Kimi Code changelog: what's new each month

Every stable Kimi Code 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

11 releases: 0.40.0 → 2.1.1

September brought major updates to Kimi Code including a jump to version 2.0, new collaboration features, and numerous stability improvements. The month focused on refining the user experience, improving performance, and introducing experimental multi-agent modes.

Action needed

Subagent model pool ([secondarymodel]) now always enabled; KIMICODEEXPERIMENTALSECONDARYMODEL environment variable removed.
Turn-level file history experimental flag removed; feature always enabled.
kimi acp subcommand no longer honors KIMICODELEGACYFLAG; always runs on default agent engine.

Highlights

Tower multi-agent collaboration mode added (experimental) for coordinating multiple agents on tasks.
AI session titles now generated automatically after the first turn, with ability to regenerate.
Subagent model pool enabled by default for improved agent capabilities.
Media rail in the web composer lets you preview and manage images and videos while composing.
Significant performance improvements for startup time, session loading, and long conversation handling.

New

Plugins panel in Settings for browsing, installing, enabling, disabling, and removing plugins.
Tower mode with /tower command for experimental multi-agent collaboration with base branch support.
Session rating prompt appears occasionally above the input box.
Experimental Updates panel showing paginated progress messages from main and subagents.
Code wrap toggle in the diff panel.
Desktop app installer via /desktop command and kimi install-app subcommand.
Mermaid diagram rendering in terminal code blocks.
TUI fullscreen layout mode (experimental) with click-to-fold interaction for folded blocks.

Improved

Turn-level file history now always enabled; experimental flag removed.
Bash tool's cwd parameter no longer restricted to workspace.
Config.toml updates now preserve comments, key order, and formatting.
Background question answers delivered directly to agent instead of via saved output file.
Auto permission mode no longer blocks dangerous or statically unanalyzable commands.
Conversation scrollbar made thicker and easier to click and drag.
Finished tool calls collapsed in transcript to header plus outcome row with optional output expansion.
Session startup and loading performance significantly improved with incremental search indexing.

Fixed

New content not appearing after auto-compaction.
Models and providers transiently disappearing when config.toml saved non-atomically.
Background questions being cancelled when agent finished its turn.
Session titles in forked sessions being overwritten by auto-generated titles.
Occasional crash when cancelled turn was running.
Steered messages appearing twice after turn interruption.

August 2026

12 releases: 0.32.0 → 0.39.1

August brought major workflow improvements including multi-skill activation, session management enhancements, and experimental features for remote access and multi-agent orchestration. The month focused on refining existing features and expanding mobile and web UI capabilities.

Action needed

Loopcontrol config keys renamed: maxretriesperstep to maxattemptsperstep, maxstepsperrun to maxstepsperturn.
CLI surfaces (interactive TUI, kimi -p, kimi acp, kimi export, kimi provider) now run on agent-core-v2 engine by default; set KIMICODELEGACYFLAG=1 to revert.
Edit and Write tools now require reading an existing file before modifying it and reject writes when the file changed on disk since last read.

Highlights

Activate multiple skills in a single prompt and use the new WaitFor tool to have agents wait for background tasks to complete within the current turn.
Web sessions can now be marked as done to keep the open list focused, with a new cross-workspace session management page for triage.
Mobile support improved with bottom-sheet panels for slash commands and file mentions, plus a flat/by-workspace session list view.
Windows native CLI now supports automatic updates, and Windows users can install the built-in Kimi Computer Use capability.
Experimental features added for remote access and multi-agent tower mode orchestration.

New

Multiple skill activation: type / after whitespace to insert additional skill tokens in a single prompt.
WaitFor tool allows agents to wait for background task completion within the current turn instead of ending and being re-invoked.
Remote Control experimental feature for accessing local web sessions remotely (enabled via environment variable).
Tower mode experimental feature for multi-agent orchestration (enabled via environment variable).
Session Done/Reopened status to keep the open sessions list focused, with cross-workspace session management page.
Windows native CLI automatic update support.
Windows support for built-in Kimi Computer Use capability on x64 systems.
OAuth support for multiple login methods (kimi.ai and kimi.com).

Improved

Web UI now shows flat and by-workspace tabs in the mobile session list.
Right sidebar redesigned as a multi-tab panel with improved organization.
Slash command and @-mention panels converted to bottom-sheet grab handles on mobile for better accessibility.
Running foreground Bash commands or subagents can now be moved to background with a button.
LaTeX math formulas ($ / $$) now render as Unicode formulas in messages.
Image and video tool results open in fullscreen preview with zoom support on click.
Background agent panel renamed from Subagent and shows live work progress of subagents.
Web UI stutter reduced while AI responses stream in long sessions.

Fixed

Token counts after compaction now match real context size instead of reporting far below.
Multi-second freezes at startup resolved when large search index loads, replays, or rebuilds.
Sessions no longer hang on approval prompts when using self-hosted OpenAI-compatible endpoints.
Pasted images and videos now reach the model on first send.
Config file entries no longer lost when file has syntax errors or external edits.
Bare URLs in chat output no longer absorb following CJK characters that broke links.

July 2026

27 releases: 0.21.0 → 0.31.1

July brought major engine standardization, improved image handling, and extensive stability fixes. The local server now runs on the modern agent-core-v2 engine by default, and custom agents can be defined via Markdown files.

Action needed

kimi server replaced with kimi web; background daemon and OS-service lifecycle commands removed.
selecttools model capability renamed to dynamicallyloadedtools.
Micro-compaction now defaults off (was on by default).

Highlights

Plugins can now provide slash commands and custom agents; agents can be defined as Markdown files with optional restrictions on sub-agent delegation.
Images are automatically compressed before reaching the model, with original and compressed details sent together; videos in prompts now reach the model directly without extra tool round trips.
Thinking effort persists across turns for Kimi models by default; support added for thinking level selection in IDE clients via ACP.
Web UI redesign with new design system, colors, typography, and improved responsive layout; session export for diagnostics.
Foreground-only web server lifecycle: kimi web now always starts fresh, and background daemon commands are removed.

New

Server-side key-value store API for persisting web UI preferences.
Click-to-enlarge for images in web chat; any file type can be attached and uploaded to server.
Archived sessions page in Settings to browse and restore archived sessions.
Swarm footer replaced with inline tool card showing live subagent progress.
/copy slash command to copy last assistant message to clipboard.
/export-debug-zip command and session diagnostic export to download session and logs as ZIP.
AskUserQuestion now feeds answers back as structured data with question text and option labels.
Global tool gating to constrain which tools agents may use, with per-session override.

Improved

Conversation compaction now keeps only recent user prompts plus summary; micro-compaction defaults off.
Compaction summaries show forward plans instead of only immediate next steps; visible in TUI with Ctrl-O.
Model alias overrides survive provider catalog refreshes; set under [models."<alias>"].overrides.
Thinking effort routing improved: non-Kimi providers preserve configured values, Kimi models validate runtime selections.
Default per-step LLM retry budget increased from 3 to 10 attempts with exponential backoff.
Subagent timeout increased from 30 minutes to 2 hours, configurable via [subagent] timeoutms.
Foreground Bash commands that hit timeout move to background instead of being killed.
Goal completion and updates produce final outcome summaries; goal wall-clock budgets enforced during work.

Fixed

TUI rendering issues causing blank screens and missing input boxes; screen now clears fully on session switch.
Sessions with interrupted tool calls between call and result no longer silently drop later messages.
Strict provider errors from non-adjacent tool calls/results and alternating-role violations.
Duplicate transcript content in scrollback during streaming.
Image compression note leaking into visible messages and session titles.
Thinking content rendering as blank bullet lines; empty thinking steps in preserved-thinking history no longer stuck sessions.

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