---
title: "Release notes"
description: "What changed in each kage release."
weight: 40
---

The authoritative, commit-level history lives in [`CHANGELOG.md`](https://github.com/tamnd/kage/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md) and on the [releases page](https://github.com/tamnd/kage/releases). This page summarises each version.

## v0.2.1

Packed ZIM archives now carry the metadata Kiwix expects, so a mirror shows up in a ZIM reader's library with a title, a description, and an icon instead of as a blank entry.

- **Mandatory metadata is always written.** Every archive now gets a `Name` and a `Description` (a line derived from the host when `--description` is not given), the two fields `zimcheck` flags as missing otherwise.
- **The favicon becomes the book icon.** When the mirror has a usable icon (an `apple-touch-icon.png`, `favicon.png`, or a PNG-based `favicon.ico`), kage rescales it to a 48x48 PNG and stores it as `Illustrator_48x48@1`, which is the icon Kiwix shows for the archive in its library. A site with no usable icon is packed without one rather than with a broken image.

## v0.2.0

Double-click apps, so a packed mirror opens like a real desktop app instead of a terminal program.

- **`kage pack --app`** wraps the viewer in a double-click app with the site's favicon as its icon. The flag builds on the binary format, so it composes with `--base` (including a `webview` base) and `--icon`. On macOS that is a `.app` bundle; on Linux, with a Linux `--base`, an [AppImage](https://appimage.org)-style `.AppDir` that becomes a single `.AppImage` when `appimagetool` is installed. The icon is pulled from the mirror automatically, or set with `--icon`.
- **A GUI-subsystem Windows base** ships in the release as `kage_<version>_windows-gui_<arch>.zip`. Pack a viewer onto it with `--format binary --base` and the resulting `.exe` opens with no console window behind it.
- **Smarter cross-platform packing.** kage reads the base binary's executable header to detect its target OS, so a Windows viewer always gets a `.exe` name and the right run hint, regardless of how the base file is named.

## v0.1.2

A security fix for how kage launches Chrome, clearer crawl errors, and a container image that actually runs.

- **Chrome keeps its sandbox on by default.** Earlier versions launched Chrome with `--no-sandbox` on every run, which switched off the browser's main security boundary even on an ordinary desktop where the sandbox works fine ([#10](https://github.com/tamnd/kage/issues/10)). The sandbox now stays on, and is dropped only where it genuinely cannot start: inside a container (detected from `IN_DOCKER` or `/.dockerenv`) or when running as root. Whenever it is dropped, kage says so on stderr, so the choice is never silent.
- **Transient asset failures retry.** A download that hits a 403/429, a 5xx, or a network blip is retried with a short backoff, which recovers files that bot-protection rejects on the first request of a burst. Permanent failures like a 404 are not retried.
- **Clearer crawl errors.** Each failure now logs a classified reason (`HTTP 403 Forbidden`, `timed out`, ...), the URL, and the page that referenced it, and the end-of-run summary lists what went wrong instead of printing only a count.
- **The container image runs.** Chrome aborted in the image with `chrome_crashpad_handler: --database is required`, so the crash reporter is now disabled inside a container, and the `kage` user has a writable home (the mounted `/out` volume) so output, resume state, and Chrome's profile no longer fail with a permission error ([#7](https://github.com/tamnd/kage/issues/7)).

## v0.1.1

Packing, so a clone can travel as one file instead of a folder.

- **`kage pack <mirror-dir>`** collapses a mirror into a single distributable file. `--format zim` (the default) writes an open ZIM archive, the same format [Kiwix](https://kiwix.org) uses, so the file opens in any ZIM reader and not just kage. `--format binary` appends that archive to a copy of kage to make a self-contained executable that serves the site offline when run. Packing is deterministic, so the same mirror produces a byte-identical file.
- **`kage open <file.zim>`** serves a packed ZIM back over a local HTTP server, the read side of `kage pack --format zim`.
- **An optional native-window viewer.** Built with `-tags webview`, `kage open` and a packed binary show the site in a real window backed by the operating system's WebView instead of a browser tab. The default build stays pure Go and opens the browser, so the release pipeline is unchanged.
- **A pure-Go `zim` package** that reads and writes the ZIM format: a fixed header, MIME and pointer lists, zstd or stored clusters, redirects, and a trailing MD5.

## v0.1.0

The first release. kage clones a live website into a self-contained folder you can browse offline, with every script stripped out.

- **`kage clone <url>`** renders each page in headless Chrome, strips all JavaScript, and localises CSS, images, and fonts to relative paths.
- **`kage serve [dir]`** previews a cloned folder over a local file server.
- **Idempotent and resumable.** Each page is keyed by the file it writes, so a page reached over http and https, or as `/index.html` versus `/`, is fetched once. Re-running resumes; `--refresh` re-renders in place; `--force` starts clean.
- **Polite by default.** Honours `robots.txt`, seeds from `sitemap.xml`, scopes to the seed host, and runs three parallel worker tiers.
- **Packaged everywhere.** Archives, `.deb`/`.rpm`/`.apk`, a multi-arch GHCR image with Chromium bundled, checksums, SBOMs, and a cosign signature.
