Changelog
A record of how OrbitOS is evolving — one release at a time.
October 2026v5.9
Ranks
People now hold a rank: Owner, Executive, Manager, Team Lead or Member. Each rank above Member wears its own halo on the avatar. Executives can do what owners do, and Managers can bring in outside guests and appoint Team Leads.
Org Chart
Drag people onto a chart and wire each one to the person they report to. Wiring someone under a department files them into it, so the roster, tickets and member dialogs all agree. The Teams page has a Tree view that mirrors the chart.
Internal Management and Admin Tools
Internal Management is the small group who run the workspace itself, and it can include people of any rank. They work from Admin Tools, which sits behind its own passcode, to set ranks, add or remove owners, create departments and wire the org chart.
Tickets
Raise an issue, an access request, an onboarding, an internal move or an offboarding from /tickets. Escalated issues climb the org chart one step at a time until someone resolves them, and the rest go straight to Internal Management. Every ticket keeps its history.
Vault Clearance
Vault documents are now Internal, visible to the workspace, or Restricted, visible only to owners and the person who uploaded them. Restricted files never reach anyone else's browser. The Vault locks again every time the page loads.
Monthly Health Report
On the 1st of each month, owners on paid plans get an email about the month that just ended: what got done, how much landed on time, what is still overdue, which projects slipped and who did the most work. It compares each month with the one before, and can be turned off under Settings, Notifications.
Search Your Transcripts
A new Transcripts page lists every transcribed call you were in. Search across all of them for a word or phrase and see the lines where it was said, then open the transcript to read, download or file it in the Vault. You only ever see calls you were asked to agree to.
Call Transcripts
A call can be transcribed if more than half the people in it agree, so in a two-person call both must say yes. Speech is turned into text in each person's own browser, and a finished transcript can be filed in the Vault.
October 2026v5.8
New Plans
OrbitOS now has four plans: Free, Standard at R299 a month, Pro at R699 a month, and Custom for studios of 16 or more, priced with our team. The pricing page lists exactly what each plan includes, from members and projects to call size, transcripts and vault storage.
More Room on Pro
Pro now holds 3 owners, 15 members and 25 active projects, up from 10 members and 10 projects.
Plan Limits Now Apply
Each workspace now works within its plan's limits. Nothing you already have is removed: a limit only stops you adding more, and the message tells you which limit you hit. Owners no longer count against member seats, so Free really is one owner plus two members.
Upgrading for Now
We're choosing the best payment gateway for South African studios. Until it's connected, owners can tap Request upgrade in Settings, Billing, or contact sales, and we'll move the workspace across and invoice directly.
Safer Checkout
A plan is only switched on once Payfast confirms the full price was paid. Seat limits are checked again when someone accepts an invite, and restoring an archived project counts towards the project limit.
Drag and Float Calls
Drag a minimized call anywhere on the screen by its header. New rooms also have a picture-in-picture button, so the call can float over other apps.
Floating Header
The app header and the website's navigation now float at the top of the page as a rounded glass bar, with the logo, avatar and selected tab rounded to match.
Liquid Glass
Cards, panels, dialogs, menus and the header bend the light behind them in Chrome and other Chromium browsers, on desktop and Android. Safari, Firefox, iPhones and anyone who asks for less transparency keep the frosted panels.
Messages on Phones
On a phone, Messages opens on your list of conversations. Pick one to open it full screen, and use the back arrow to return to the list.
Smoother Scrolling on Phones
The background now moves with the page without slowing scrolling down, and the planet no longer jumps when the address bar hides. The tab bar no longer slides under the logo, and it scrolls to show the tab you're on.
Guest Calls Fixed
Guests joining a call from an invite link saw a blank page and were never asked for their camera and microphone. The call room now loads for them.
October 2026v5.7
Your Own Calendar
Everyone now has a personal calendar at /calendar. It shows the meetings you're invited to and the tasks assigned to you, across every project. When someone books a meeting with you, it appears there straight away.
South African Public Holidays
Calendars mark South African public holidays by name, including Good Friday, Family Day and the Monday off when a holiday falls on a Sunday. Weekends and holidays are shaded, but you can still book meetings on them.
Clearer Meeting and Task Cards
Meetings and tasks on the calendar are now easier to scan. Amber means an invite is waiting for your answer, blue means you're going, and late tasks show in red.
Frosted Panels
The dashboard, projects, messages, vault and every modal now use the calendar's translucent panel, so the app reads as one surface. Panels turn solid if your system asks for less transparency or more contrast.
Call Lobby
Arrive early and you wait in a lobby until the room opens or a host joins, then you're let in automatically. The room warns everyone before it closes.
Call Room Notices
The call room shows a short notice when someone joins, leaves or sends a chat message, so you don't miss them while you're looking at the video.
Images in Chat
You can paste or attach images in direct messages and group chats.
Smoother Motion
Panels, tabs and modals now move with spring physics, so they settle naturally and can be interrupted mid-move. The selected navigation tab shrinks to its icon to save space.
Plain-Language Errors
Error messages say what went wrong and what to do next, without internal jargon. Placeholders and headings were rewritten in the same way.
September 2026
Voice & Video Calls
Deployed the call room on Daily, covering direct calls between operators and multi-party rooms. The prejoin screen and connection states are handled inside the app rather than left to the provider's defaults.
Call Access & Tier Limits
Participant and guest ceilings resolve from the workspace tier and are enforced before a room is ever issued. Incoming call subscriptions are scoped by organisation, so a ring never crosses workspace boundaries.
Call Room Theming
The embedded call surface now carries the OrbitOS palette and follows the operator's light or dark mode instead of rendering in the provider's own chrome.
Audible Ringing
Internal calls ring through a generated tone on both ends, driven by a shared audio context and switchable per operator from notification settings.
Direct Messages
Shipped workspace messaging with one-to-one conversations and groups. Posting rights derive from role rather than channel ownership, and group size is bounded by the workspace tier.
Unread State & Chimes
Added an unread hook that drives the message rail, and a notifier mounted at the application root so a new message chimes wherever the operator happens to be.
Emoji, GIFs & Stickers
Added an emoji picker and a media picker backed by a session-gated, rate-limited search route. The provider key stays on the server, and attachments are validated before they reach a thread.
Conversation Clearing
Operators can clear a conversation from their own rail without removing it for anyone else in the thread.
Member Profiles
Introduced the member profile panel, reachable from both the message rail and the personnel hub.
Presence from Heartbeat
Presence is now decided by a live heartbeat rather than a self-set status that never decays. A stored status only counts once the heartbeat has vouched for it, and relative times tick without a refresh.
Password Reset Delivery
Reset credentials are minted server side and carried by Resend, replacing the client SDK path that had no delivery log and no bounce reporting. A reset that never landed used to look identical to one that was never sent.
Unified Caller Resolution
Every server action now authenticates through one shared caller resolver instead of parsing the session itself. Task references were reworked in the same pass.
Dashboard Consolidation
Collapsed the separate owner and member dashboards into a single view, and retired the team workload card in favour of a personal metrics card and a workspace attention card.
Projects in Focus
The dashboard now spotlights projects by urgency and due date, with the ranking rules pinned by unit tests.
Shared Application Chrome
Extracted the application header and profile link into shared components, so navigation reads the same across dashboard, projects, messages, teams, settings, and profile.
Reduced Motion Coverage
Scroll reveals and JavaScript-driven effects now honour the reduced-motion preference, closing the gap left by CSS transitions that already respected it.
August 2026
Operational Tiers & Billing
Introduced four subscription tiers with per-tier resource limits enforced at the server boundary. Integrated PayFast checkout with a signed webhook for subscription state reconciliation.
Calendar Feed Subscriptions
Personal calendar feeds now publish over a signed, revocable token to any iCalendar client. Feed URLs are generated per operator and can be rotated without disturbing workspace state.
Availability Resolution Engine
Implemented free/busy computation and open-slot discovery across workspace personnel, giving scheduling a deterministic source of truth.
Event Management System
Deployed the project calendar with day, week, and month projections, a structured event creation flow, collision-aware layout, and validated event schemas backed by dedicated Firestore indexes.
Settings Console
Consolidated general, workspace, notification, and security controls into a unified settings surface built on a shared primitive set.
Preference & Theme Layer
Added light, dark, and system colour modes applied before first paint, alongside reduced-motion, 24-hour clock, and manual presence overrides persisted per operator.
Session & Perimeter Hardening
Moved authentication to httpOnly session cookies with middleware-enforced route guards, validated redirect targets, and an expanded permission matrix across every server action.
Telemetry Stream Guard
Rebuilt the activity stream endpoint with throttling and backpressure protection to keep long-lived connections stable under sustained workspace load.
Marketing Surface Unification
Extracted shared navigation and footer chrome across all public pages, and introduced generated OpenGraph imagery for link previews.
Data Integrity Backfill
Shipped a backfill routine alongside expanded Firestore rules and indexes to normalise historical records against the current schema.
Execution View Tabs
Reorganised the project surface into tabbed execution views, separating the directive table, the file explorer, and the command center behind one shell.
Task Due Reminders
Assignees are emailed 24 hours before a directive falls due, dispatched from a scheduled run with its own test coverage.
Engagement Scheduling
Added the engagement creation dialog with validated form logic, and reworked its layout to hold up on wider screens.
RSVP Responses
Invitees respond to an engagement from a signed link, and the organiser is notified when a response lands. RSVP and calendar feed links now resolve through a single app URL helper.
Scheduled Mail Consolidation
Added a due-today digest and a metered end-of-day debrief, then fitted four scheduled mails into the two cron slots the hosting plan allows. The due-today digest and owner debrief were retired shortly after.
Mail Health Monitoring
Added a mail health endpoint and a dashboard banner that raises delivery trouble to owners instead of leaving it in the logs.
Delivery Failure Tracking
Provider webhooks now record bounces and delivery failures against the send that caused them.
Canonical Host Correction
Made www the canonical host rather than the apex, and routed generated links through the configured application URL.
Framework Security Update
Moved Next.js from 15.5.18 to 15.5.23 to take upstream security fixes.
Lint & Test Baseline
Added an ESLint configuration and cleared what it found, untracked build artefacts from the repository, and covered iCalendar generation, invite dispatch, the guest registry, presence, and the due-reminder run with unit tests.
July 2026
System Explorer
Introduced the project file explorer with server-side listing actions, giving each project a navigable document surface.
Signed Asset Uploads
Moved file ingestion to signature-authorised uploads, removing credential exposure from the client.
Download Path Correction
Resolved cross-origin download failures by resolving stored secure URLs directly and detecting resource type for document formats.
Command Center
Deployed the live operations feed with throttled activity streaming and scroll-aware notification handling.
Multi-Assignee Directive System
Directives now support multiple assigned operators, with task creation, editing, and personnel telemetry updated to reflect shared ownership.
Chronological Stream Integrity
Enforced explicit timestamp ordering with top-down flow and restored smooth auto-scroll on the activity feed.
June 2026
Project Priority List
Established the project dashboard architecture with formal data models, server actions, and priority-ordered workspace views.
Project Lifecycle Actions
Implemented rename, archive, priority reassignment, and cascading deletion as authorised server-side operations.
Personnel Hub
Introduced member workload visualisation and operational status reporting across the workspace roster.
Authentication Surfaces
Rebuilt the login and workspace registration flows to match the Architectural Void system.
May 2026
Dashboard Orchestration Service
Centralised dashboard composition behind a single orchestration layer, separating view assembly from data retrieval.
Team Management
Delivered the dedicated team page with member administration and hardened removal actions.
Member Invitation Dispatch
Wired the invitation dialog to transactional email delivery over a verified sending domain.
Automated Daily Digest
Scheduled a morning digest email summarising outstanding directives and workspace movement.
Next.js 15 Migration
Upgraded the application framework and dependency surface, aligning routing and server action contracts with the current release.
Workload & Profile Controls
Added the team workload card and operator profile interface for self-service identity management.
File Access Enforcement
Scoped project file read access to verified organisational membership at the rules layer.
Brand Identity Assets
Introduced the application icon and branding assets across the product and public surfaces.
April 2026
Workspace Security Hardening
Migrated member invitations to atomic server-side transactions. Implemented identity parity validation to prevent unauthorized privilege escalation.
Collaborative Directive Log
Unlocked task note contributions for all workspace members. Hardened Firestore security rules to permit operational updates while maintaining strict organizational isolation.
Architectural Void Evolution
Finalized the transition to a high-fidelity monochromatic aesthetic. Purged legacy accent colors in favor of a curated silver-white and black design system.
Destructive Protocol Stabilization
Standardized warning modals and confirmation flows for system-wide deletions. Improved state management and error feedback during resource removal.
Integrated Directive Deletion
Implemented secure task removal capabilities for both owners and authorized members within the Master Objective List.
Telemetry Feed Optimization
Enhanced real-time activity logs with high-fidelity glow effects and Bold Metadata Terminology for improved operational clarity.
Identity & Access Stabilization
Reworked authentication flow to prevent cross-workspace identity corruption. Strengthened role enforcement across the system.
Real-Time Workspace Sync
Introduced live profile syncing. Workspace state now updates instantly without requiring refresh.
Project Deletion Protocol
Implemented secure server-side cascade deletion with confirmation safeguards.
Operational Dashboard Refinement
Improved task visibility and clarified project-task relationships.
Design System Alignment
Unified UI under the Architectural Void system. Removed legacy color inconsistencies.
Methodology Page
Introduced OrbitOS methodology as a structured operational philosophy.
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