19 – 2026-06-25

SaaS layer goes live

  • Cockpit Account system launches — Free / Content / Everywhere / Combined tiers
  • Lemon Squeezy billing integration (test mode)
  • Cross-platform compatibility metadata — every downloadable item shows whether it'll run on your machine before you get it
  • Cloudflare Turnstile bot protection on registration
Earlier — v1.0 / v2.0 foundation

Core application

  • Five supplier classes: configurable paid CLI, free REST, and local LLM server slots, plus cloud Workers and local Tools
  • Single / Pipeline / Broadcast / Plan multi-agent modes
  • Full local RAG — Library, Snippets, Accumulator, semantic search
  • 37 themes including 18 Protanopia-safe Dalton variants
  • Smart attachment routing (PDF/DOCX/audio/video/image), scheduler, chat export/import