CowAgent changelog: what's new each month

Every stable CowAgent release summarised by month: the highlights, new features, improvements, fixes and anything you need to act on. 3 months covered; the current month updates daily.

September 2026

3 releases: 2.1.8 → 2.2.0

September brought major team collaboration features to CowAgent, enabling multiple Agents to work together in shared sessions with task delegation. The month also introduced skill installation from external sources and improved MCP server configuration.

Highlights

Create and manage teams of Agents with individual configurations, skills, and knowledge bases that can be shared or isolated.
Run multi-Agent sessions where you can direct messages to specific team members using @ mentions, with automatic task delegation to the best-suited Agent.
Install skills from Cow Skill Hub, GitHub, ClawHub, or local files with preview and confirmation before installation.
Configure MCP servers directly in the UI with support for stdio, SSE, and HTTP transports.
View execution history and details of task runs on a dedicated execution records page.

New

Team management: create Agents, configure responsibilities and default models, and copy setups from existing Agents.
Multi-Agent group chat with lead Agent designation and task delegation across team members.
Multiple channel instances of the same type, each bound to a single Agent or Agent team.
Manual task creation and editing on the tasks page with channel and recipient selection.
Channel recipient management to designate trusted recipients per channel instance.
Skill installation from multiple sources with preview before confirming installation.
MCP server configuration UI supporting stdio, SSE, and Streamable HTTP transports.
Tool retrieval diagnostics showing how MCP tools were ranked and why retrieval fell back.

Improved

Multi-Agent session selector now clearly marks the lead Agent and simplifies single-Agent views.
Task handoff replies from delegated Agents now stream as separate messages with their own name and avatar.
Team session management clears context for all participants and shows members in the session list.
Group chat entry added to the desktop Team page for starting sessions directly from Agent teams.
Model providers can now configure model list details including name, type, context window, and max output.
Skills, uploaded file previews, and website directories are now scoped per Agent for better data isolation.
@ picker in multi-Agent sessions updated for improved team member selection.
Execution records page provides a new way to review task run history and details.

Fixed

Task delegation failures in multi-Agent group chats where non-lead Agents could not delegate tasks.
Images generated by non-default Agents failing to render on Web console and desktop client.
Channels failing to start in the desktop client.
QQ channel not reconnecting automatically after silent WebSocket disconnect.
Agent answering on behalf of a team member in group conversations.
Deleted Agents lingering in member lists, preventing tool use in direct chats.

August 2026

2 releases: 2.1.6 → 2.1.7

August brought major architectural improvements to CowAgent, including sub-agent delegation to reduce token usage and multi-workspace support for better project organization. The agent can now manage multiple independent workspaces while maintaining shared system resources.

Highlights

Sub-agents can now run in parallel with isolated context, keeping the main conversation focused and saving tokens.
Create and open any directory as a project workspace, with each session bound to its own workspace to prevent interference.
Fine-grained permission controls across three levels let you set access rights independently for each session.
The agent automatically delegates to specialized sub-agents by default with no setup needed.
Per-session model selection lets you switch models for individual sessions without changing the global default.

New

Sub-agent delegation with two built-in types (general-purpose and explore) plus custom types defined via markdown files.
Parallel execution of multiple sub-agents with results gathered by the main agent.
Multiple workspaces feature allowing any directory to be opened as a project workspace.
Per-session workspace binding so concurrent tasks stay isolated from each other.
Per-session model selection independent of the global default.
Three-tier permission system (read-only, workspace-write, full-access) configurable per session.
Scheduled-task notifications with OS notification support in the desktop client.
Clickable permission denial hints to adjust access rights on the spot.

Improved

Intermediate agent work is isolated from the main conversation, reducing token usage and keeping focus.
Session list now grouped by workspace with pinning, reordering, renaming, and deleting capabilities.
Update dialog now links to release notes for easier tracking of changes.
Custom providers can now accept free-form model input.
Backend startup behavior improved with automatic port retry and better error reporting.
Sub-agent nesting depth, concurrency, and timeout are tunable via config.json.

Fixed

Backend startup no longer hangs unexpectedly.
Real error messages now surface on startup failure instead of generic messages.

July 2026

3 releases: 2.1.3 → 2.1.5

July brought major improvements to CowAgent's desktop client with a complete bundled runtime, rich visual management features, and powerful new file handling capabilities. The month focused on making CowAgent accessible out of the box and enhancing how users interact with documents and workspace files.

Highlights

Full Agent runtime now bundled with the desktop client—install and launch immediately without setting up Python or dependencies.
Browse, search, preview, and reference workspace files directly in the chat interface with drag-and-drop support.
Desktop knowledge base management mirrors the Web console with automatic index maintenance preventing document loss.
Native browser tool support with optimized startup using system Chrome or Edge.
Schedule tasks silently in the background or manually trigger them on demand without waiting for the next scheduled run.

New

File preview panel shows HTML, documents, and images; file paths in replies render as clickable cards.
Workspace file browsing with search and local download capabilities.
Reference files and directories in chat using @ syntax to pull them into context.
New searchfiles tool searches workspace by content or filename using ripgrep for speed on large directories.
Background command execution for long-running tasks like starting services or following logs.
Desktop client supports password-protected login.
Windows installers are now code-signed to reduce security warnings.
Channel onboarding via QR code scanning directly in the app.

Improved

Chat experience now includes streaming replies, session management, tool-call step display, Markdown rendering, and image/video/file preview.
Visual management pages for configuration, models, knowledge base, tasks, skills, and memory match the Web console.
File edit operations no longer rewrite surrounding indentation on fuzzy matches and avoid landing on wrong occurrences when text repeats.
Write and edit operations validate structured file formats and report syntax errors before writing.
Read output now always includes line numbers for easier citation and reference.
Knowledge base index automatically rebuilds from the actual directory tree preventing drift.
Automatic version checking with one-click updates optimized for download speed across regions.
Foreground command timeout increased; UI refined for chat, message bubbles, tool-call steps, and channel pages.

Fixed

In-document links in the desktop knowledge base now navigate correctly.
Desktop window now loads properly after setting a password.
More accurate file editing with replace-all functionality.

Summaries are written automatically from the official release notes (full changelog ↗); check the original notes before relying on a detail. CowAgent: pricing, features and alternatives · All changelogs