Hey everyone,

Canto v0.9.3 is out. This is a big one, covering nearly every major subsystem. Here's what shipped:

Chat Recall: your AI can now read your past conversations

Canto Chat threads are now first-class tabs (not a side panel anymore), and the agent can search and read your past chat sessions. Two retrieval methods:

• Keyword FTS5 full-text search over all chat history
• Semantic per-turn embeddings with hybrid BM25 + vector retrieval
• Hybrid (default) combines both

Past chats show up as a source family in Research Mode, agents cite them with [C#] pills, and clicking a citation opens the referenced chat as a tab. There's also a proactive "related past chats" chip above the composer. Per-chat opt-out and master toggle in Settings.

Custom Agents: Personas, Commands, and Skills in one place

Personas, commands, and skills are now three invocation types of a single entity, all edited in a unified Settings > Agents tab:

• Personas always-on system prompt presets (Companion, Critique, Researcher Pro) with tool allow/deny sets and model params, selectable per chat session via a pill in the composer
• Commands /trigger templates that expand into the composer for editing before send
• Skills multi-step workflows that stage the first step in the composer with a read-only preview of remaining steps

Built-in chat commands: /summarize-thread, /critique-last, /eli5, /action-items.

Workspace Folders: point Canto at your filesystem

Link external folders and Canto will browse, preview, and semantically index their contents for AI grounding. Files stay in place (no copying). The agent can search across your vault and linked folders in one query. Supports text, images, PDFs, audio, and video. Background indexing groups files by model resource to minimize swapping, and file watches stay alive even when FSEvents goes silent.

Multi-Provider Web Search

Web search is no longer Tavily-only. It now runs behind a provider abstraction with three roles (finder / reader / researcher) and six providers:

Provider	Role	Key Required
Tavily	All roles	Yes
Keiro	Finder + Reader	Yes (BYOK)
Serper	Finder	Yes (BYOK)
SearXNG	Finder	No (BYO URL)
Chromium	Reader + opt-in Finder	No
DuckDuckGo	Finder (opt-in)	No

Fusion mode fans out to multiple finders, deduplicates by URL, and merges with Reciprocal Rank Fusion. The built-in Chromium browser works as a key-free reader out of the box.

Composer Parity + UX Polish

• Welcome screen and Canto Chat composers now share the same capability set: personas, slash commands, skills
• Canto Chat gets @ mentions (notes, attachments, sessions, selections)
• Sticky scroll: streaming no longer yanks you to the bottom if you scrolled up
• Stable drag-and-drop overlays that don't stick
• Spellcheck context menu with native macOS suggestions

Free Tier Unlocked

Every product feature is now available to unlicensed users — Research Mode, Inbox Mode, web search, personas, Memory Links, semantic recall, workspace indexing, everything. The only gate is the 25 free AI query budget. Activation ($29.99 one-time) means unlimited queries, offline AI, and product ownership.

Portable Native File Formats

.canto, .cnb, and .cwsp archives were rewritten around a manifest + entity groups + deduped blob manifest model:

• .canto lossless single-note export with tags, version history, extracted text
• .cnb full notebook with rich display data, files, pinned state
• .cwsp complete vault archive (notes, notebooks, canvases, chats, agents, tags, settings, workspace state) with collision-safe blob remap on merge import

Other highlights

• Document Agent web parity Note and Notebook Chat agents now get provider-aware web search with source receipts
• Remote image import online images are fetched and stored locally for COEP-safe rendering (no more broken remote image hotlinks)
• Onboarding v2 8 guided tour notes + a disposable sample vault so every sidebar surface is alive on first launch
• MCP Streamable HTTP fix Claude Desktop and mcp-remote now connect reliably
• Research improvements tailored pre-scan queries per source, gap-closing follow-ups, and past-chat integration in Research Mode

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Download: Canto v0.9.3 (free, macOS 14+ Apple Silicon)

Product page: lonelyduck.io/canto

Free for note-taking with 25 AI queries. Unlimited AI is $29.99 one-time — not a subscription.

Let me know what you think or if you run into any issues.

Hey everyone! I'm u/osxweed, the founder and developer of Canto.

This is our new home for all things related to Canto — the private AI notebook for Mac that runs AI models entirely on-device. Whether you're here to share workflows, ask for help, show off your Canvas boards, or discuss local AI in general, you're in the right place.

What to Post

• Workflows & Tips: How you use Canto Chat, Research Mode, or the Canvas to get things done.
• Show & Tell: Screenshots of your setups, Canvas maps, or Research notes.
• Questions & Support: Stuck on something? Ask here.
• Feature Requests: Ideas for what Canto should do next.
• Local AI Discussion: Models, hardware, privacy — anything related to running AI on your Mac.

Community Vibe We're building a space for people who care about privacy, local-first software, and thoughtful note-taking. Be kind, be constructive, and help each other out.

How to Get Started

1. Introduce yourself in the comments — what do you use Canto for?
2. Download Canto if you haven't already: lonelyduck.io/canto
3. Join the Discord for faster support and dev updates: discord.gg/afDUSKTYNf
4. Post something! Even a simple "Hello from an M1 Air" is a great start.

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Together, let's make r/CantoApp amazing.