v2026.5.7 — The Tenacity Release — Never gives up
Released: May 7, 2026 Theme: Vi no longer gives up halfway — it sticks with a task until it’s done Breaking-ish change: Secret redaction is back on by default (see Upgrade Recommendations)
This release rolls up 864 commits. The headline for you: Vi doesn’t forget the goal mid-task, and it doesn’t just freeze and stop. It remembers the outcome you asked for, retries on its own, and keeps going until the job is done.
Core Highlights
1. Multi-Agent Kanban Board — Vi Watches Its Own Work
When you hand Vi a batch of parallel tasks (say, working 10 customer tickets at once), this release spins up a background Kanban board to manage them, with four layers of protection:
| Mechanism | In plain terms |
|---|---|
| Heartbeat | Each sub-task regularly reports “still alive” — silence means it’s in trouble |
| Re-claim | If a sub-task stalls, the board takes it back and reassigns it |
| Zombie detection | Catches tasks that look running but are actually dead, so they don’t hog a slot |
| Retry | Failed tasks retry automatically — no manual cleanup |
What it feels like: hand Vi a batch and walk away. You don’t have to check back every few minutes to see if it stalled. If a sub-task fails, Vi takes it back and redoes it.
2. /goal — Lock the Goal, It Won’t Forget
Deep into a long conversation, AIs tend to “forget what you originally wanted.” This release adds /goal: state your goal once and lock it, and no matter how many dozens of turns or tangents follow, Vi aligns every step to that goal.
Use case: “/goal get the support auto-reply accuracy to 90% this week.” For the rest of the week, Vi keeps that north star and won’t drift.
3. video_analyze — Vi Can Watch Video Now
New video understanding tool. Hand Vi a video clip and it can watch the content, pull out the key points, and answer questions about it.
Use case: “Here’s a 3-minute product demo recording — summarize it into 5 bullets and email the team.”
4. ⚠️ Breaking-ish: 8 P0 Security Fixes
This release ran a security hardening pass. The ones that touch your daily use:
| Item | Change | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Secret redaction back on by default | The previous release (4/30) defaulted it off; this release flips it back on by default | API-key / token-looking strings in logs and tool output become *** again — safer to share screenshots |
| Discord role allowlist is guild-scoped | Role authorization is now bound to a specific server | An admin role in server A can’t bleed into server B |
| WhatsApp rejects strangers by default | Unknown numbers not on the allowlist get no response by default | Prevents strangers from harassing or abusing your Vi |
Heads up for realvco customers: the secret-redaction default is back on in this version (4/30 had it off). If you manually set redaction.enabled on the previous version, double-check the value is what you want. Default-on is safer for most customers.
5. Google Chat — The 20th Messaging Platform
New native Google Chat adapter. If your team runs Google Workspace, you can now talk to Vi directly inside Google Chat.
6. Checkpoints v2 — State Persistence Rewrite
Task checkpointing was rewritten end to end. Long tasks used to sometimes lose state on interruption; this release makes persistence solid, and the gateway auto-restores in-progress sessions after a restart — your conversations and tasks don’t reset to zero just because something restarted.
What it feels like: if the admin panel machine restarts for an upgrade or maintenance, Vi comes back and picks up your in-flight conversation — no need to re-explain from scratch.
7. Providers Are Now Plugins
Inference providers (OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini, etc.) moved from hardcoded-in-core to plugin modules. The upside for you: new providers no longer require a major Vi upgrade — a plugin update is enough.
8. Other Notable Items
- 7 locales: UI and prompts gain multi-language support
- Numerous stability fixes — long-running Vi instances accumulate fewer issues
Upgrade Recommendations
- Check secret redaction: this version flips the default back on. If you manually turned it off on 4/30, confirm the current value is what you want (most people keep the default on)
- Try
/goal: lock this week’s core goal and watch whether Vi stays more focused across turns - Batch-task customers: hand Vi a batch of tickets and watch the Kanban board auto-retry / re-claim
- Google Workspace teams: consider wiring up Google Chat so the team uses Vi in a familiar tool
- realvco customers: Checkpoints v2 means Vi auto-restores your conversation after the admin panel machine restarts — restarts are no longer a pain point