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0.14.0

0.14.0 brings durable timers, sandboxed execution, and the diagnostic tools to understand exactly what’s happening inside a running workflow.

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New Components

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<Timer> — Pause a workflow for minutes, hours, or until a specific time

Durable timers that survive process restarts. The workflow engine persists the timer target to SQLite and automatically resumes execution when it fires — no long-lived process required. 
<Timer id="cooldown" duration="1h" />
<Timer id="market-open" until="2026-04-03T09:30:00Z" />

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<Sandbox> — Run untrusted code in isolation

Execute agent-generated code or compute-heavy tasks in isolated environments. Three backends:
RuntimeWhat it does
Bubblewrap (default)Local Linux namespace isolation, near-zero overhead
DockerContainer execution with CPU/memory limits and volume mounts
CodeplaneRemote VM workspace execution via SSH
Sandboxes capture filesystem diffs and present them for approval before applying changes to the host. Set autoAcceptDiffs to skip the gate for fully autonomous workflows. 
<Sandbox id="build" runtime="docker" image="node:22-slim" memoryLimit="2g">
  <Task id="compile" output={outputs.compiled}>Run the build</Task>
</Sandbox>

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<ContinueAsNew> — Prevent unbounded state growth in long-running loops

Replaces the current run with a fresh one, carrying over only the state you specify. Old run history remains queryable and the continuation lineage is preserved. Essential for daemon-style loops that would otherwise accumulate gigabytes of event history. 
<Loop id="daemon" until={false} continueAsNewEvery={1000}>
  {/* After 1000 iterations, state resets while preserving lineage */}
</Loop>

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<Signal> — Inject external data into a running workflow

Pauses execution until structured data arrives via the CLI or HTTP API. The payload is validated against a Zod schema and passed type-safely to downstream tasks. 
<Signal id="user-feedback" schema={z.object({ rating: z.number() })}>
  {(data) => <Task id="process" input={data} />}
</Signal>

smithers signal abc123 user-feedback --data '{"rating": 5}'

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CLI

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smithers why — Understand why a run is stuck

A diagnostic engine that calculates exactly what’s blocking a run and tells you how to fix it. 
$ smithers why abc123
Run abc123 is waiting-approval
  Blocked node:  review-gate
  Reason:        Approval requested — no decision yet
  Unblock:       smithers approve abc123
Detects waiting signals, pending approvals, stale heartbeats, retry backoffs, upstream dependency failures, and more.

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smithers events — Browse workflow event history

Filter by node, category, or time. Events stream incrementally so you never run out of memory on large runs. 
smithers events abc123 --type approval --since 5m

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smithers node — Deep-dive into a single node

Aggregates task attempts, tool calls, schema validation errors, Zod-validated outputs, and token usage with pricing. 
smithers node review-step -r abc123 --tools --attempts

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--watch flag

Live-updating views for ps, inspect, and events. 
smithers ps --watch --interval 2

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Durability

  • Transactional state writes — Critical SQLite updates are now grouped into atomic BEGIN IMMEDIATE transactions, preventing partial state if a process crashes mid-write.
  • Task heartbeats with checkpoints — Long-running tasks can report progress. If the task crashes, the retry execution receives the last checkpoint via lastHeartbeat to resume where it left off. 
    runtime.heartbeat({ progress: 75, cursor: "page-42" });
  • Auto-resume supervisor — Watches for orphaned runs with stale heartbeats and resumes them automatically. Atomic DB claim lock prevents concurrent supervisor races. 
    smithers supervise

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Engine & Storage

  • Frame delta encoding — 95-99% reduction in _smithers_frames storage. Frames are now stored as compact XML structural diffs instead of full snapshots, shrinking multi-gigabyte databases to megabytes.

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smithers init Improvements

  • Tier-based agent groupings (cheapFast, smart, smartTool) with automatic provider detection and fallback
  • Typed inputSchema objects on all seeded workflows
  • ValidationLoop with feedback injection and convergence detection
  • New ticket-kanban workflow for parallel ticket implementation in worktrees
  • smithers workflow create scaffold uses the tier-based system
  • All seeded files use zod/v4

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New Run Statuses

  • waiting-timer — paused on a durable timer
  • continued — completed via continue-as-new; a successor run was started

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New Metrics

timerDelayDuration, timersCancelled, timersCreated, timersFired, timersPending, dbTransactionDuration, dbTransactionRetries, dbTransactionRollbacks, sandboxActive, sandboxBundleSizeBytes, sandboxCompletedTotal, sandboxCreatedTotal, sandboxDurationMs, sandboxPatchCount, sandboxTransportDurationMs

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Error Codes

  • Added: RUN_NOT_FOUND, NODE_NOT_FOUND, INVALID_EVENTS_OPTIONS, SANDBOX_BUNDLE_INVALID, SANDBOX_BUNDLE_TOO_LARGE, TASK_HEARTBEAT_TIMEOUT, HEARTBEAT_PAYLOAD_TOO_LARGE, HEARTBEAT_PAYLOAD_NOT_JSON_SERIALIZABLE
  • Removed: PROMPT_EXISTS, PROMPT_MDX_INVALID, TICKET_EXISTS, TICKET_NOT_FOUND