Changelog

What's new in his shell.

Every release, newest first. He updates himself, so most of this has already reached you. The latest is 0.78.0: The Council, every slash command and undo to here.

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117releases

473new things

165fixes

14made faster

0.78.0 LatestOctober 9, 2026

31 new16 fixed16 changed

The Council, every slash command and undo to here

New

Every Claude Code slash command, in the box. Type / and the menu lists all of Claude Code's own commands, each with what it does and a claude code tag. The ones that work here go straight to Claude Code; the ones Shellby has a screen for open it (/resume opens History, /config Settings, /doctor Health, /usage your meters, /memory, /hooks and /skills the Toolbox, /plugin the Skill Shop, /login signs you in); and the few that only work in Claude Code's own terminal, like /theme, say why and offer to open the conversation in one.
Keeps up by itself. New commands show up as Claude Code adds them, ones it drops disappear, and a command it can't run here gets a plain answer instead of silence.
The "Here's my plan" card has an Expand button that shows the whole plan, in bigger text, without scrolling a small box. Collapse puts the box back. It still works after the plan is decided.
/clear, as in the terminal. Type /clear (or pick Clear from Ctrl+K) and the conversation starts over in the same tab: the screen empties, the context meter goes back to zero, and Claude forgets everything said so far. Same folder, same copy, and /export still has what came before.
Every conversation at a glance. The Ctrl+Shift+A list now shows each conversation's lane: tests red or ready to merge, how many files and lines its copy changed, and which other conversations touched the same files.
One answer for many. When several conversations are waiting on the same thing ("3 want npm test"), the list groups them with Allow all and Deny all. Plans, questions and files Claude wrote still get read one at a time.
A merge order, and Line them up. Once two or more copies of a project are done, the list suggests the order to bring them home: fewest overlaps first, then smallest. Line them up rebases each onto the one before and runs the project's checks in between. It asks before rewriting anything, leaves copies with uncommitted work alone, and stops at the first conflict (undoing that rebase) or red check.
The Council, a new tab on Shellby's screen: put a decision to a table of advisor crabs (Skeptic, Builder, Guard, Player and Elder) with Shellby in the chair at its head. Each one argues their own angle in a speech bubble and drops a vote on the table, and Shellby unrolls a verdict scroll with where they agree, where they split and what to do next.
Three ways to sit: Quick answers for the whole table in one call (about the cost of one reply), Full has each advisor think alone on a small model before the chair rules, and Debate adds a round where they answer each other. Advisors get no tools and no history, so a sitting stays cheap, and the minutes show what it cost.
"Include this project" hands the council a few KB about the repo (README, recent commits, uncommitted changes) so they don't spend anything looking around. Send the verdict to the chat, copy the minutes, ask a follow-up, or reread any of the last 20 sittings for free. Seat your own advisors (up to three) from Seats.
Attach what I just saw. Turn it on in Settings → General and a button by the chat box starts a new task with the error you just copied, the last background command that failed (with the end of its output), or a picture on your clipboard. Shellby only looks when you press it, takes out anything that looks like a secret, and tells Claude to treat it as data, not instructions.
Address the review, offered. A new comment on one of your pull requests now offers "Address the review" on its notification, the way a red build offers "Fix this build". It opens the sheet with what would be sent; nothing starts until you press Send. A busy pull request offers it at most once every half hour.
Queue it for tonight. Tasks on the Routines page's queue can start "When my limit resets" or "Tonight" (at 1am). One due tonight that finds you at your limit waits for the reset.
Seventeen new bugs for the Bugdex. The book now has 83 bugs to catch, up from 66, and every habitat that had a gap gets something new. Look out for broken JSON, React render loops, hydration mismatches, duplicate keys, missing database tables, rate limits, git without a repo, overwritten local changes, branches that aren't there, a sulking Docker daemon, garbled text encodings, unused Go variables, tests that time out or never run, 401s and 403s, missing env vars, and SSH keys git won't accept. Each one has its own portrait and field notes.
Your notes show up in Next up. A project's open notes now sit in its Next up list, after your tasks, with Do this, Done and Open in Notes.
Note it for later, from the chat. Ask Claude to note something and it lands on that project's Notes list, marked "From Claude". Running one opens it as a draft, so you read it before it's sent.
Pin a note to the top, from its ⋯ menu.
Find a note. A list with more than 10 notes gets a find box.
Ask's verdict stays on the note. After you Ask about a note, it shows what Claude said: Do it, Do it differently or Skip it.
Earlier runs. A note remembers its last few Plan, Build and Ask conversations; the ⋯ menu opens the older ones.
Said no five times? Block it for good. Deny the same command, folder or site in five different turns and Shellby offers a permission deny rule, so Claude Code stops asking. It goes in the project's own .claude/settings.local.json, or your ~/.claude/settings.json when the nos came from more than one project, and the card shows exactly what changes in that file before you add it.
Search inside past conversations. Type in History's search box and, under the titles, every message you or Claude wrote that says it shows up with the words marked, from every project and from conversations synced over from your other PCs. Narrow it to one project, one PC or the past week, month or year, and click a hit to open the conversation right at that message.
A turn's changes read as a story. When Claude works in steps (edit, run the tests, fix, edit again), the files it changed come in numbered steps titled by what it said it was doing, each with its own line counts, and anything a command changed on its own is listed last.
Rewind is a timeline. Esc Esc shows your messages as stops down a line, each one "before turn N", with how many files and lines going back there undoes.
Pin a project to the top. Pin to top in a project's ⋯ menu keeps it first on the list, whatever the order. A pin icon by its name shows it.
"Needs you" at the top of a project's page. A failing build, a crashed dev server, vulnerable dependencies or work that's only on this PC each get a line at the top of the page. Tap one to go where it's fixed.
Links to every part of a project's page. A row of links stays at the top as you scroll: Next up, Pulse, Notes, Health, Releases and the rest are one tap away.
Search projects from the keyboard. Ctrl+F on Projects goes to the search box, Enter opens the top match, and Esc clears it.
Three more gauges in his tank. A tide gauge on the glass shows how much of your 5-hour usage window is left, the Sunken Chest glints for a minute when a pull request of yours merges, and a message in a bottle bobs at the surface while a recap or your weekly card is waiting. Each has its own switch under Gauges in disguise.
The Glass Thermometer. Check-Up now brings a thermometer you can hang anywhere in his tank, and it reads your GPU (or CPU) temperature.
Undo to here. Every step of a turn that changes your files now has a checkpoint just before it. Once the turn ends, press Undo to here on a step and your files go back to how they were right before it, later steps included, while the conversation stays put. If you've changed one of those files since, he asks first.

Fixed

After a release, a new conversation's copy of the repository gets its packages again without Claude asking to install them. Packages built only for other systems no longer count as missing from your checkout.
Removing a copy from "Copies left behind" no longer makes the whole section vanish for a few seconds and come back. The rest stay put, so you can clear several in a row.
Some errors were filed as the wrong bug. Broken JSON was caught as a Syntax Slug, an SSH key rejection as a Locked Limpet, a missing os.environ key as a Keyless Krill, and a test timeout as a Dawdling Snail. Each one now has its own bug. Raising a test's timeout no longer counts as fixing it.
Deleting a note can be undone, and so can Clear.
Rewinding or undoing an old turn no longer fails with "tidied away by git". Each turn's before and after are kept under Shellby's own private git refs (never a branch or the stash), the newest 200 turns per project.
His eyes stay on their stalks. When he squinted, yawned, blinked sleepily, looked mopey or did any of his little bits, his stalks kept glancing side to side on their own and his eyes floated off beside them. Now the stalks hold still whenever the eyes do.
A dressed-up Shellby no longer sits on top of "What should I scuttle off and do?" on the new-chat screen. His spot grows to fit his hat and shell.
History shows popped-out chats as open. A conversation dragged out into its own window now reads "open in a window" in History, instead of looking closed.
The "4 finished · show" link under background tasks is plain link text again, not a white box with text you could barely read. Other link-style buttons without their own styling got the same fix.
His hat no longer hides what he says. A tall hat (the wizard's, the nightcap) poked up over his speech bubble and covered the words. The bubble now sits higher, wraps less, and always stays in front of his hat.
Ctrl+scroll over a workflow zooms just the workflow. It used to zoom the whole panel at the same time, so you couldn't get a closer look at the steps without everything else growing too.
Whatever Shellby holds no longer gets cut off by an invisible edge when he swings it out straight.
To-dos on a repo with no remote travel with it. They live in the repo's own .shellby/tasks.md, so they're still there when you push it to GitHub. Any Shellby was keeping for it on this PC move into the file by themselves, once, with nothing lost or doubled.
Sign in on another computer (Settings, Other computers) opens a terminal you can see again. It opened PowerShell with no window, so nothing appeared while the sign-in waited where no one could reach it. Carrying a conversation on there had the same trouble.
Shutting down isn't a crash. Forcing Windows to shut down ("Shut down anyway"), restarting, or losing power no longer makes Shellby say he closed unexpectedly, or ask to send a crash report, the next time he starts.
Two conversations in the same folder no longer claim each other's work. A turn's "files changed" lists only what its own tools could have written (nothing at all after just reading and searching), and Undo puts back only those files, never another conversation's.

Changed

When he digs, he really burrows now: he noses down and sinks into the ground up to his shell, claws scooping, with sand flying out behind him.
Pop-up notes in the panel (sign-in nudges, "Pushed 2 commits" and the rest) are dark reef cards with a sea-glass edge and a coral button, like the rest of Shellby, instead of a bright sand slab.
Bug battles no longer stand still between moves. While Claude works on its next turn, the bug acts up in its own way: a ghost flickers out, a network bug buffers, a type bug glitches. Shellby fidgets too, and the text box tells you when Claude is thinking.
Plan and Build work in a copy. A note now runs on a branch of its own, like Next up's Do this, so nothing lands in your checkout until you bring it home. Ask still just reads.
General notes ask where to run. Plan, Build or Ask on a General note lets you pick the project first, instead of quietly using whichever folder you're in.
Done notes fold away under "Done", with a Clear button for the lot.
Quieter rows. Plan, Build and Ask show when you point at or tab into a note.
Shellby's chirp sounds like a small creature now instead of an 8-bit beep. Each note slides softly into its pitch, sad tunes droop instead of buzzing, and no two chirps are quite the same.
"Needs you" is now a filter. It's in the menu next to the order, with All, On this PC and the others, so it no longer hides projects from what looked like a sort. The "2 need you" link above the list switches it on.
The list remembers how you left it. The order and filter stay as you set them after Shellby restarts.
Every row shows where the project lives. The path stays under the name, and the chips keep to what you'd act on: failing checks, vulnerabilities, unpushed work, to-dos. Time this week and stickers are on the project's page.
The buttons on a row stay in the same place. New conversation is always first, the dev server second, ⋯ last. Open folder and Open on GitHub are in ⋯.
Start or open the dev server from a project's page. It's next to New conversation, as on the row.
Quieter cards. Health with nothing to report, or Conversations with none yet, take one line.
Projects says when it last looked. "updated 4m ago" sits in the line above the list.
The thermometer is no longer drawn on the front glass. Place the Glass Thermometer to see the reading. When he's hot, the plants in his tank sway faster too.

0.77.0 October 9, 2026

9 new8 fixed8 changed

Sign-ins, shared tools and a glow-up

New

Usage for another computer's Claude account. When a computer you work on over ssh is signed in to a different Claude account, its tabs show that account's 5-hour and weekly meters, outlined and marked with a little person, and say whose plan it is. Shellby asks that computer for its numbers as soon as you open a conversation there, so they show before your first message.
Pick many tools at once. Your own skills, agents and commands have a checkbox in the Toolbox (Shift+click picks a range). With some picked, one bar pins, unpins, parks, exports or removes them all, and removing asks just once.
Park a skill instead of deleting it. Parking turns a skill, agent or command off for new conversations and keeps it safe in Shellby. Parked ones sit at the bottom of the list, one Restore away.
Pick unused. One click picks every one of your own that Claude hasn't reached for lately, ready to park and free up room in every conversation.
Share a set of tools. Export picks a handful of skills, agents and commands into one file, and Import adds someone's file to your Claude folder. It asks first and never overwrites one you already have.
A health line above the Toolbox. It counts MCP servers that won't connect, skills with no description, and skills hidden by a copy with the same name somewhere else. Click a count to see just those. A hidden copy's row shows which one loads and where the others are.
Finds get portraits. Every find on the shelf is drawn big now, shaded and inked like the Bugdex's creatures: the shelf, its card and the sparkly reveal show them off, while the little one stays in his claw.
He's had a glow-up. Shellby, every skin, every shell and everything in the wardrobe is reshaded, with a fine dark line round him and whatever he's wearing, so he stands out on any wallpaper and matches the Bugdex and the finds. Same crab, same outfits, crisper.
Sign in to MCP servers without a terminal. A server waiting for you to sign in (Stripe, Notion, Sentry and the like) now has a Sign in button in the Toolbox, and a new conversation offers it once in a toast. Shellby opens the sign-in page in your browser and connects the server, in every open conversation, as soon as you're done.

Fixed

Another account's usage no longer moves your meter. A conversation on a computer signed in to another Claude account used to overwrite your own meter with its numbers, and could set off your limit nap, forecast and usage guard. Now they stay with that account.
Sparkly finds show their colours on the shelf. They were drawn as dark silhouettes, as if you hadn't found them yet.
Clicking a file link that points at a network share (\\server\share\...) no longer opens it. Just looking at one made Windows sign in to that computer with your account.
Importing a tools file now skips any skill or agent that sets up hooks or MCP servers in its header, the same way it already skipped hook files. Those run commands, so they go through Mods and its own question.
Only programs running as you can list or start your routines and workflows through Shellby's local port. The Shellby plugin now sends his token for them.
The Downloads sorter and Red build fixer workflows mark file names and build-log text as something to read, not instructions to follow.
More kinds of file that run when opened (.jnlp, .wsc, .dll, certificates and others) are shown in their folder instead of opened.
Problem reports and the log hide GitLab tokens and Discord or Slack webhook addresses.

Changed

Bug battles have more going on. A bug now strikes back when Claude re-runs a command and it fails just as before (each type has its own move), and the fix that catches it is a finishing blow you watch land, so the HP bar no longer vanishes in one go.
Re-running a type check, linter or build now wears a bug down as the error count falls, the way failing tests already did. Before, every re-run of one missed.
Reading round and editing count for a little more, and keep counting for 20 minutes after the bug last showed itself instead of 10.
Opening a battle that's under way replays its last few moves from the past 10 minutes, so there's something to see.
The Toolbox remembers where you left it. It reopens on the same tab, source filter and order.
Settings, sorted by what each one changes. A new Around you tab holds everything he does around your PC: listening along, typing along, the weather, desk lighting, Discord, streams and Stream Deck. The Bugdex, tide events and small surprises sit together under Games on the Shellby tab. Your 5-hour limit, the test checks and copies of a project moved to the Claude tab, and Other computers to Connections. General keeps the app itself, with its notifications in one place.
Links between related settings. Where a setting depends on one in another tab, it links straight to it. Notifications point to your phone, and small surprises point to the test checks they need.
A smoother tab bar. The highlight slides to the tab you pick, and its page comes in from that side. Both stay still with reduced motion on.

0.76.0 October 9, 2026

5 new5 fixed

Conversations that follow you, and helpers that report back

New

Helpers come home with how it went. A helper crab that finished its job holds up a little scroll before it walks back into Shellby; one that failed trudges home, slumped and grey.
He packs it down. When a conversation is compacted, by /compact or by Claude Code itself, Shellby squashes his shell flat, pats it down and says so.
Your conversations follow you between PCs, if you want them to. Turn on "Sync my newest conversations" in Settings → GitHub and your 50 newest conversations show in History on every PC signed in to the same GitHub account, marked with the PC they came from. They travel through a private gist, trimmed: long tool output is cut short, pictures are left out and anything that looks like a key or token is blanked. Carry one on from another PC and Claude starts afresh with a recap of what was said, in the same folder if that PC has it or the same place in your clone of its repository. Renames, ticks and deletions travel too (a deletion lands in Recently deleted), and a conversation changed on two PCs at once is kept twice rather than losing either side's turns. Routine runs stay on their own PC. Off unless you turn it on, and it asks first.
More of Shellby follows your GitHub login. With sync on, his finds (sparkly ones included), his bond with you and the moments he remembers, games of hide and seek and fetch, quests, the scenes he's done, your typing best and his personality now travel between PCs, alongside the trophies, XP, Bugdex, stickers, outfit and tank that already did. Finds and bond points dug up or earned on two PCs add up, and a find you swap away stays gone everywhere.
More settings sync: where file links open, whether Claude knows it's in Shellby and may suggest features (and the ones you muted), staying awake for queued work, and reacting to Claude Code sessions outside Shellby.

Fixed

The background tray stays small. When Claude leaves a lot running, the strip above the box no longer takes over the panel: past three finished commands they fold into one line you can open, each finished one keeps to a single line, and a long list scrolls.
The Bugdex buddy no longer hides his task count. The little number by his side stays in front of whichever catch is tagging along behind him.
His favourite catch looks like it does in the Bugdex. The bug that follows him round the desk was still the old 8×8 sprite. It now wears its Bugdex portrait, drawn in finer pixels so it stays small beside him.
He no longer pops out from behind your windows. Hidden behind an app, he used to hop up onto its title bar (or your browser's tabs) out of nowhere, then vanish again on the way home. Now he only climbs onto a window on his own when you can see him go.
Conversations on another computer send again when this PC has no Claude Code. Typing in a folder from Other computers said "Shellby can't find Claude Code on this PC" and sent nothing, though Claude Code runs on the other end over ssh. Now only that computer needs it.

0.75.0 October 8, 2026

1 new3 fixed4 changed

Mode switch and badge case

What's in it

New

Switch modes in one click. Right-click him (or the tray icon) and pick Mode: Claude Code, Work mode or Just the crab. The same three sit at the top of Settings → Claude Code and in Ctrl+K. Leaving just the crab without Claude Code set up goes straight to its setup.

Fixed

His eyes stay on their stalks when he looks up or down, instead of floating off them.
A passphrase box that couldn't open no longer looks like a wrong password. On a PC that blocks Shellby's little passphrase helper, the sign-in step says so, instead of "it didn't accept the sign-in".
His favourite catch is little again. Since 0.74.0 the bug that follows him round the desk wore its big Bugdex portrait, nearly three times his size and drawn over him. It is back to its small desk sprite; the portraits stay in the book.

Changed

Windows' ssh agent is optional. When a key with a passphrase won't sign in, the first button is now Type my passphrase. A PC that can't run the agent (a work PC without admin rights) can choose Do without it, and Shellby stops suggesting it there. If turning the agent on fails, the message says you don't need it.
Installing is one click. No more wizard pages: the installer shows a short progress window with his icon and opens Shellby when it's done. Start with Windows is still in Settings, and an update keeps the folder you installed him in before.
Bugdex badges, redrawn. All twelve are proper shaded medals now: a tide drop, a grassy burrow, a lighthouse at night, a crystal cluster, a bubbling flask and more. Each has its own shape, so a badge you haven't earned still tells you which one it is.
A real badge case. Badges sit in sockets in a velvet-lined case with their names underneath. A bar fills as you earn them, a glint runs across the ones you hold, and the rim turns gold once the case is full.

0.74.1 October 8, 2026

1 fixed

First-run fix

What's in it

Fixed

Keep the ssh first-run path in its onboarding piece, and expect four paths in e2e.

0.74.0

8 new3 fixed1 faster1 changed

Search Settings, helper costs and Bugdex portraits

What's in it

New

Every bug in the Bugdex has a proper portrait. The creatures are drawn big and shaded now, with real faces, on their page, their card, the sparkly picture and in bug battles. The little ones on the desk, in his jars and in the tank are the same as before.
First run has a fourth choice, Claude Code on another computer, for a PC where Claude Code can't be installed but ssh works. Set up a computer of yours over ssh right there, with Claude Code installed and signed in over there, pick a folder on it, and conversations start in that folder. Nothing about Claude Code is needed on this PC, and first run doesn't come back for it.
A tour to start with. Right after you set Shellby up, your first New task leads with Show me around a project. It opens a tour of the folder he works in, or one you pick, with the prompt waiting for you to send. It runs in Ask first, so it only reads. Once you've opened it, it makes way for the usual suggestions.
Pictures show up in the chat as Claude works. A screenshot it takes or reads (a browser tool's capture, an image it opens) appears under that step, and so does a picture it writes or edits. Click one to see it full width.
Search Settings. A box at the top of Settings finds any switch by what it says, across every tab at once: type "discord" or "volume" and only those rows are left, with folded sections opened for you. Esc puts the tabs back, and Ctrl+F on Settings goes straight to the box.
His own screen starts small too. Someone new sees his outfits first, and Trophies, Finds, Stickers, Crew, the Bugdex, Us, the Tank and the Beach join the tabs along the top one or two at a time as he finishes tasks, each with a card saying what it's for. "More" says which opens next. Anyone already using Shellby keeps every tab, and Show every screen still opens the lot.
What you use. Settings → General → What you use shows the screens you open most, and the ones you never have (or haven't for a month), each with a line on what it's for and Take a look. It's counted on this PC only: never sent anywhere, and not carried by Sync.
What each helper cost. When Claude sends helpers out, the turn's cost line says how much of it they spent ("this turn: 80k tokens (helpers 60k)"), and each helper's lane shows its own tokens and its share of your 5-hour window, with the details on hover.

Fixed

Bug battles only show Claude fighting a bug when it's working on it. Reads, edits and helpers count in the conversation that spotted the bug, and only for ten minutes after it last failed. Running its command again brings it back into play. Unrelated work no longer looks like a fight.
Bring it home keeps your words out of git. Its commits used to quote the start of your prompt ("From the conversation: …"), and a copy Claude hadn't named was titled with it outright, which anyone can read in a public repository. Now they're named for the work: the branch name Claude chose, Claude's own commit message when there's one, or else the files that changed ("Update tabs.js and nav.js").
A queued task in a folder on another computer runs at the reset even when Claude Code isn't installed on this PC.

Faster

He takes less memory while he sits there. One of Shellby's background processes is gone (the network one now runs inside the app itself), about 25 to 50 MB less on your PC all day.

Changed

A bug opens its battle the way a wild one does: "A wild Nullfish appeared!"

0.73.0 October 8, 2026

64 new28 fixed5 faster14 changed

Other computers, tide events, and what Claude Code does by itself

What's in it

New

Wave a pop-up away. Every pop-up in the panel has a ✕ now (or press Escape while it has focus). It clears that one and any queued up behind it, so a pop-up with a button no longer sits there until you click somewhere else.
/btw, Claude Code's side questions. Type /btw what was that file called? and the answer shows in a card of its own, even while Claude is busy working. Claude answers from the whole conversation, but the question never joins it, so the task carries on undisturbed. Put the card away with ×.
Copies sort out their clashes together, one after another, each brought home in turn.
Bring home as many as you like at once: each waits its turn.
Bug battles. Claude's work on a bug plays out as a tussle on the seabed, its HP dropping as failing tests clear, until the real fix jars it. Settings → Safety nets → Bug battles.
Your crew pitches in, and each helper becomes a specialist against the bugs it beats most.
Badges and the league. Beat each habitat's boss for its badge, then the Deep Four for the Hall of Fame.
Field notes and tips for bugs you catch often, and every bug has a cry.
Your favourite catch follows him round the desk.
Trade notes with friends with Share my Bugdex with friends.
New tricks. When Claude Code updates, Shellby shows a few highlights, each with Try it. Settings → General.
What Claude is doing, in plain words, on permission cards, plan cards and the Working bar. Settings → Claude.
More of Claude's good work celebrated: merged pull requests, CI back to green and helpers' finds earn XP.
When did this break? A project's new Helpers card has Claude find the breaking commit with git bisect, in a copy.
Show me around. A guided tour of any repo, offered after a clone.
Check the docs. Claude fixes out-of-date docs on its own branch, or weekly as a routine.
The port doctor. A dev server whose port is taken says who has it and offers a free one.
Before you start. Warnings for settings missing from .env and a mismatched Node version.
Shellby on your Discord profile. Turn on Settings → On your Discord profile and he shows up under your name the way a game does: Lv 12 Abyssal Admin · working with Claude Code. Nothing to sign in to, since Shellby talks to the Discord app on your PC. Sharing the running task's title is a second switch, never on in Work mode, and with Visiting crabs on there's a Visit my crab button to your calling card.
Claude's own to-do list, as it works, above the box, each step ticked off as it goes.
What Claude left running in the background. A tray shows each build or dev server Claude started, its output, and Stop.
Notes on Claude's plan. Leave a 💬 note on any line of a plan and Send notes so Claude revises it first.
What Claude remembers. Toolbox → Memory lists the notes Claude Code keeps by itself, to fix or forget.
Skills, explained. A skill's line says what it's for, and the Toolbox helps sharpen one Claude never uses.
How hard it thought. Each turn's effort and thinking, beside its cost.
Helpers talking to each other. Claude's follow-up messages to a helper show in the conversation.
Your cloud routines. Routines → In Claude's cloud lists your /schedule routines, with Run now.
Ultra review this branch from a conversation's branch menu.
GitLab merge requests and pipelines join the inbox, his CI sign and Health, with Fix this build and Address the review. It goes through the glab CLI, so Shellby never sees a token. Settings → GitLab.
Releases check GitLab pipelines on the commit you'd release.
He moves between moods instead of snapping: a crouch before work, a perk-up at a question, a big breath after a win.
Nodding off and waking up take a moment, eyes first.
A question you leave waiting gets more insistent, politely.
Linear and Jira issues on Next up, read through your own MCP server, with Do this to start one in a copy.
Claude Code on your other computers. Run conversations on a server or another PC over ssh. Settings → Claude → Other computers walks you through keys, installing and signing in, a button per step.
ssh asks in Shellby for a passphrase or password, then forgets it.
How long is left on a task. When Claude keeps a to-do list for a task, the line under the box shows which step it's on and roughly how long the rest will take: "step 3 of 7 · about 4 min left". The guess comes from how long the steps it has already finished took, so it shows up after the first one and gets better as it goes. If a step runs past the guess, you see just the step.
Quiz me. After a big change, Claude asks three questions on what it does and why. Two right earns XP.
More in "While you were away": CI that went red or green, and what Shellby sent once your usage reset.
The real moon in the beach's night sky, and a new By moonlight set of finds.
Shellby knows what didn't finish. If your PC dies (or Shellby is quit) while Claude is working, the next start marks those conversations "Cut off" on their tab and in History, brings the first one to the front, and puts a Carry on button in its feed. Conversations that had finished come back just as they were.
Undo for layouts, Wardrobe packs and journal pins. The toast (or Ctrl+Z) puts them back.
A word when Sync changes your settings.
Production errors on Next up from Sentry, new and escalating ones first.
Fix this error opens a copy with the stack trace, and the commit links back to Sentry.
Shellby on a Stream Deck. Hardware keys for Allow, Deny, Stop, Bring it home and Ready to review, each showing what's waiting behind it: the tool asking, how many are queued, the branch that would come home. Turn it on in Settings → Stream Deck and press Add the keys to Stream Deck. Like answering from your phone, a question, a plan or anything the card would warn about says Look instead, and opens the panel there. Needs Stream Deck 7.1 or newer.
Send your hours to Toggl, Clockify or Harvest. Under the timesheet on History → Time, connect your tracker with an API token. Shellby matches each project to one of yours by name or client, and you can change it in the project's details. Pick a day and send it: each project's billed hours go over as one entry, with the day's note or your commits as the description. Sending the same day again updates those entries instead of doubling them.
Notes. Ideas before they're tasks, per project (Ctrl+8), each with Plan, Build and Ask.
Conversations side by side. Split (Ctrl+\\) or drag a tab in, up to four, or out into its own window.
Claude knows it's in Shellby, and can make him celebrate or offer a feature. Settings → Claude.
See an edit before you allow it, as a diff on the permission card.
File links open in your editor at that line. Settings → Editor.
Find and zoom. Ctrl+F, and Ctrl+= / Ctrl+- for the panel's text.
Your friends and settings follow you with Sync on.
Tide events. Six week-long events a year, like Harvest Moon and Low Tide, each with goals, a bug, finds and a twist. Finish them for a medal, a trophy and a tank piece. Settings → Safety nets → Tide events.
Event bugs come along only with the right kind of fix, like the Will-o'-Wisp after 9 pm.
Sparkly finds. Now and then a find comes up in rare colours, with a big reveal and 📸 Share this, and new trophies.
Crab eggs. From level 5, lay an egg a week for a friend without Shellby; it hatches when they install.
Swaps with friends. Trade a spare find on their row in Visiting crabs. You always keep one of everything.
The friends' board ranks you and your friends by bugs fixed this month.
Sign Shellby's bring-home commits, opt-in in Settings → Folder.
Edit a workflow's file before it carries on. An Ask me step can name a file to open, like one an earlier step wrote. While it waits, the question has an Open button that opens the file in your editor; change it, then answer, and the steps after it get your version.
Files in a run open with a click. A File step's path in the run is now a link to the file. Shift+click shows it in its folder.
He works the way Claude is working: a scroll while it reads, a pencil while it edits, a wrench for commands, a spyglass on the web, and more.

Fixed

A flaky pass no longer counts as a fix.
A new copy gets its packages again when you only work in copies. Shellby used to install a copy's packages only if your own checkout had exactly those installed, so once a release changed them every new copy asked Claude to install them by hand. Now another copy that already has them installed counts too: a change of packages is asked about once, in the first copy, and every copy after it is ready straight away.
A background command is no longer a helper crab, and a helper sent a second message comes back to work.
Continue in a terminal opens a terminal again. It said "Carrying on in PowerShell" but no window ever appeared. Now it opens in Windows Terminal when you have it, or a PowerShell window when you don't, with the conversation picked up where you left it.
His hat stays on his eyes. When he glances about, types along, looks up at a window or wobbles to a stop, a hat or pair of glasses now moves with his eyes instead of hanging in the air above them.
Every push checks for secrets. Cutting a release or opening a pull request asks before anything that looks like a key or password goes out.
A crashed turn still ends properly: queued messages wait, changes and Undo show up, and Stop no longer reports "Claude Code exited".
Removing a queued message as Claude picks it up no longer sends it anyway.
Ctrl+F finds text inside edits you haven't opened yet.
Popped-out conversations get everything the panel does: zoom, "Checking…", "Send after the reset".
Sync leaves Autonomous alone, and snippets and pins merge one by one instead of vanishing.
Your calling card comes down when you turn off Visiting crabs, retrying until it's gone.
Phone alerts say when they're failing, in Settings → Elsewhere, and a Telegram task that arrives too late gets a reply.
Failed update checks say why and retry within the hour.
After a crash, Claude Code in your terminal no longer stalls on every step.
Python turn checks use the project's own .venv or venv.
The dependency watch shows each project's own problem instead of blaming the registries.
Dev servers that never print a localhost address count as up, and one that crashes later says "Crashed".
Routines after sleep only catch up if you asked, and start a few seconds apart.
MCP servers added with npx, pnpm, yarn or bunx start on Windows.
The "Run the tests before Claude finishes" hook no longer fails in projects without tests.
Permission cards flag more setup changes, like claude mcp add.
His firsts stay in the Us journal, and Claude's pins can't push yours out.
With Windows' animation effects off, he stays put, and keeps his sounds.
Shellby follows Claude Code when its installer moves it. If Claude Code updated itself to a new place while Shellby was open (the native installer replacing an npm copy, say), every turn failed with "Shellby can't find Claude Code on this PC" until you restarted Shellby. It now finds the new copy on the next turn, open conversations included. Thanks to @tbarford-decisonpt (#26).
The tank's Layouts section matches the rest of the panel: the name box and each layout's season picker were plain white Windows controls.
His tank no longer fills the whole screen when Shellby's window is big. It now takes at most half the tab's height, so the tray of decor stays in reach while you decorate.
Build it with Claude remembers. Saving a workflow, or going back to the list, no longer throws away its conversation with Claude. Open the workflow again and the chat carries on where you left it, test run and all, until Shellby restarts. Fix with Claude adds its note to that same chat.

Faster

Half the frames while he works: six a second at most instead of twelve.
Drafts with Claude use far fewer tokens, about 1,100 of overhead instead of 6,300, by leaving Claude Code's coding setup out.
Next up reads Linear and Jira with only that server.
No doubled crab tools in Shellby's own tabs with the Shellby plugin installed.
Less work while you're not looking, and smoother while Claude works: fewer settings writes, batched history saves.

Changed

Bring all home carries on past a clash.
Some names in the Bugdex are its own now, like the Dawdling Snail. Anything you'd earned stays earned.
Each conversation picks its own effort on Auto, from its first message: low, medium or high. Change it in the effort chip.
His idle looks less like a loop, with uneven blinks and glances.
Pinning a note under "Where you left off" looks the part now: pick Decided, Next, Blocked or Note from coloured chips instead of a plain dropdown, and type into a field that takes that kind's colour, with Pin inside it.
Messages Claude read mid-turn say "sent mid-turn".
The weather settings breathe a little: Find sits beside your town instead of under it, and the town search, the remarks toggle and the weather line each get their own room.
Work comes home with a type (feat-…, fix-…), so it lands in the right group on the Releases card.
Merges say what came home ("feat: GitLab merge requests").
More copies come with their packages, even after the lockfile changed.
The usage meter keeps up by itself, at no cost.
Esc never hides the panel.
The pull request badge says more, and your calling card carries your swaps, eggs and medals.
Icons in a workflow's ⋯ menu. Edit, Runs, Duplicate, Export and Delete each have an icon beside them, so you can find the one you want at a glance.

0.72.0 October 7, 2026

18 new7 fixed8 faster1 changed

A lighter crab, a tank he lives in, and every package manager

What's in it

New

Dependency watch beyond npm. The weekly check now reads pnpm, Yarn (1 and 2+), Python (uv.lock, poetry.lock, pylock.toml, Pipfile.lock or pinned requirements.txt, through pip-audit), Rust (cargo-audit) and Go (go list and govulncheck) projects too, each by its own lockfile, and names the package manager on every row. A project whose checker isn't installed says what to install instead of failing, and Bump & open a PR asks Claude to use that project's own commands. Nothing a project ships gets to run while it's checked: no install scripts, no .pnpmfile.cjs, no Yarn release or plugins of its own, and Python packages are never installed or built.
Gauges in disguise. His tank quietly shows what Shellby knows about your PC: a thermometer on the glass with your GPU's temperature (red past your Health line), bubblers that hurry when the CPU is busy, and a lighthouse that's lit while a dev server runs and blinks when one crashes. Each has its own switch, and none of it ever leaves your PC.
His moods reach the water. When he's hot the tank warms up, when he's dizzy it swirls, and when he's stuffed boxes pile up in a corner. It clears the moment the mood does, on the Health view's porthole too.
Stickers on the glass. Put any project from your Sticker Book on the front of his tank. They sync with the tank but stay off your calling card and profile card.
Saved layouts. Keep up to three tanks by name and put one up whenever you like. Tag one to a season and it goes up when the season starts, then the tank you had comes back when it ends. They sync to your other PCs.
He tidies up. Some days he's nudged one of his finds closer to its neighbour. Only finds, never anything you changed that day. Put it back (or Ctrl+Z) undoes it, and Let him tidy up turns it off.
He lives in his tank now. While you watch the Tank, he uses what you've put in it: he hides in the castle and peeks out of the window, sits on rocks and the chest, clambers over the driftwood, nibbles the plants, checks inside the chest (nothing, again), pops out of the sunken ship's porthole, and at night tucks himself into his cave with a few z's. The one he uses most becomes his favourite: it's named under the tank's title, the Health view's porthole looks at it, and it's where he sits when motion is turned down.
New pieces get a proper look. Put something in and he scuttles straight over to inspect it, and says something about it on your desktop ("a rock cave! for me?"). The first piece you give him goes in your journal on the Us page.
Moving day. Move him into a bigger tank than he's ever had and the pieces hop across one by one before he scuttles in last. That goes in the journal too.
Sets on display. Put every find of a set in his tank and it's on display, named under the title. Taking it down later loses nothing.
Four new tank trophies: Aquascaper (5 different plants at once, for an Anubias), On Display (3 complete sets on display, for a Display Plinth), Upsized (the 30 gallon, for an Old Anchor) and a secret one for watching him fall asleep.
Decor for every season: a Heart Shell for Valentine's, a Cherry Blossom in spring, a Beach Ball in summer and a Pile of Leaves in autumn (he hides in it), alongside the Carved Pumpkin and the Snow Globe. Each turns up in its season and stays.
Now and then, on the desktop, he mentions his tank: his favourite piece, a plant he nibbled, a find he moved back. It's rare, and the chatter setting decides as always.
His tank on your crab card. Once there's something in his tank, 📸 Share shows him standing in it, castle, kelp and all, with your best stickers on the glass.
Show his tank to friends. Turn on Show his tank at the bottom of the Tank and friends with Visiting crabs get a Peek at their tank button next to your name, and your profile card shows him at home too. It's off until you choose, and it carries only where his decor and finds stand: no specimen jars, no decor from packs.
Peek at a friend's tank. In Settings → GitHub → Visiting crabs, a friend who shares theirs has a Peek at their tank button. Their crab is in it, and anything your Shellby doesn't have yet shows up as a rock.
House Guest. A friend's crab dropping by while his tank is on show earns a new trophy, and a Guest Bench for the tank.
His tank syncs. With Sync on, decorate on one PC and the tank looks the same on the others. Whether it's on show stays up to each PC.

Fixed

He gets out of your game's way. With a game in front, everything Shellby's conversations are running (Claude, and the tests, installs and app copies it starts) drops to idle priority and a small share of the CPU, and stays there until two minutes after the game leaves the front. Four conversations released at once when your usage reset could run test suites flat out and freeze a game for minutes.
Signing in no longer leaves Claude Code running in the background. Every press of Sign in started another sign-in that waited for the browser forever if you didn't finish it: eight of them, nearly 2 GB, after switching accounts. There's now one at a time, it gives up after ten minutes, and it ends when Shellby quits.
New task works after you hold a message for the reset. If the first thing you said in a conversation was waiting for your usage to reset, New task kept landing you back in that same conversation. It now opens a fresh one, and changing folder no longer closes that conversation and drops the message you held.
A new prompt is never left half-hidden. Sending a message could, now and then, leave its last lines tucked under the Working bar until you scrolled. The conversation now keeps following the end unless you scroll up yourself.
Muting a project's nudges sticks. Muting one, or finishing a task, in the few seconds while Shellby was checking your projects' latest commits could be quietly undone when the check finished.
A panel that opened behind your windows (a task from the terminal, a routine) no longer animates its decorations until you click it. Behind your windows it's about 0.6% of a core now, down from 3.8%.
He stays still while the screen is locked or a game covers him, instead of starting to move again with the next thing that happened.

Faster

He's much lighter on your PC while nothing's happening. He only draws a new frame when he actually moves: the breathe and the claw snap now go a whole pixel at a time, and the still moments in between cost nothing. Alone on the desktop with no seasonal outfit he's down from about 7% of one core to about 1.5–3%.
He holds still when you're away. After five minutes without the keyboard or mouse he and the panel stop animating, the seasonal bats too, and pick up again the moment you're back: about 0.1% of a core while you're gone.
No more reg.exe every 20 seconds. Checking whether you're on a call now reads Windows' list directly instead of starting a program that cost about a third of a second of CPU each time.
Health checks your GPU a third as often while all is well and the panel is closed, and goes back to every five seconds the moment a reading turns or you open the panel.
The sound device rests between sounds. With sounds on, it used to keep running for good after the first chirp; now it sleeps a few seconds after the last one and wakes for the next.
The seasonal bats (and snow, leaves, fireflies, rain) come for a flight now and then instead of circling him all day: eight seconds every three minutes, fading in and out. They were about half of what he cost in October.
His idle is pixel-art frames. The breathe is two frames (up, down) over 4.4 seconds, a blink two, and the claw snap comes round every 18 seconds instead of 9: about one new frame a second while he idles. The breathe on a call and on a focus break is stepped too; it used to draw every tick.
One check of the window in front instead of two. Whether a game is up and whether he's covered are read together, the window's program is remembered while it stays in front, and the check slows from every 2 to every 5 seconds once nothing has changed for half a minute.

Changed

Try it N ways takes attachments. Screenshots and files attached to the message go to every try. A file from the project points at each try's own copy of it, and one your last commit doesn't have goes to each try as a copy of its own, so no try edits your checkout.

0.71.0 October 7, 2026

8 new4 fixed1 changed

Next up, the inbox, Releases and where you left off

What's in it

New

Next up. The first card on a project's page answers "what now?" with one ranked list: your to-do list (kept in the repo as .shellby/tasks.md), its GitHub issues and milestones, and the TODOs in its code. Each row says why it's where it is. Do this opens a conversation in a copy on its own branch with the prompt waiting for you to send, and when the work comes home he offers to tick the task off.
One inbox across every repo, at the top of the Projects page: pull requests waiting on your review (Read it with Claude explains one without posting anything), what's new on your own pull requests, stale branches that say what deleting them would lose, and copies left behind.
Releases. Each project shows what's waiting to go out, grouped into New, Fixed, Faster and Changed, and whether CI passed. Draft release suggests the next version, drafts the CHANGELOG entry in your style (or Write it with Claude), then bumps, commits, tags and pushes in one go.
Standup and weekly reports per project: Yesterday / Today / Blockers, or This week / Last week, from your commits, conversations, tracked time and Claude's tasks, worded for Slack or an email, with a Copy button.
Where did we leave off? When a session ends, Shellby writes a handoff note for its project (what was asked, what's half-done, what was decided, where git stood) from Claude Code's own record, so it costs no tokens. Run /shellby:leftoff in Claude Code, or press Carry on with Claude on the project's page.
Ask from a terminal. With the Shellby plugin, ask Claude Code "what's next on this repo?" and it asks Shellby: anything broken first, then your to-dos, then the housekeeping. It can read why a dev server fell over, and add or tick off to-dos. Without Claude, shellby next prints the same answer.
Change notes for your releases. Keep what's coming next as one small file per branch in a changes/ folder, and the Releases card drafts the CHANGELOG entry from them (and suggests a minor version when one has something new). Cutting the release folds them in and tidies them away, so branches worked on side by side never fight over the top of the CHANGELOG.
Copies get their packages. When a conversation moves into its own copy of a Node project, and your checkout already has exactly those packages installed from the npm registry, Shellby installs the same ones in the copy first, with install scripts skipped, so tests and lint work straight away.

Fixed

Progress spinners keep turning while you're tabbed out, game included, unless the game's window actually covers the panel.
A notification with a button holds still. A new toast no longer snatches "Ask him to sort it out" from under your pointer; it waits its turn.
A long list of clashes no longer pushes the branch menu's options off the window. It shows a few, the rest on hover, and the menu fits the window.
The project tools Claude Code reaches over the local API, the journal included, need Shellby's token, so other accounts on the PC can't read them.

Changed

Work brought home has a commit message worth reading. The commit for what a copy left uncommitted is named after the branch Claude chose ("fix: tall menu overflow"), not the first words of your prompt, so your history and release drafts say what changed.

0.70.2 October 6, 2026

1 fixed

An expired sign-in says so

What's in it

Fixed

An expired Claude sign-in gets the Sign in again button. When your Claude sign-in lapsed while Shellby was open, Claude Code answered every turn with "Failed to authenticate: OAuth session expired" and the panel showed only a generic "Something went wrong" with Copy details. Now it says Claude Code is signed out and offers Sign in again, which runs Claude Code's own sign-in. Thanks to @tbarford-decisonpt (#25).

0.70.1 October 6, 2026

0.70.0, delivered

What's in it

0.70.0 never shipped: a slow test check stopped its release. This is 0.70.0's crit hits, Bugdex, character sheet, quests and crew, with nothing else changed for you.

0.70.0

7 new4 fixed

Crit hits, the Bugdex, quests and your crew

What's in it

New

Crit hits and small surprises. Now and then a real win gets a short fanfare: Critical hit! when one turn takes a red test suite all the way to green, Clean landing when a copy comes home with its checks green on the first try. A CRIT! badge pops onto him, he jumps, there's confetti and a chord, and the conversation keeps a note. They're rare and never predictable, tied to quality and never to speed, and never for skipping, deleting or removing tests. Each kind has a hidden trophy (a Lucky D20, a Golden D20 after 20 crits, and Pilot Wings). Switch: Settings → Safety nets → Small surprises for real wins.
The Bugdex. Every kind of bug Claude fixes for you is a pixel creature he scoops into a jar: a TypeError is a Shapeshifter Shrimp, a merge conflict a crab with two heads, a flaky test a ghost. There are 66 to catch in twelve habitats, and each only counts once it's really fixed. A skipped test or an @ts-ignore doesn't fool him. It catches bugs fixed outside Shellby too.
A character sheet. Shipping, Rigour, Craft and Tidiness stats from the work he does, and a class from the highest: Shipper, Tester, Toolsmith, Curator or a dual class. It's on the week card too.
Quests. A short quest line that walks you through features you'd otherwise never find: comment on a diff line, try it another way, bring a copy home, queue a routine for the reset. Do them in any order, each the first time the real thing works.
Your crew. Each type of helper agent is a lasting crab with a name, a hat and a record (runs, tokens, findings Claude acted on). They level up, earn hats and wear them on the desktop. Rename them and pick their hats on Shellby → Crew.
Make him react from your own mods. A Claude Code mod can now have Shellby say something, celebrate or put on a hat, from any conversation on your PC. There's a guide and an example mod in docs/MODS.md.
Every trick is a setting. The README's "Things to try" now says where each trick's switch is.

Fixed

"N unpushed" after you'd pushed everything. He now counts only commits no remote has.
Approved commands can be expanded again. A permission card you've answered shrinks its command; now you can unfold the rest.
The usage menu shows everything. Its "N more" rows unfold in place.
The clash warning is easier to read: a short headline and a lighter body, instead of one big block.

0.69.0 October 6, 2026

5 new4 fixed

Mods, a live token count, and Claude Code stays current

What's in it

New

Claude Code stays current. The CLI checks for its own updates only in an interactive terminal session, so under Shellby it stayed on whatever version you installed. Now he asks the npm registry once a day and, when there's a newer one, says so once and puts an Update button in Settings → About, beside Shellby's own, that runs claude update. Update it for me has him do it himself while nothing is running; Leave it to me switches the check off.
Mods in the Toolbox. Claude Code mods (plugins whose hooks are a code module) are listed in the Toolbox next to skills and plugins. Each says in plain words what it can do, and has a switch that asks first, its tests, Open in VS Code and remove. New mod starts a conversation that builds one. Shellby tells you when a new mod turns up in ~/.claude/skills, since Claude Code loads it without asking, and permission cards flag Claude writing one.
Mods in your conversations. A mod's log lines, toasts and status show under its name, and its slash commands join the / menu.
A live token count next to the running timer, like Claude Code's "12s · 4.2k tokens".
Things to try with him: a new README section, with clips, of the tricks nobody would find in a feature list.

Fixed

Working spinners keep spinning when the panel is behind another window, instead of freezing as if the task had hung.
The tab spinners no longer restart every time the tab strip redraws, and the background-task symbol looks better.
Lots of clashes with one copy read as one line, with every shared file, not one line per clash.
Recorded CLI transcripts now scrub the home folder in its short form too (C:\Users\TYLERB~1, how the CLI's scratchpad paths spell it).

0.68.1 October 5, 2026

0.68.0, delivered

What's in it

0.68.0 didn't make it out of the build, so this is the first version to bring everything in it (below). Nothing else has changed.

0.68.0

16 new7 fixed3 changed

try it N ways, tasks from your phone, a review inbox, and Shellby checks Claude's work

What's in it

New

Try it N ways. Type /tries 3 before a message (or right-click Send) and the same task goes to 2 to 4 new tabs, each in its own copy. Shellby always asks first, with what it usually costs. As each try finishes he runs the project's tests, then ranks them (passing, fewest failures, smallest change) with Open, Compare and Keep this one.
Start a task from your phone. Message your Telegram bot or ntfy topic and Shellby starts it, always in Ask first and in its own copy, so you can answer Allow or Deny from the phone too. Off until you turn it on in the confirm window. At most 10 an hour.
A review inbox. Tabs that finished with changes wait under Ready to review (Ctrl+Shift+R), oldest first, with their files, test result and age, until you mark them reviewed, bring them home or send them back.
Shellby checks Claude's work. Run checks on any turn runs the project's own tests and stamps the result on that turn. Turn it on for every turn under Settings → Safety nets. Bring it home can check the copy first, and won't merge a red one unless you say so.
Before and after pictures. With a dev server running, the page is photographed before and after a turn that changed it, to compare side by side or with a slider.
Open in VS Code opens a file's change in VS Code's own diff (Cursor and Insiders too).
Two copies changing the same file get an amber ⚠ on both tabs as soon as it happens, not when bringing it home stops on a conflict.
What each turn cost: a quiet line under each turn (tokens, about how much of your 5-hour window), the conversation's total and costliest turns in the context menu, and a heads-up before a message that would push you past the line you keep for yourself. Routines and queued tasks can each run on their own model.
Fix this build, Address the review and loose ends. Start a task from a red pull request (with the failing part of the log), from unresolved review comments, or from a TODO in your project. You see exactly what goes to Claude before it goes.
Move a conversation between Shellby and the terminal, both ways: Continue in a terminal, then Pick it up here; or bring a terminal session into a tab.
Shellby learns from your corrections. Put Claude right the same way twice in a project and he offers it as a rule for that project's CLAUDE.md. Nothing is written until you press Add.
Work mode: the tools up front and a quiet crab who only speaks up about work.
Keyboard first. Ctrl+K runs actions on this conversation (Stop, Undo, Rewind, Bring it home…), Ctrl+/ lists every shortcut, and arrow keys walk every menu.
Team packs set up in one go, MCP servers included, behind one confirm window that lists everything.
The weekly crab card counts real work: routines that ran while you were away, pull requests, builds fixed, copies brought home.
Health shows Shellby's own share of your CPU and memory.

Changed

When something goes wrong, it says so in one sentence, with the next step as a button (Try again, Sign in again, Open in a fresh tab), and the raw details a click away.
Easier to read and to use with a screen reader. Faint text is brighter, a screen reader hears "Claude finished" rather than every step, menus give the keyboard back where it was when they close, and the close button no longer sits inside its tab.
Lighter in the background: the panel's timers pause while it's hidden, and Shellby no longer rereads every past conversation each time it starts.

Fixed

Copying the crab card and Task from screenshot work again. Both broke with Electron 44's new clipboard, and copies that fail now say so.
A routine that ends in an error is marked Failed instead of leaving its status unchanged.
Links in Claude's replies open where they say, even with _ or * in the address.
Esc closes any open menu, including the Projects and snippets menus, instead of leaving the page.
Shellby closes everything he started when he's stopped from a terminal or crashes, including the music watcher.
Routines start even if the Claude Code check fails when Shellby starts.
A damaged settings.json is kept (as settings.corrupt-….json) rather than overwritten with defaults, and a briefly locked one no longer stops Shellby starting.

Security

Every Shellby window refuses pop-ups, navigation and redirects, not only the ones built a certain way, and pages can't change where forms or links point.
Claude won't start on a pull request that changes Claude Code's own files (CLAUDE.md, .claude/, .mcp.json) or has commits from someone else until you've ticked that you've looked.

0.67.0

5 new2 changed

32 conversations at once, your MCP servers and n8n in workflows, and Claude drafts your hooks

What's in it

New

Up to 32 conversations open at once, up from 8. When they don't all fit, each end of the tab strip counts what's out of sight, turns amber if one of those needs your OK (sea-glass if one has finished), and takes you there with a click.
Every open conversation in one list. Press Ctrl+Shift+A, or the count at the end of the strip. They're grouped by what each needs from you: waiting for your OK, finished, working, quiet. Type to find one. Close quiet conversations tidies up in one go, and never closes one that's working, unread, or holding something you haven't sent.
Your MCP servers in workflows and routines. Tick the servers a Claude step or routine may use without asking, so a 3am run doesn't wait for you. Or add an MCP tool step that calls one tool directly ("create an issue in Linear") with no Claude turn and nothing from your plan. See WORKFLOWS.md.
n8n, both ways. Two templates on the Automate page send a finished task to n8n, or let an n8n workflow hand Shellby something to look at and get Claude's answer back. Setup is in N8N.md.
Claude drafts your hooks. In Toolbox → Hooks, describe what should happen and Ask Claude fills in the form, or ask it to change the hook that's there. You read it, try it with Test run and save it the usual way. Claude can't run or save anything itself.

Changed

Routine tabs tidy themselves sooner. Past six finished routine tabs, the oldest closes, rather than waiting until every slot is full. History keeps the transcript.
The bottom of History is one quiet row: Recently deleted, where it's stored, and Clear all history.

0.66.0 October 5, 2026

3 new4 changed

eight voices, your crab on your GitHub profile in four steps, and calmer settings

What's in it

New

Five more voices. On top of the pirate, the grump and Spanish, he can now talk like a robot, a surfer, royalty or a cowboy, or speak French. Pick one under Wardrobe → Voice.
Putting him on your GitHub profile, step by step. Turn on the profile card and Settings → GitHub now walks you through it: create your profile repository, add the card Action (GitHub opens with the file already filled in), run it once, and paste the line into your README. Each step ticks itself off when it's done. To check, Shellby reads that public repository and never writes to it (PRIVACY.md).
Uninstalling asks about your data. It asks whether to delete Shellby's data too. No is the default and keeps it, so a reinstall picks up where he left off. If Claude's copies of your projects are in there, it says they may hold changes you haven't pushed. Updates never ask and never delete anything.

Changed

Settings are easier to take in. Shellby settings are split into Look, Moving around, Personality, Sound and the extras. Each extra (music, typing along, the weather, desk lighting, the stream overlay) folds to a single line that says whether it's on. General gains Usage limit and Safety nets, and the wording throughout is shorter.
Routines and the tank editor look tidier, and the Automate page explains its kinds of step in a sentence rather than a row of badges.
Unlock everything is no longer in the Wardrobe. Outfits come from trophies, seasons and his digging.
A lighter panel while you game. Its looping animations run at 12 frames a second, like the crab's. With a game running, the panel's share of the 3D engine drops from about 12% to about 1%.

Security

The installed app can't be borrowed as a script runner. Shellby.exe no longer runs scripts as Node.js or accepts a debugger, and it only loads its own checked code. Dev servers no longer need that ability, and they still keep running after Shellby quits.

0.65.2 October 4, 2026

23 new6 fixed

a crab to look after, a tank and a beach of his own, and your crab on GitHub

What's in it

New

Snacks and naps. He gets peckish over a long day, sandy from digging and being thrown about, sleepy after a lot of work, and a little mopey if you're right there and ignore him. You can tell from how he looks. Right-click him for Feed him, Care → Give him a rinse or Tuck him in, or use How he's doing on Shellby → Us. You earn plankton by getting things done. It's gentle on purpose: nothing drops while you're away, every meter has a floor, nothing you've earned ever goes down, and there are no notifications. It's on to start with. Turn it off with Settings → Shellby → Snacks and naps. See DESKTOP.md.
A tank to decorate. Shellby → Tank is his home, and you arrange it: a sandcastle, a rock cave, kelp, a treasure chest and the finds he's dug up, with him wandering about among it all. Pick the floor, the back glass and the light, and he grows into bigger tanks as he levels up. Every piece comes from the start, a trophy, a season or his digging, never a shop, and you can decorate with the keyboard alone. Once he has decor, his picture on Health becomes a window into his tank. See TANK.md.
Your beach. Shellby → Beach is a scene that only grows. Every project you ship gets a sandcastle that grows with it, from a sandcastle to a tower house, a keep and a citadel. The tide comes up with your streak and leaves a line of seaweed where your best one reached, and his finds wash up along it. Anything new rises out of the sand while you watch. Share a snapshot saves and copies the whole beach. See DESKTOP.md.
He climbs the sides of your screen. Now and then he climbs up the edge of the screen and can hang upside down from the top. Throw him hard at an edge and he sticks to it. Right-click him for Come down or Climb the wall. It's on to start with, set to Sometimes. Settings → Shellby → Climbing the edges of the screen sets how often, or Never.
Pals on the floor. Settings → Shellby → Pals on the floor gives him up to five little crabs of his own, in his colours and outfit. They nap when he naps, cheer when a task goes well and scatter when you throw him at them. Click one to say hello.
Mischief, if you ask for it. Settings → Shellby → Mischief lets him be a bit cheeky, Desktop Goose style. He pinches your cursor for half a second, shoves the window he's sitting on, leaves sandy footprints and drags little notes onto your desktop. Choose Cheeky (now and then) or Gremlin (every few minutes), and switch off any prank you don't want. He never does it while you're clicking, on a call, focusing, gaming, presenting or running a task. Behave for an hour is in his right-click menu. See DESKTOP.md.
He types along. Turn on Settings → Typing along and he taps a little keyboard while you type in any app, and tells you how fast a quick burst was ("112 wpm!"). He only hears that a key was pressed, never which one, and none of it leaves your PC. PRIVACY.md has the details.
He dresses for the weather. Pick your town under Settings → Weather and he wears a sou'wester and umbrella in the rain, a bobble hat in the snow and shades on a hot afternoon. Rain or snow falls around him, and he flinches at thunder. Your town also tells him which half of the world you're in, so his seasons match yours. It's the one desktop feature that goes online: every 30 minutes it asks Open-Meteo about your town's position, rounded to about 11 km. Off until you pick a town.
Sounds and a beach in the background. Under Settings → Shellby: Footsteps, bumps and ta-das lets his claws patter and gives a deploy, trophy or level-up a fanfare. Background plays Rolling surf or a Rock pool, and Volume sets how loud. They're all off by default and go quiet while he guards your focus, while you're on a call or while the screen is locked.
Keep him on top of your apps. Settings → Shellby → Keep him on top of your apps instead of on the desktop shows him over whatever you're using instead of behind it. He still steps out of the way while a game is up.
Built with Shellby on your pull requests. Turn it on in Settings → GitHub and pull requests your tabs open get a small picture of your crab in his outfit, your level and a link to Shellby at the bottom of the description. It only goes on your own pull requests. His picture is kept in a public shellby-badge repository on your account. See CONNECTIONS.md.
Your crab on your GitHub profile. Profile card in Settings → GitHub makes a card of your crab, level, streak and five latest stickers, the way stats cards work. Shellby walks you through adding it to your profile with Copy Action and Copy README line, and never writes to your repositories itself. Off by default. PRIVACY.md lists what it holds.
Routines built with Claude. The routine editor now has the same chat as workflows. Say what to change and Claude edits the form while you watch. Tick Let Claude test it and it runs the routine once, reads what happened and fixes it. A routine whose last run failed has Fix with Claude. Name a project ("check my shellby repo every morning") and Claude finds its folder. If what you describe really needs a workflow, Claude offers Build it as a workflow instead. See WORKFLOWS.md.
Run it when your limit resets. When your limit resets on the Routines page queues heavy tasks for a fresh 5-hour window. They run one after another, overnight too, with the PC kept awake. A task that runs out of usage partway carries on after the next reset, and each result goes to your phone.
Comment on the diff. Click a line number in any turn's diff (Shift+click for several) and say what should change. Comments collect across files and turns, then go back to Claude as one follow-up that quotes the code each one is about.
Snippets that are nicer to write. The snippet editor marks the blanks as you type and checks the name before you save. $1, $2… fill in one word at a time. You can add a hint for what goes after the name, or have a snippet start a new conversation each time. Each snippet shows how often you've used it, and you can duplicate, import and export snippets. /snippets new opens a blank one. See CLAUDE-CODE.md.
Team packs. Toolbox → Team saves the snippets, workflows, hooks and rules you pick into the repository, so anyone who opens it in Shellby can set up the same way in a few clicks. Nothing in a pack runs or switches on by itself, and anything that can act on its own asks first. See TEAM-PACKS.md.
A tidier Toolbox. It's now four sections: Tools, Setup (hooks, rules and memory), Lean and Team. Even with hundreds of skills you can find yours: show just yours, the project's, the built-in ones or one plugin's, and sort by Most used or Unused first. Your own skills, agents and commands open in an editor right there. He celebrates a tool he made even if he made it while Shellby was closed.
File a flaky test as an issue. With Let Claude tasks push on, a flaky test in a project on GitHub has File an issue. After asking you, Shellby posts what he saw, with any values in the command left out, labelled shellby and assigned to you. That lets the Issue helper offer to take it on. See PROJECTS.md.
What your plan bought you. The weekly crab card has a new panel: how many hours Claude worked for you, tasks finished, how many fixes held, and how much of your weekly limit you used.
20 new trophies with outfits: for feeding and caring for him, decorating his tank, climbing walls and mischief, and everyday work like deploys, green tests, flaky fixes, issues turned into pull requests, clean audits, streaks and reaching level 10.
A gentler start. Someone new starts with just him and the chat box. History, Projects, Health, the Toolbox and Automate join the bar as he finishes tasks, each with a card saying what it's for. More → Show every screen opens them all at once. If you already use Shellby, you keep every screen.
Right-click menus that look like Shellby. Spelling fixes, cut, copy and paste now appear in a menu that matches the rest of the panel instead of the plain white Windows one, and it works from the keyboard too.

Fixed

Much easier on your graphics card. While you can see him, he now animates at a pixel-art frame rate instead of your screen's. Behind a game, he and his floor are taken off the screen entirely, so they draw nothing at all, and he comes back when the game no longer covers him.
Games no longer take the instructions with them. Starting hide and seek or fetch closed the panel straight away, along with the how-to-play note. Now it waits long enough for you to read it, and stays open if you click back into it.
Claude steps in workflows read their fields reliably. A step that asked for fields no longer retries for no reason when the reply has other code in it. The run panel now shows the fields as a readable list instead of raw JSON.
Billing is harder to miss. Always use my Claude plan in Settings is now a card that says whether you're protected, and turns red when an API key on this PC could bill you per token.
Clearer workflow screens. An empty Workflows page explains itself up front instead of in small print, templates look like the rows they become, and Let Claude test it is a proper switch.
The Toolbox keeps your place. When the list refreshed under you, as it does when usage counts arrive or your skills change on disk, the keyboard jumped back to the top of the page. It now stays on the heading or row you were on.

Docs

Why Shellby, if you have Claude Code? says what he adds if you already use Claude Code in a terminal or editor. The README now opens with a table of everything he can do.
Releases are being set up to be signed with Azure Artifact Signing, and a release now stops if it would change who signs it, so installed copies keep updating.

0.64.2 October 4, 2026

0.64.0, delivered

What's in it

0.64.0 and 0.64.1 didn't make it out of the build, so this is the first version to bring everything in 0.64.0 (below). Nothing else has changed.

0.64.0 October 4, 2026

10 new4 fixed

build workflows with Claude, a livelier crab, and quiet during games

What's in it

New

Build it with Claude. The workflow editor has a chat. Say what you want and Claude changes the workflow while you watch, with what it changed glowing on the map. Tick Let Claude test it and it saves, runs it by hand, reads what happened and fixes it, up to three times per message. A new workflow is saved switched off while it's being tested. See WORKFLOWS.md.
Projects that tell you what needs you. Each row says what Shellby knows in a few words: failing CI, vulnerable packages, unpushed commits, flaky tests, hours this week. Needs you puts the troubled ones first. Point at a row for New conversation here and Start. A project's own page now has Pulse (this week's hours by day, the last commit), Health (checks, dependencies, flaky tests) and your last few conversations in it.
A much better Health page. What's using it lists what's eating the CPU, GPU and memory, by app or by process, with End task (it asks first). It opens by itself while he's sweating. There are also fans, a 10 min / 1 hour graph range, and Developer clutter, which measures what Docker, WSL and package caches could give back, with Ask Shellby what's safe to clear.
Remove your own skills, commands and agents from the Toolbox, and see how often each one is used. Removing one asks first and sends it to the Recycle Bin.
He's more alive. He leans into a rub and rolls over if you keep going, perks up and waves when your cursor comes near, says hello when you've been away, his eye stalks wobble when he stops, and he chews a claw through your tests and wipes his brow when a long job lands.
The Us page is a little beach: him on the sand under a sky that follows your clock, with hearts in the sand and his favourite find beside him.
86 things to dig up in eleven sets, up from 38 in six. New sets include a dig site, things lost in the codebase, and an After dark set that only turns up at night.
Clear all history in History, after asking you first.
Opt-in crash reports. If Shellby closes unexpectedly, the next start asks whether to send a report: Send report, Always send or Don't send. Nothing is sent without your yes, and reports are scrubbed of your home folder, tokens and PC name. Change it in Settings → About → Crash reports. PRIVACY.md lists what a report holds.
Tidier pages. The level card, the Automate page's workflow and routine lists, and Lean's counter are easier to read at a glance.

Fixed

He no longer eats your GPU behind a game. Hidden behind a game or a window that covers him, he kept animating at 60 fps, which used up to a third of a high-end graphics card. Now he rests until he can be seen again.
The panel no longer jumps over your game. With a game or presentation in front, the panel opens behind it unless you reached for Shellby in the last 15 seconds.
Scrolling through a workflow no longer changes its numbers. The mouse wheel over a number box used to change the value. Leaving the editor after typing a change and putting it back no longer warns about unsaved changes.
Long permission rules fit in Toolbox → Rules, and any rule Claude Code wrote can be removed, including multi-line ones.

0.63.1 October 4, 2026

1 fixed

0.63.0, delivered

What's in it

0.63.0 didn't make it out of the build, so this is the first version to bring everything in it (below).

Fixed

His eyes follow your cursor from the start. When his window reloaded with the mouse sitting still, he could stare straight ahead until you moved it.

0.63.0 October 4, 2026

6 new3 fixed

issues to pull requests, hooks made friendly, and a tidier crab

What's in it

New

From a GitHub issue to a draft pull request. Turn on Settings → GitHub → Offer to take on issues and an issue assigned to you, or labelled shellby, starts any workflow with the new Issue trigger. The Issue helper template has a helper crab offer to take a crack at it. Say yes and Claude works on it in its own copy of the repository, on its own branch, runs the tests, commits, and opens a draft pull request that closes the issue. Public repos need only the sign-in; private ones and the pull request need Let Claude tasks push too.
Workflows as a map. Each workflow is drawn as nodes joined by wires in the order they run, with If steps splitting the path. Press a node to edit it. A past run is drawn the same way: each node coloured by how its step went, the path it took lit up, and every step's output a click away.
Toolbox → Hooks, in plain words. Every hook says what it does in a sentence. Ready-made hooks add one in a click: a chime when Claude finishes or needs you, blocking force-pushes and hard resets, keeping Claude out of .env files and keys, a log of the commands it runs, Prettier after edits, running the tests before it finishes, and more. Test run runs a hook once with a believable sample, the way Claude Code would, and says what Claude Code would make of the result. Shellby asks first.
Secret scan before push. Before anything leaves your PC, every push Shellby makes checks the commits it would send for API keys, tokens, private keys and files like .env or id_rsa. Is it safe to leave? flags secrets in work that hasn't gone out yet, and Tidy up tells Claude never to commit them.
Voices. Under Wardrobe → Voice he can talk like a Pirate Crab or a Grumpy Crab, speak Español, or use any voice from a community pack, each with little scenes of its own. His own switches back. Pack makers can find how to build one in ADDONS.md.
See and remove permission rules. In Toolbox → Rules, each rule opens to show it in full and which file it's saved in, with Show file and Remove rule.

Fixed

Claude Code cleans up after itself. Closing a tab, finishing a routine or rewinding used to leave Claude Code's MCP servers, shells and helper programs running on Windows, sometimes dozens of them. Now everything a conversation starts is stopped when it ends. Your own apps that Claude opened (browsers, Explorer, VS Code, Terminal) stay open. A tab left quiet for 30 minutes also stops its background programs; it stays open, and your next message picks it up again.
Toolbox → Lean no longer hangs on "Asking Claude Code…". It answers within two minutes, keeps what it has measured so far, and doesn't wait for a full Skill Shop refresh.
After "Restart and update" Shellby comes back with the panel open, where you left it, instead of just the crab.

Docs

The README is shorter, and the full feature lists moved into their own pages under docs/, with fresh screenshots.

0.62.0 October 4, 2026

2 new

the weekly crab card

What's in it

New

Your top project. Trophies & XP → This week now names the repo where you finished the most tasks, and lists the trophies you earned that week, alongside tasks, streak, ships, green tests, deploys, releases and clean audits.
The weekly crab card comes to you. Every Friday afternoon after a week with anything done in it (not only weeks that shipped), Shellby hands you the card, ready to share. 📅 Share my week still makes one any time. Projects you keep off your calling card stay off it.

0.61.0

6 new

Lean Shell

What's in it

More out of your Claude plan, without asking Claude to do any less. Nothing here touches a prompt, the model, the effort level or what Claude reads and writes.

New

What every conversation carries. Toolbox → Lean says how many tokens a new conversation carries before your first word, measured from its first call: Claude Code's own prompt and tools, every plugin's skill and agent listings, and your CLAUDE.md files. It's sent with every message, and while the prompt cache is warm it costs a tenth, but it always takes room in the context window.
Plugins, priced. Each plugin shows what Claude Code itself estimates it adds to every conversation. A plugin or MCP server that hasn't been used in 21 days, in Shellby or in Claude Code in the terminal on this PC, is marked idle. Turn off keeps it installed, so Turn on brings it back any time, and Shellby asks first.
Careful about "idle". A skill Claude calls by its bare name counts for its plugin. Plugins that work without being called (hooks, output styles, a status line, language servers, programs) are never idle, and neither is anything added or turned back on in the last three weeks. Shellby only judges as far back as this PC's Claude Code history goes.
CLAUDE.md and rules. Your memory files are listed with their sizes, and rules that only load for matching files are kept apart from the ones every conversation carries. Suggest a trim puts a prompt in a new tab, unsent: Claude proposes a shorter version as a diff and says why each cut is safe, and nothing changes until you say so.
The prompt cache. A dot on the context chip says whether this conversation's cache is warm, cooling or cold, and its menu explains what that means: after a break, the next message re-reads the conversation at full price, once. The Lean tab shows how much of Claude's input came from the cache this week and last.
XP for tidying. Turning off a plugin or server that sat idle is worth XP, once for each one. So is starting a crowded conversation fresh with a summary (past 80% full), and there's a bounty for it. Nothing pays for cheaper tasks, shorter replies or fewer turns: that would reward cutting corners.

0.60.0

7 new

projects and their dev servers

What's in it

New

Projects. A new page in the dock (Ctrl+7) lists your projects: the repos Shellby has seen you work in, plus any you add. Add a repo… takes one folder; Scan a folder… looks through a folder you pick and lists the repos in it for you to tick, adding nothing by itself. Sign in to GitHub and turn on Show my repositories to see those too: public ones need no extra permission, and private ones appear only if Claude tasks may already push. A clone and its GitHub repository are one project, however many clones you have.
A project's page shows each clone's branch and whether it has uncommitted or unpushed work, with Open folder, New conversation here and Open on GitHub. Remove from Projects only takes it off the list; the folder is never touched.
Dev servers. Each clone's dev scripts (dev, start, serve, preview, watch) are listed with the framework they start, and Start runs one with the project's own package manager (npm, pnpm, Yarn or Bun). Shellby reads where it's serving, so the card says Up on :5173 with an Open button, and a little :5173 pill sits by the crab. The log is a click away.
When one crashes he puts down what he was holding and raises a red sign, the pill turns red, and a notification says what died. The server's card shows the error lines marked in its log and an Ask Claude to fix it? sheet with exactly what would be sent: the last 50 lines it printed (with the first error pulled in from further up if it's there), secrets blanked out, and a note of your own if you add one. Nothing goes to Claude until you press Send to Claude. When Claude's done, the card offers Restart, and so does a notification if you're elsewhere. A server that keeps crashing gets one "keeps crashing" notification, not one per crash.
Servers keep running when Shellby quits, and Shellby picks them back up, log and all, when it starts again. A server that ended while Shellby was closed shows on its card, without a notification for something that happened hours ago. To stop them on quit instead, choose Stop them: it's right above your running servers on the Projects page, in Settings → Claude → Dev servers, and offered the first time you quit with servers running. The tray menu has Stop all dev servers whenever any are running.
Clone. A GitHub repository that isn't on this PC has a Clone… button. Nothing is downloaded until you've chosen where it goes, every time (the last folder is offered, never filled in), it won't clone over a folder that's already there, and nothing is installed or run afterwards. Install is a separate button for when you're ready.
Is it safe to leave? lists your running dev servers too.

Safety

Only a script's name ever reaches a command line, and only a plain one (letters, digits and :._-): a package.json can't slip a second command in. The package manager is one of four, chosen by the lockfile, and Windows' own programs are found by their full paths.
A server's output is untrusted text. It is shown as text, redacted before it's shown or sent, and reaches Claude fenced and labelled as output, never as instructions, and only from the card you're looking at.
Shellby only stops a server it started, and checks the process's start time first, so a reused process id is never mistaken for it. A server can't fool it into thinking it has stopped by printing what Shellby's own exit line looks like.
A project folder can't swap in its own npm.cmd or node.exe: programs are never run from the project folder itself.
Send to Claude sends exactly the text on the card: if it changed after you read it (it crashed again, say), nothing is sent and the card shows the new text.
Before an update installs, running servers are stopped and then started again by the new version, so none is left running unwatched.
The panel can only name folders the Projects page listed, and servers by id: never a path or a command.

0.59.0

7 new

flaky test detective

What's in it

New

Flaky tests, spotted. When a test fails and then passes with the code exactly as it was, Shellby notices. He compares the same test command on the same files (uncommitted changes included), so a test that went green because you fixed it never counts. The second time a test does it in a week, he says so: "auth.spec › signs in flaked 2 times this week". Click him while he says it to see the list.
The list. Routines → Flaky tests shows each one, its project and runner, and how often it flaked this week. He reads the failures from what the runner printed, for node's test runner, Jest, Vitest, Mocha, pytest, Go, Rust, Playwright (including its own "flaky" list), RSpec, .NET and PHPUnit.
Fix it. One button starts a task in a copy of the project on its own branch. Claude finds the cause (timing, shared state, test order, a real network or clock), fixes that rather than adding retries, runs the test 20 times to prove it, and commits. Once the test then goes 20 runs without a flake on the fixed code, it's marked fixed for good, which is worth XP.
Quarantine. Or have Claude skip just that test, the runner's own way, with a note saying why, without touching its code. Two weeks later he offers to try it again.
Not flaky. If it was really the world (a server that wasn't up yet), say so and he leaves it be, unless it keeps happening.
The week-in-review card counts flaky tests caught and fixed.
It's on by default, with a switch in Settings → System. It watches tests Claude runs in Shellby's tabs.

Safety

Only test names, counts and hashes are kept, on this PC. Never the output.
A test's name comes from the repository, which could be anyone's. In the task's prompt it's quoted and marked as data, after the rules. These tasks never run in Autonomous mode: with Autonomous on, they start in Auto-edit, so Claude asks before running anything. They commit on their own branch and don't push, so you look first.
A test run that prints a flood of blank lines can't stall Shellby while he reads it.

0.58.1

2 changed

getting ready to sign

What's in it

Changed

Releases can now be signed for free through SignPath Foundation, the code-signing programme for open-source projects. Once Shellby's application is approved, the installer and portable exe will be signed and Windows should stop showing the "Windows protected your PC" warning. Until then nothing changes: releases are unsigned, and More info → Run anyway still gets you past it. Who can sign what is written up in the README's new code signing policy; setup is in docs/SIGNING.md.
A privacy policy. PRIVACY.md lists every connection Shellby makes, what goes over it, when, and how to turn it off, plus what's stored on your PC and how to delete it. Nothing about what Shellby does has changed; the README's shorter list had left a few out, like workflow web requests, git fetch, and plugin installs.

0.58.0

7 new

prompt snippets

What's in it

New

Prompt snippets. Save the things you ask Claude for again and again, like "review my diff" or "write tests for this file", under a short name in Toolbox → Snippets. Then type /review in the box, or run shellby do @review in any terminal, and Claude gets the whole prompt.
Fill in the blank. Put $ARGUMENTS in a snippet and whatever you type after its name goes there: /tests src/app.js, or shellby do @tests src/app.js. Without it, anything you add goes on the end. A snippet that needs something says so instead of sending half a prompt.
In the slash menu. Your snippets come up as you type /, marked as snippets, right after Shellby's own commands. One that shares a name with a skill or command runs instead of it in the box, and the Toolbox tells you so.
One click. Pin a snippet and it's a chip on the start screen. Clicking it sends it, or puts it in the box if it needs something. Whatever you'd already typed goes with it.
Keep what worked. /snippets save <name> saves the last thing you sent as a snippet.
From the terminal. shellby snippets lists yours, and an @name that isn't one tells you the ones there are. @src/app.js, @README.md and anything else with a dot, a slash or a capital is still a file for Claude, as before.
You start with five you can edit or delete: review, tests, explain, commit and pr.

0.57.0

6 new

time on each project

What's in it

New

Time on each project. History → Time keeps track of how long you spend on each project, so a timesheet or an invoice is a click away. Shellby works it out from what he already sees: an editor or terminal showing a project's folder, the project's page on GitHub or GitLab, Claude working in it, and git moving in it (a commit, a checkout, a pull). Your terminal and the docs you're reading count for the project you were just in. The clock stops when you're away from the keyboard (after 5 minutes, or what you choose) or the screen is locked. It's off until you turn it on.
Clients and rates. Give each project a client and an hourly rate, mark it billable or not, and round each day to the nearest (or next) 6, 10, 15, 30 or 60 minutes. The page shows the period's hours and what they come to, a bar for each day, and each project's days with your commits on them.
Time by hand. Add a meeting or take off a break on any day, with a note for the invoice. Each day has quick −15 and +15 buttons and its own note.
From your commits. Days you committed but weren't keeping time can be filled in from the commits, the way git-hours estimates them, and they're marked as estimates wherever they show.
Timesheets. Save PDF makes a clean timesheet for a client, one project or everything: each day's hours and what it was for (its note, or else your commit messages), the rate and the total. Save CSV gives one row per project per day for a spreadsheet or your invoicing tool, and Copy as text is ready to paste into an email. They're saved to Documents\Shellby Timesheets.
From the terminal. shellby time last-week prints the same summary (today, week, last-week, month or last-month, and --git to fill in from commits).

Privacy

Everything stays on this PC and is never synced. The title of the window in front is read only to tell which project it shows, and then forgotten: all that's kept is the project, the day and the minutes. Only a code host's page counts in a browser, so a web page can't put time on your invoice by naming a project in its title.
Commit messages can't sneak into a timesheet as anything but text: no HTML, no spreadsheet formulas, no terminal escapes or invisible characters.

0.56.0

6 new

dependency watch

What's in it

New

Dependency watch. Once a week Shellby checks the npm projects you work in for outdated packages and known vulnerabilities, using npm outdated and npm audit. It's on the Routines page under Dependency health, off until you switch it on, because those commands ask the npm registry about your packages. Check now runs it straight away.
Where the Dependency checkup routine has Claude look over any kind of project and report, this is Shellby checking your npm projects himself, without Claude, and offering to do the update for you.
Bump & open a PR. For a project that needs it, one button opens a task in a copy of the project on its own branch. It bumps what's safe, then the major versions one at a time, runs the tests, and opens a pull request listing what changed and what it left alone. If the tests won't pass, it stops and tells you what broke instead of pushing. Your own checkout isn't touched.
Make it a routine. The same job as a weekly routine for that project, filled in for you to check before you save it.
When the weekly check finds something, you get a notification. One with a critical vulnerability gets through even during a focus session.
It checks up to 12 projects: the git repos Shellby has seen you work in and your recent folders, wherever there's a package.json and a package-lock.json.

Safety

The check runs inside your projects with no one watching, so a project can't choose what runs. npm and git are found by their full paths, never looked up in the project folder, and there's no shell. A project's .npmrc can't swap in its own git, and npm gets none of your environment's tokens or keys, so a project's settings can't quote them and send them somewhere. Package names and versions go to Claude only if they look like real ones, and marked as data, not instructions.

0.55.0

8 new5 changed

a life of his own

What's in it

New

Little scenes. When nothing's happening he gets up to something, a few beats at a time: squints at your cursor, creeps up on it, pounces and misses ("meant to do that"); builds a sandcastle and watches it wash away; sneezes, gets the hiccups, blows bubbles, juggles pebbles, nods off, counts grains of sand, swats at a fly. Some only happen at night, at the weekend, in their season or while music plays, and what he says depends on his temperament. 24 in all, and Shellby → Us shows which you've caught him in.
He notices your day. "gg" when a game you've been playing ends, "numbers again?" after most of an hour in Excel (and his own lines for Word and PowerPoint), "friday!" on a Friday afternoon, a lazy line at the weekend, a groan on Monday morning. He only ever knows the kind of app in front, from its file name and where it's installed: never a window title or anything in it, and nothing leaves your PC.
Quiet on a call. While an app has your microphone, he holds up a little "shh" sign, says nothing, stays off your windows, and asks how it went once you hang up. Windows' own record of who's using the microphone tells him; he never listens himself.
Gifts from digging. Now and then a dig turns something up and he holds it out to you. 38 finds, from sea glass and lost keys to pearls and, very rarely, a gold doubloon, in six sets to complete. Some only turn up in their season or after dark, and two only on special days. Right-click him → Play → Dig for treasure every couple of hours, and see them all on the new Shellby → Finds shelf. The one you pick as his favourite is what he shows off, and what he brings up when friends visit.
He remembers you. Petting, playing and keeping him around bring the two of you closer, from New friends to Inseparable, and every step opens something up. It never goes back down. Shellby → Us keeps your story ("You shook him off Chrome"), and every so often he brings a moment up. He counts your days together, marks his hatch day each year, and if you tell him your birthday he makes a fuss and digs up something you can't find any other way.
Hide and seek, and fetch. Right-click him → Play. He hides behind one of your windows, peeks out if you're stuck, and wins if you take too long. Or throw him a pebble and he scuttles off after it and brings it back.
Visiting crabs talk. When a friend's crab drops by, the two of them chat, and the conversation depends on both temperaments, their stickers, how much each has grown and the finds they're proudest of. Your calling card now carries his temperament and favourite find for this.
11 new trophies, each with something to wear: a sand pail, a metal detector, a treasure chest, a leafy disguise, a tennis ball, a friendship locket and more.

Changed

He stays awake while you're at your PC. He used to fall asleep three minutes after his last task even with you sitting right there, so without Claude he was asleep most of the day. Now your own keyboard and mouse keep him up, and he naps when you step away, or now and then because he felt like it.
His eyes follow your cursor.
Normal mode hears from him. On the default setting he now mutters to himself now and then when nothing's happening, instead of only on Chatty.
XP without Claude. Petting him, playing, his finds and growing closer all earn XP, so a crab-only Shellby levels up and earns his outfits too. The Trophies page lists every way to earn it, and only the ones that apply in just-the-crab mode.
His temperament is shown. Settings → Look, the Us page and his crab card say whether yours is chipper, fussy, cocky or sleepy. A crab-only crab card shows days together and finds instead of tasks and helpers.

0.54.0

5 new

is it safe to leave?

What's in it

New

Is it safe to leave? In his menu (right-click him or the tray icon). Shellby checks the projects you've worked in over the last two weeks and tells you what only exists on this PC or is still going: commits no remote has (and on which branches), files nobody committed, including in Shellby's own copies, stashes, Claude still working or waiting on you, and commands left running in the background. "2 projects have unpushed work." Tidy up opens a conversation in that project with a ready-to-send prompt to commit and push it; nothing is sent until you press Enter.
Lock the PC checks first. All clear, and it locks straight away; anything at risk is listed first, with Lock anyway.
Shutdowns and sign-outs wait. If you shut down, restart or sign out with unpushed or uncommitted work, or while Claude is mid-task or waiting on you, Windows shows Shellby holding it up with the reason, and Shut down anyway still works. Stashes and background commands are listed by the check but never hold up a shutdown, and neither do installers or critical shutdowns. Turn it off under Settings → System.
A project git can't read is shown as couldn't be checked, never as safe.
The menu item says what the last check found, so a glance is often enough.

0.53.0

6 new1 changed

fresh dependencies and your week

What's in it

New

Dependency checkup routine. A new Dependency checkup template on the Routines page. Once a week it runs each project's outdated and audit checks (npm outdated and npm audit, or the pnpm, Yarn, Bun, pip, Poetry, Cargo, Go, Bundler, Composer or .NET equivalent) and finishes with a table of what to update. It never installs or changes anything.
🧼 Fresh. A dependency audit that comes back clean earns 30 XP (once a day per project, or again straight away when it fixes what the last one found) and the project's sticker its new Fresh mark. There's a new bounty for it too: Pass a dependency audit.
Dependency health. The Routines page lists what each project's last checkup found: 🧼 fresh, how many vulnerabilities, how many packages are outdated, and when it was checked, with Check again. Each project's page in the Sticker Book shows the same and has a Check dependencies button.
Shellby reads what a check actually printed, not just how it exited, so npm audit | tail or cargo audit || true can't pass for a clean audit. Checkups count from routines, from tabs, and from your terminal with the plugin.
Your week. Trophies & XP → This week sums up the last seven days: projects shipped, tests turned green, tasks done, your streak, deploys, releases and clean audits. 📅 Share my week makes a card in the crab card's style, with the week's stickers on his tank, XP for each day and the projects that shipped. It's copied to your clipboard and saved to Pictures\Shellby.
On Friday afternoons after a week that shipped something, Shellby says so, and the week card is one click away.

Changed

The routine templates are always a click away under More templates, not just when you have no routines yet.

0.52.0

4 new

run it after the reset

What's in it

New

A heads-up before you hit your 5-hour limit. Shellby watches how fast your 5-hour window is filling. When your pace says it'll fill before it resets, he tells you: At this pace you'll hit your 5-hour limit around 3:40 PM. It resets at 4:15 PM. The warning shows above the box, as a notification if the panel isn't in front, and once per window. The 5-hour meter's tooltip says when it'll fill at this pace. The pace comes from the last hour of readings, so Claude Code you use outside Shellby counts too. Turn it off under Settings → System.
Run this after the reset. Near your limit or at it, Send after the reset (or Ctrl+Shift+Enter) holds what you've typed until the window resets, then sends it in that conversation. Hold N queued does the same for your queue, and so does the paused queue when a turn hits the limit. Held messages wait with your queued ones, showing the time they'll go: click one to edit it, ✕ to drop it. If one can't go, it lands back in its box rather than vanishing.
Routines can wait for the reset too. On the Routines page, the clock button runs a routine once your usage resets. A scheduled routine that comes due while you're at your limit now waits for the reset instead of failing.
Held work survives a restart or an update, and goes a minute after the reset, one at a time.

0.51.0

3 new

notifications that look like Shellby

What's in it

New

Shellby's Windows notifications wear his colours. Each one has the crab in the corner and a banner across the top in the panel's deep-sea colours. The banner matches the news: confetti for a level-up, a sticker, a trophy or CI back to green; a speech bubble when he needs your OK or has a question; a little rain cloud when something failed.
A button when there's something to do. "Review" when he needs your OK, "Answer" when he has a question, "Report it" when he hit a snag.
They're still real Windows notifications, so they stay in the notification centre and Do Not Disturb still holds them back. If Windows ever won't show the new look, you get the plain notification instead.

0.50.0

9 new

workflows

What's in it

New

Workflows. Something happens and Shellby runs a list of steps. It can start on a schedule (down to every 5 minutes), when a pull request goes red or green, when you push, deploy or release, when a task finishes, when a file lands in a folder, when another workflow finishes, when Shellby starts, when a script calls its web hook, or when Claude Code asks. The steps can be Claude, a PowerShell command, a web request, reading or writing a file, a question for you, or a message to your notifications, your phone or the crab. There's also If, For each, Wait, Set values, Run another workflow and Stop. They're on the new Automate page (the bottom bar, Ctrl+4), next to Routines. Everything they can do.
Claude hands back real data. Give a Claude step output fields (fixable true or false, a list of files, a cause) and it returns them as values, so the next step can branch on what Claude found or go through what it listed. All the Claude steps in a run share one conversation, so later ones know what earlier ones learned.
Describe it. Type what should happen, like "when a pull request goes red, find out why, and if it's simple fix it and ask me before pushing", and Claude writes the workflow. It opens in the editor for you to check, and nothing is saved until you press Save.
Six templates to start from: a red build fixer that asks before it pushes, a morning brief to your phone, a site watch, a downloads sorter, release notes for every release, and a disk space guard.
Runs you can follow and fix. Each run shows every step's status, time, output and error. Answer a waiting question right there, stop a run, or retry from the failed step without redoing what already worked. Fix with Claude reads the failed run and proposes a corrected workflow in the editor. A run waiting on you or on a timer carries on after a restart.
Secrets. Keep API keys under Automate → Secrets and use them as {{ secrets.NAME }} in commands and web requests. They're encrypted by Windows, never shown again, and blanked out of everything a run records.
From Claude Code and the terminal. With the plugin, Claude can propose a workflow (add_workflow), see yours (list_workflows), and start one you gave the Claude Code trigger (run_workflow). shellby flow list and shellby flow run <name> key=value do the same from any terminal. Any program on this PC can start a workflow through its web hook address.
Share them. Export copies a workflow as text, and Import opens one someone shared in the editor.
Phone notifications have a new kind, A workflow sends you a message, on by default, for a workflow's own "tell me on my phone" step.

Safety

Saving a workflow that can act without asking shows Shellby's confirmation window, listing every command, prompt, web address and file it could act on, in full. It asks again when any of those change. A workflow Claude proposes is always confirmed, never gets Autonomous, and is refused if it's too long to show in full.
Values from outside, like a pull request's title, a web page or a file, can't turn into code. A command gets them as environment variables, never in its text. Claude gets them marked as data, not instructions. A web address gets them encoded, and a file path refuses one that would leave its folder.
At most 4 runs go at once, and a workflow that starts more than 60 times in an hour is paused, with a notification saying so.
What you said yes to is signed with a key Windows keeps encrypted. A risky workflow added to Shellby's settings file any other way is paused until you save it again (which asks). Workflows can't write into Shellby's own folder, Claude Code's setup, your Startup folder, PowerShell profiles or git hooks, and can't call Shellby's own local port.

0.49.1

1 fixed

what the README says about billing

What's in it

Fixed

The README said Shellby always hides API keys from Claude Code. It hasn't done that since Claude Code started getting your PC's environment as it is. The README now says what really happens: Settings warns you when an API key or provider switch is set, and Always use my Claude plan leaves them out. It also says plainly that Shellby never sees your Claude sign-in.

0.49.0

6 new1 fixed2 changed

all the way to 99

What's in it

New

Something to grow into at every stage. Levels used to run out of rewards at 20. Now there's a new title, badge colour or shell at least every five levels, all the way to Shellby Supreme at level 99. Six new shells to grow into: a Coconut Half (30), a Lantern Jar (40), a Diving Helmet (50), a Crystal Geode (65), a Treasure Chest (80) and the Rainbow Nautilus (99). The level badge changes colour every ten levels, from Sunlit gold through Coral, Lagoon, Kelp, Deep, Amethyst, Ruby, Pearl and Abyss to Prism.
What's next. The XP card shows what the next unlock is and how much XP it is away.
Daily bounties. Three small goals a day, like Push to 2 different projects or Turn failing tests green. Every PC gets the same three. Each pays 40–75 XP, and clearing all three pays 50 more. Shellby tells you when you finish one.
XP for doing it well. Tests that pass after a failing run in the same project are green again, worth 40 instead of 25. The first push of the day to each project pays 20 extra.
Streaks count. A streak adds 5% to your XP for every week it runs, up to 25%. After three days or more away, your next 150 XP counts double.
Your last 30 days. The XP card charts your XP for each day and shows where it came from. Each log entry says which bonuses it got.

Changed

No more hard hourly cap. Doing the same thing over and over within an hour pays half, then a quarter, then nothing, so a test loop still can't farm XP.
The list of ways to earn XP now comes straight from the rules, so it can't fall out of date.

Fixed

XP earned on two PCs didn't add up. Sync kept only the larger of the two totals, so 500 XP on one PC and 300 on another came to 500. Each PC now keeps its own count and sync adds them together. XP from before this version is kept as it was, and a PC still on an older Shellby can't make anything count twice.

0.48.0

2 new

Haunted Shell

What's in it

New

Haunted Shell, a new Spooky Season pack. Eight things to wear: a jack-o'-lantern, cat ears, a costume mask, a vampire collar, a dripping candle, a caramel apple, a cobweb and a little ghost buddy who floats over his shell. Three effects: dangling spiders, will-o'-wisps and a burst of candy corn. Two new crabs: Skeleton and Pumpkin Patch.
Like every seasonal item, they're yours to keep if Shellby is running while Spooky Season is on (October 1 to November 2). It's on now.

0.47.3

1 fixed

old news

What's in it

Fixed

The same "new skill" every time Shellby started. When Claude Code had two versions of a plugin cached and one had a skill the other didn't, Shellby announced that skill as newly learned once per launch, and gave him the XP for it each time. A plugin update isn't a trick he taught himself, so it's no longer announced. A skill that really is new still gets its celebration, once.

0.47.2

1 fixed

he knows his own name

What's in it

Fixed

Shellby underlined his own name. Typing "Shellby" (or "Shellby's") got the red squiggle as if it were a typo. He knows how to spell it now, with no need to add it to the dictionary yourself.

0.47.1

1 fixed

the newest update, not the first one

What's in it

Fixed

An update waiting to install hid any newer one. Once Shellby had downloaded an update, he stopped checking, so a release that came out after it meant restarting to install the first, then restarting again for the second. He keeps checking now, and if something newer lands he downloads it and Restart and update installs that instead. If a check fails meanwhile, the update already downloaded stays ready to install.

0.47.0 October 3, 2026

3 new

say it

What's in it

New

Push-to-talk. Hold the Shellby shortcut (Ctrl+Alt+Space unless you changed it) and say the task. He shows listening… while you hold it, and when you let go your words are in the box, after anything you'd already typed. Nothing is sent until you press Enter, so you can read it over first. A quick tap still opens and closes Shellby, exactly as before.
Nothing extra to install. Windows' own speech recognition does the listening, on your PC: no account, no service, and the audio never leaves your machine. The microphone is only open while you hold the shortcut.
Turn it on in Settings → Shortcut → Hold it to dictate a task. It's off until you do. If Windows has no speech recognizer for your language, or desktop apps can't use the microphone, the switch stays off and says what to change in Windows Settings.

0.46.1 October 3, 2026

6 fixed

a security and bug sweep

What's in it

Fixed

Routines kept running overnight. Each run of a routine opened a tab and left Claude Code running in it. An hourly routine filled all eight tab slots by morning, and after that neither the routine nor you could open a new one. A routine's Claude Code process now stops when its run ends (replying picks the conversation up again), and when the tabs are full the oldest finished routine tab closes. History keeps everything.
Quitting mid-task left Claude working. Closing Shellby while a task ran let that Claude Code process, and anything it had started, carry on with no window to show it. Quitting now ends them.
Draft it could hang. Drafting a routine from a description could wait the full 90 seconds and then say Claude took too long. It answers right away now.
A routine that couldn't run said nothing. When a scheduled run is skipped (Claude Code signed out, or the last run still going), you now get a notification saying why.
Sending while Shellby was busy could save a message to History that Claude never saw, and reset what that turn's changes were measured from. It's refused before anything changes now.
Switching Health off and on during a slow sensor read could leave it reading twice as often.

Security

Bring home no longer runs your repository's git hooks. Claude can edit a tracked hook (.husky/pre-commit, say) without a prompt in Auto-edit, and Bring home's commit and merge would then have run it as you. Push still runs your hooks, as a terminal would. Shellby's git commands also turn off core.fsmonitor, so a repository's own settings can't name a program for Shellby to run.
! commands start PowerShell by its full path. Windows looks for a program in the working folder first, so a powershell.exe inside a project could have run instead.
The crab's window has a bridge of its own. It draws friends' visiting crabs and stickers, so it can now only move him and take a dropped file. Every call from a window is checked against what that window may do.
Phone notifications go only where you confirmed. Pointing them somewhere new, changing the token, or letting the phone answer Allow or Deny now asks in the confirmation window first, and nothing is sent anywhere you haven't confirmed. What you had set up before this version keeps working.
Switching to Autonomous asks once each time Shellby starts, after the first-time confirmation.
Routines that don't ask first (Smart, Auto-edit, Autonomous) are confirmed when you save a new one or change what one does, where or how.
Confirmation windows come one at a time, and a pile of them is turned down rather than shown.
Network shares are never opened for a picture or pack path, since just opening one makes Windows sign in to that machine. The working folder menu only switches to your recent folders; a new one comes through the folder picker.
Tighter checks: the Claude Code plugin's port also checks the Host header, the Skill Shop refuses local names written with a trailing dot (localhost.), phone notifications only use plain http: for real private addresses (not names like 10.example.com), the hardware monitor never follows a redirect, and links in Claude's replies show where they go on hover.
SECURITY.md now says what Shellby really does: API keys reach Claude Code unless Always use my Claude plan is on, your GitHub token reaches it if you let Claude push, and the plugin's port also takes the MCP tools and the shellby do command.

0.46.0

2 new

describe a routine

What's in it

New

Just describe it. The Routines page has a new box: type what you want done and when ("every weekday at 8:30, list what changed in my Documents") and press Draft it. Claude fills in the routine form for you (name, schedule, prompt, permission mode and, if you named one, the folder), and you check it over and press Save routine. Nothing is saved until you do.
It works without the Shellby plugin, uses no tools and doesn't add anything to your History. It's one short call to Claude's fastest model, and Autonomous is never picked for you.

0.45.1 October 3, 2026

1 fixed

your sign-in, your call, released

What's in it

Fixed

0.45.0 never made it out. Its release build stopped at three checks that only failed there: one compared two spellings of the same temp folder (the build machine's short RUNNER~1 name against the full one Git reports), one watched for the sticker slap on a machine with animations turned off, and the stand-in Claude that the end-to-end checks talk to lost track of the edit it was holding back for a copy. All three are fixed, and everything in 0.45.0 and the four versions before it (0.41.0 to 0.44.0) ships in this version.

0.45.0 October 3, 2026

3 changed

your sign-in, your call

What's in it

Changed

Shellby no longer hides API keys from Claude Code. Until now Shellby quietly removed ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN, ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL and the Bedrock, Vertex and Foundry switches before starting Claude Code, so it always ran on your Claude plan. Claude Code now gets them as they're set on your PC, and signs in however you've set it up.
Always use my Claude plan. To keep the old behavior, turn this on in Settings → Claude → Claude Code. Shellby then leaves those variables out, so its conversations always run on your Claude Pro or Max plan. It applies to new conversations.
A heads-up when a key is set. If one of those variables is set and the switch is off, Settings and the sign-in step say which one, because Claude Code may bill it per token instead of using your plan.

0.44.0

12 new

shell stickers

What's in it

New

A sticker for everything you ship. The first time a project ships, Shellby gets a sticker for it. He holds it up in his claw, turns his shell toward you and slaps it on, with a puff of sand. A project ships when you push it, deploy it or cut a release: from Shellby's tabs, from Push in the folder menu, from Claude Code in your terminal (with the Shellby plugin), or when one of your pull requests is merged on GitHub (with CI turned on).
Drawn for each repo. Every sticker is made from the repo itself: a shape, a pattern and its first letter, in the colour of the language it's mostly written in. The same repo gets the same sticker on every PC. A repo can also ship its own official sticker as .shellby/sticker.json (how).
They get shinier. Keep shipping a project and its sticker goes from paper to vinyl (5 ships), holo (15, it shimmers) and foil (40, it glints). Deploys and releases count double, a new release always counts, and a burst of pushes counts once an hour.
Marks. Deploying adds 🚀 Live, a release adds 🏷️ Released, a 1.0 adds 🥇 One-point-oh, and a merged pull request adds 🔀 Merged (🟢 Green Light if it went from red to green first). There are a couple of secret ones.
They peel. A project that hasn't shipped in two months starts to peel at one corner, and after six months its sticker fades. The next ship presses it back down, and he says so.
The Sticker Book (Shellby's screen → Stickers) has a page for every project: when it first shipped, how many times, deploys, releases and its latest version, its marks, and Pick up where we left off. Projects you work in that haven't shipped yet wait there as question marks.
Decorate his shell. In the Sticker Book, pick a sticker and a spot on his shell, or drag it there. Stickers stack like they do on a laptop lid, a pixel off so the one underneath still shows. On a spot, [ and ] change which is on top, F flips one and Delete peels it off. Tidy up lays them out again with the most shipped in the middle. New stickers go straight on unless you turn that off.
Every shell keeps its own. When he outgrows a shell, his three most-shipped stickers move house with him and the rest stay on the old one, so moving back into an old shell brings its stickers back. You can decorate any shell you've grown into.
Friends' crabs wear theirs. With Visiting crabs on, a friend's crab arrives with the stickers on its shell. Nothing about your stickers goes on your public calling card until you choose in the Sticker Book: His shell shares them as patches of colour (no names or letters), and Shell and names adds your three most-shipped. When you both share names, a visit may leave you one of their stickers as a swap. You can keep any project off your card.
On the crab card. His best stickers are slapped on the tank glass, and "projects shipped" replaces the helper count once you have some.
Six new trophies: Tagged (your first sticker), Sticker Bomb (10 projects), Shiny (a holo sticker), Liftoff (release a 1.0), Well Traveled (stickers on 3 shells) and Swap Meet (a friend's crab leaves you one), with a sticker sheet, a spray can, a holo visor, a rocket, a luggage tag and a trade binder to wear.
Synced. With GitHub sync on, your stickers and where they sit follow you between PCs. Each PC keeps its own folders.

0.43.0

4 new

seen it

What's in it

New

Hover a new item to mark it seen. In the Wardrobe, moving the mouse over an item with a new badge (or tabbing to it) counts as seeing it: the badge fades and the dots on its tab and on the Shellby button go out when nothing new is left. Just opening a tab no longer clears every badge in it unseen.
Mark all seen. While anything in the Wardrobe is new, a Mark all seen button next to Outfits clears every badge at once, homes included.
Unlock cards count as seeing the rewards. Closing a trophy or level-up card yourself (✕, Wear it, Share or Esc) marks what it unlocked as seen, so those items don't show as new again in the Wardrobe. A card you let time out leaves them new, in case you were away.
Dismiss all. When more unlock cards are waiting behind the one showing, it says Dismiss all (3). One click closes them all and marks all their rewards seen.

0.42.0

6 new1 fixed

try again from any turn

What's in it

New

Try again from here. Hover one of your messages and press the fork next to ↶. Change it and try again opens a new tab that remembers the conversation up to just before that message, with your message back in the box to change. Run it again in a new tab sends it again straight away, so you get a second take to compare. The original tab carries on exactly as it was. /branch does the same from the box, and the rewind menu has Try it in a new tab instead for when you'd rather not lose anything.
Branch from here. Under any finished reply, branch opens a new tab that carries on from that point, so you can take the conversation two ways at once.
Each try gets its own copy of the files, as they were then. In a git project, a branch works in its own copy of the repository on its own branch. The copy starts with the files exactly as they were at that moment of the conversation, uncommitted and untracked work included, even if the original has changed them since. The two tries never touch each other's files. If git has tidied away the files from that point, Shellby asks before using the files as they are now. In a folder that isn't a git project, the two tabs share it, and both say so.
Claude knows where it is. Before a branch's first message, Claude is told it's in a new copy and where, and Shellby keeps its edits out of the original's folder and away from the original's branch. Copying files across from the original, like a missing .env, is still fine.
Compare two tries, then keep one. A branch's chip lists the other tries at the same thing. Compare with… shows, file by file, what this one has that the other doesn't, with each file's diff a click away. Keep this one brings it home and throws away the other tries' copies. It asks first, listing each one and what it would lose, and does nothing if one of them starts working while you decide. If bringing it home clashes, nothing is thrown away. Every conversation stays in History.
Each new tab says where it came from, with a link back. The original notes where each try went, and a branch's tab shows ⑂ before its name.

Fixed

The quoted message at the top of the rewind menu shows on one line again, not one word per line.

0.41.0

10 new

up on your windows

What's in it

New

Shellby climbs onto your windows. Every so often, when he's idle, he looks up at the window you're using, crouches, and hops up onto its title bar, with a somersault if it's a long way. He lands in a puff of dust and makes himself at home: he walks along the bar, sits on the edge swinging his legs, and leans over to see what you're doing. After a few minutes he hops back down to his spot. It works the same in Just the crab, no Claude needed.
Drag the window and he rides it. He grips the bar, leans back into the wind and holds on, with a little bounce when you stop. Keep going and he starts enjoying himself.
Shake it and he's off. A hard yank, a fast drag that stops dead, or a good shake flings him off, spinning. Shake it properly and he lands dizzy, with stars going round his head.
Close the window under him and he hangs in the air for a beat, legs still going, looks down, and the ! goes up. Then he drops, flailing. If there's another window below, he lands on that one; if not, he lands on the taskbar and walks home. Minimizing does the same. Maximizing pops him off with a boing.
Throw him at a title bar and he catches it. Drop him onto one while dragging and he sits there too. Picked up, he's above every window, so you can see where he's going.
He's well behaved up there. He stays clear of the minimize, maximize and close buttons and the app icon, never climbs onto fullscreen games or presentations, and lets clicks through to the title bar around him. He comes down by himself when a fullscreen app takes over his screen, or when helpers or a visiting friend's crab need room beside him. Windows won't let him sit on apps running as administrator, so he slides straight off those and leaves them alone for a while.
Right-click him on a window for Hop down, or Not on Spotify (whatever app it is) to keep him off it for good. When he's on the desktop, Climb onto a window sends him up straight away.
Settings → Shellby → Climbing onto your windows: Never, Sometimes (the default) or Often. The apps he's been told to stay off are listed underneath, and you can take them back off the list. Turning strolling off keeps him off your windows too.
His temperament shows. A cocky crab climbs most and a fussy one least, and a sleepy one stays longest (and naps). He has things to say about all of it: "nice view", "wheee", "rude!", "oh no", "the room spins".
Five new trophies, each with an outfit: Window Sill (a spyglass), Hang On! (racing goggles, for riding a window 2,000 px), and three secret ones that bring a cowboy hat, a parachute and a ringmaster's collar.

0.40.2 October 3, 2026

1 fixed

visiting crabs, released

What's in it

Fixed

0.40.0 and 0.40.1 never made it out. Their release builds stopped at two end-to-end checks: one hadn't learned about the new Visiting crabs toggle, and the other waited forever for a screenshot the build machine never took. Both are fixed, and everything in 0.40.0 below ships in this version.

0.40.0 October 3, 2026

6 new

visiting crabs

What's in it

New

Friends' crabs come to visit. Turn on Visiting crabs in Settings → Connections → GitHub and add friends by their GitHub username. Now and then, when Shellby is idle and not guarding your focus, a friend's crab strolls onto your desktop next to him for a few minutes, in their own outfit, colors and shell, with their name above it. Shellby says who dropped by. Want company now? Press Invite over.
They hang out. A few times during a visit the two crabs do something together: a dance with notes floating up, a party with confetti and jumping, a claw-bump high five, or a little duet. Shellby says something to match. If a task starts or you're in a focus session, they skip it.
A guestbook with souvenirs. Every visit signs your guestbook, and the visitor leaves a keepsake: sea glass, a sand dollar, a pearl, a bottle cap and more. Which one depends on who came and on which day, so regulars bring a mix.
Waves. Send a friend a wave ("loves the outfit", "go ship it!", "go to bed!" and a few more) and it pops up in their crab's bubble and their Waves list. These are fixed lines, so nobody can make your crab say anything else, and only friends you added get through.
Two new trophies. Open House (a friend's crab drops by) unlocks Sea Glass and a Friendship Cord. Pen Pals (wave 5 times) unlocks a Message in a Bottle.
How it works, and what's public. There's no Shellby server. Your crab gets a small public calling card gist with its look and level under your GitHub username, and nothing else: no stats, projects or history. Waves are comments on that gist. Shellby asks before putting the card up, a first sign-in never turns this on, and switching it off or signing out deletes the card.

0.39.0

10 new

everything the terminal does

What's in it

New

Rewind to an earlier message. Press Esc twice in an empty box, type /rewind, or hover one of your messages and press ↶. Pick a message and choose Conversation and code, Conversation only or Code only. The conversation goes back to just before that message, as if the rest never happened, and your message comes back into the box to change and send again. The code goes back with Shellby's own record of each turn, so changes made by scripts and installs are undone too, not just Claude's edits. The code goes back newest turn first. If a file changed again since and can't go back, it stops there and says which, and the conversation is left as it was. The old version of the conversation isn't lost: Claude Code keeps it, and Shellby carries on from a copy. Messages sent before this version can have their code put back, but not the conversation.
! runs a command yourself. Start a message with ! (for example !git status) and Shellby runs it in PowerShell in the conversation's folder. The output shows in the conversation, and Claude gets the command and its output along with your next message, without spending a turn on it. The first time, Shellby asks in the confirmation window. To send Claude a message that starts with !, type !!.
@ mentions files. Type @ and start typing a file or folder name: a list of matches from the project comes up, the way it does in the terminal. Tab or Enter puts it in. Picking a folder keeps the list open inside it. Paths with spaces are quoted for you. Claude Code reads the file itself when the message goes.
Up and Ctrl+R bring back what you've sent. In the box, ↑ and ↓ step through your last 100 messages, across every conversation. They're kept in their own file in Shellby's data folder, and anything that looks like it carries a key or password is left out. Ctrl+R searches them: type to narrow it down, Ctrl+R again for older matches, Enter to use one, Esc to go back to what you had. ↑ in an empty box still takes back a queued message first.
Effort. A new chip next to the folder sets how hard Claude thinks: Auto, Low, Medium, High, Extra high or Max. It applies to every open conversation straight away, from the next message. /effort high does the same from the box.
Output style. Settings → Claude → Model has an Output style picker: Default, Explanatory (explains its choices as it goes), Learning (leaves small pieces for you to write), and any styles you or the project keep in an output-styles folder. It applies to new conversations.
Toolbox → Rules. The allow, ask and deny rules Claude Code follows, from your settings and the project's, in one list (what /permissions shows in the terminal). Add one, like Bash(npm run test:*) or Read(./.env), or remove one. Adding an allow rule, or removing an ask or deny rule, asks you first in the confirmation window. A backup of the settings file is kept.
Toolbox → MCP can change things now. Add server adds one that runs a program or connects to a URL, for just you here, the project, or you everywhere, after you confirm. Each server has Turn off / Turn on and Reconnect (when it has failed), which act on every open conversation that's running, and ✕ to remove it. Refresh asks a running conversation for the latest statuses.
/export saves the conversation as a Markdown file. /export clipboard copies it instead.
Shellby's own commands in the / menu: /rewind, /export, /effort, /permissions, /mcp, /model and /output-style. Typing a command out in full and pressing Enter runs it, instead of completing its name.

0.38.0

5 new

Claude sets up routines

What's in it

New

Ask Claude for a routine. In any Claude Code session with the Shellby plugin, including Shellby's own tabs, say what you want done and when ("every weekday at 8:30, list what changed in my Documents") and Claude sets up the routine for you. Shellby opens his confirmation window with the name, the schedule, the folder, the mode and the whole prompt, and saves it only if you press Add routine. Claude is told whether you said yes, and the new routine appears in Routines straight away, where you can pause, edit or delete it as usual.
Change one by asking. Claude can also see your routines, so "move my morning briefing to 9" changes the existing one rather than adding a second. The window says Change a routine?, and the routine keeps its history and stays paused if you'd paused it.
Claude can't pick Autonomous for a routine, and can't turn one on without your yes. Prompts it writes are capped at 1,000 characters and 20 lines, with runs of blank lines squeezed out, so the window can always show every word. The folder and mode are listed above the prompt, where a long prompt can't push them away. Only one routine question is open at a time, and after you say no, Claude has to wait a moment before asking again.
Long details in Shellby's confirmation windows now scroll, so the buttons always stay in view.
The plugin is now version 1.3.0. Update it in Claude Code to get the two new tools.

0.37.0

1 new

home and done

What's in it

New

Bringing a copy home ticks the conversation off. When you bring a copy home and tidy it away (the tab closes), History marks that conversation done. It's merged, so it's finished. Bringing it home and keeping the copy leaves it alone, because you might carry on there, and so does throwing a copy away. If a done conversation gets more work, it's marked not done again, the same as when you tick it yourself.

0.36.0

1 new

on the clock

What's in it

New

See how long he's been at it. While a prompt runs, the Working bar shows a clock next to what he's doing, like Claude Code's (12s · esc to interrupt). It ticks every second (7s, 1m 05s, 1h 02m) and starts over for each prompt, including queued ones as they go out. The time comes from the moment the turn actually started, so it stays right if you switch tabs or reopen the panel mid-task. When the turn ends, the done · 48s line under it keeps the final figure as before.

0.35.0

2 new

what's hogging it

What's in it

New

What's hogging it. When Shellby sweats or gets dizzy, the Health view lists the busiest processes right under the warning, so "your GPU is at 84°C" comes with the reason. It's sorted by whatever explains the warning (GPU use, CPU use or memory), and you can switch between them. Each one has an End task button that asks first, in the separate confirmation window, showing what you're about to close and what it's using. Windows' own processes and Shellby himself can't be ended from here. If the process closes while the question is open, Shellby won't end whatever took its place.
Starts with Windows. The Health view lists everything that launches when you sign in, with the ones you've switched off in Task Manager crossed out. Ask Shellby which ones I need starts a read-only task that explains each one, also checks scheduled tasks and services that start on their own, and gives you a table of what to keep, what to switch off and how. It doesn't switch anything off itself, and it always runs in Ask mode, so anything Claude wants to run asks you first.

0.34.0

1 new

call it what you like

What's in it

New

Rename a conversation. Double-click a tab, or press F2 on it, and type a new name. In History, hover a row and press ✎. Enter saves it and Escape leaves it as it was. You can name a fresh tab before you send it anything, and your first message won't replace the name. Renaming doesn't count as activity, so the conversation keeps its place in History.

0.33.0

4 new

off to GitHub

What's in it

New

Push from the folder menu. In a git project, the folder menu has a This repository section with Push main (or whichever branch you're on). It says how many commits would go and how many the remote has that you don't, for example 14 commits to push · 2 to take in from origin first. It shows the figures from the last fetch straight away, then checks with the remote. Pressing it fetches, merges in the remote's work (a merge, never a rebase, so your "Bring home" merges stay as they are), then pushes. It never force-pushes. If the remote's work clashes with yours, the merge is backed out, nothing is pushed, and he can sort it out on his branch. If a pre-push hook says no, its own words are written into the conversation. A branch with no upstream is pushed to origin under the same name and starts tracking it. The conversation notes each push, and a push earns ship XP like a git push he runs himself.
Bring it home and push. The branch menu has a third way home: merge the copy into its branch, then push that branch. If the push doesn't go through, the merge stays and the copy is kept, so you can push again from the folder menu.
Bring all home. When copies of the repository have work that isn't in your branch yet, from open tabs or conversations in History, the folder menu offers to merge them all, one at a time. A copy that started from another branch is left alone, and so is a tab that's still working. The first clash stops it: the copies merged before it stay merged, and if that conversation is open he can sort it out. Bring all home and push then pushes the lot.
Neither runs while a conversation is working in your checkout itself, since a merge from the remote would land under its feet.

0.32.0

2 new

getting crowded in here

What's in it

New

See how full each conversation is. A thin bar under each tab fills as the conversation uses up Claude's context window. It turns amber past 80% and red past 95%. The ctx chip next to the folder shows the active tab's exact figure, for example 86% full · 172k of 200k tokens. Click it to make room. The window size comes from Claude Code itself, so models with a 1M-token window are measured against 1M.
Compact, or start fresh with a summary. Once a conversation passes 80%, Shellby says it's getting crowded, and a strip above the box offers two ways out. Compact runs Claude Code's /compact: Claude sums up the conversation so far and carries on in the room that frees up. Start fresh with a summary has Claude write a handoff note (the goal, what's done, what's left, decisions and the files that matter), then starts a brand-new conversation in the same tab and hands it the note. The tab keeps its own copy of the repo and its History entry. Both actions are in the chip's menu at any time, and the strip can be dismissed until the conversation fills up again. The transcript marks each compaction (Claude Code's automatic ones too) and each fresh start.

0.31.0

1 new

Claude sets up CPU temperature

What's in it

New

Let Claude set up LibreHardwareMonitor. When CPU temperature isn't available, the Health view's setup card has a Let Claude set it up button. It fills in a task asking Claude to install LibreHardwareMonitor with winget, turn on its web server on the port Shellby uses (no password), start it minimized as administrator and check that Shellby can reach it. You accept the Windows admin prompt yourself. The task isn't sent until you press Enter, and Claude asks before making LHM start with Windows. The manual steps are still there. In just-the-crab mode the button explains what Claude Code would add.

0.30.0

3 new1 changed

Settings in four tabs

What's in it

New

Settings is split into four tabs instead of one long page: Shellby (his look, music, desk lighting, streaming), Claude (Claude Code, permission mode, model, working folder, Claude Code everywhere), Connections (notifications on your phone, GitHub) and General (startup, the shortcut, updates and About). Settings reopens on whichever tab you last looked at. The first time, it opens on Claude, or on Shellby in just-the-crab mode. The arrow keys move between tabs.
Nothing is hidden from search. Ctrl+K still finds every setting and shows which tab it's on. Picking one opens that tab, scrolls there and briefly lights up the section. The tray's update item and the "update ready" notification land in the right place the same way.
When an update is ready, the General tab gets the same dot as the gear.

Changed

Shortcut & model is split in two: the shortcut that opens Shellby is under General, and the model picker (with every model from 0.29.0) is under Claude.

0.29.0

1 new

every model

What's in it

New

Pick any Claude model. Settings → Shortcut & model now lists every current model, grouped by family: Fable 5.1 and 5, Opus 5.5 down to 4.5, Sonnet 5.5 down to 4.5, and Haiku 4.5. Opus, Sonnet and Haiku (latest) are still there and follow whatever Claude Code treats as newest. The others pin that exact release. Like before, the choice applies to new conversations.

0.28.0

1 new

Claude can tidy your memory

What's in it

New

Ask Claude to review your memory. Toolbox → Memory has a Review with Claude button, and each open CLAUDE.md has an Ask Claude button next to Save. Either one starts a task asking Claude to look the files over and suggest what to tighten, add or cut, and to show you the changes before making them. It's filled into the box but not sent, so you can say what you want changed first. If the claude-md-management plugin is installed, the task uses its /claude-md-improver skill. Without it, Claude still does the review from a plain prompt. If you have the file open with unsaved changes and Claude edits it too, saving won't overwrite Claude's version and offers to reload.

0.27.3 October 2, 2026

1 fixed

GitHub sign-in lets go on quit

What's in it

Fixed

Quitting during a GitHub sign-in leaves nothing behind. If Shellby closed just as a GitHub sign-in finished, the sign-in could still start its 15-minute sync timer afterwards. Once Shellby is closing, a late sign-in no longer starts anything.

0.27.2 October 2, 2026

1 fixed

diffs under any spelling of the path

What's in it

Fixed

A turn's diff and Undo work wherever the project is. If Windows knew the project folder by its short name (C:\Users\RUNNER~1\...), opening a file's diff or pressing Undo said "That project has moved." The folder is now compared with its full name.

0.27.1 October 2, 2026

1 fixed

tidier health warnings

What's in it

Fixed

Health warnings fit their cards. In the Health view, a very high warning no longer wraps onto two lines and swells into a blob, and labels like GPU temp stay on one line, so the readings line up across cards again. When the cards are narrow, a critical warning just says high. It stays solid red and pulsing, so it doesn't look like the amber warning.

0.27.0

2 new

hooks and memory in the Toolbox

What's in it

New

Toolbox → Hooks. Every hook Claude Code will run, in one list: yours (~/.claude/settings.json), the project's (shared and just-you) and the ones your plugins bring. Add a hook, edit one or remove it right there: pick when it runs, which tools it's for and the command. Each change asks first in the isolated confirmation window, shows the exact command and where it's saved, and keeps a backup of the settings file. Plugin hooks are listed but left to the plugin.
Toolbox → Memory. The CLAUDE.md files that load for the folder you're in: yours, the project's, CLAUDE.local.md, your and the project's .claude/rules/, and any CLAUDE.md in the folders above. Open one in a plain editor, or create yours or the project's if it isn't there yet. Ctrl+S saves. If the file changed somewhere else since you opened it, Shellby won't save over it and offers to reload. Windows line endings stay as they were.

0.26.0

1 new

who used it all

What's in it

New

See what used up your limits. Click the 5h / 7d meters to see what filled each window: every tab and routine with its share, or switch to Projects to see it by folder. A conversation working in its own copy counts toward the project it came from. Each call is weighed by the model it used, since a limit fills faster on Opus than on Haiku. Only what Shellby ran is listed. Claude Code used elsewhere (a terminal, claude.ai) fills the meters too, and the breakdown says so. The tally stays on your PC and keeps just over a week.

0.25.0

1 new

while you were away

What's in it

New

A recap when you come back. Step away for an hour or more (or lock the PC) and, when you're back, a short digest waits above the box: what finished, what failed, and what's waiting on you, whether that's a question or a permission prompt in Shellby or in Claude Code elsewhere. It also shows roughly how much of your 5-hour usage window went while you were out, split by conversation. Click a row to open that conversation, even one whose tab you've closed. If the panel isn't in front, a notification sums it up and Shellby says hello. The usage split is approximate: Claude Code only reports how full the window is, so each rise is put down to whichever conversation reported it, and Claude Code running outside Shellby fills the same window. Turn it off under Settings → System.

0.24.0

3 new

show him what's wrong

What's in it

New

Screenshot to task. Snip with Win+Shift+S and press Ctrl+V in the box: the screenshot is attached, with a thumbnail. Claude sees the picture itself, not just a file name, so "this button is cut off" needs no more explaining. You can also drop a picture on the crab or the panel, including one dragged straight out of a browser. With a snip already on the clipboard, right-click the crab for Task from screenshot. Send a screenshot with nothing typed and he takes a look at it, in a tab called Screenshot.
A 📎 button in the box attaches files from a picker, for when there's nothing handy to drag.
Pictures show as pictures. Attached screenshots and images get a thumbnail in the box and a preview in the conversation.

Big snips are shrunk to 2000 pixels on the long side before they go, which is about as much as Claude looks at anyway. They're kept in the data folder's screenshots folder for 30 days. Pasting something that carries text as well (a cell copied out of Excel) still pastes the text.

0.23.0

1 new1 fixed

Shift+Tab switches mode

What's in it

New

Shift+Tab switches the permission mode, just like in Claude Code. Press it in the message box to step through Ask → Smart → Auto-edit → Plan and back round. The chip and the hint under the box change as you go, and the new mode applies to every open conversation. Autonomous isn't in the loop on purpose: holding a key down should never land on the one mode that never asks. Pick it from the chip or Settings as before.

Fixed

The little shell beside his messages is your shell now. In his own shell, the mark in the chat (and the one that scuttles while he works) was always coral, whatever skin you'd picked. It now takes the colours of your skin's shell, so Classic gets teal, Midnight indigo, and so on. Shells he's grown into (the teacup, the golden conch…) still show as themselves.

0.22.2 October 2, 2026

1 fixed

Shellby 0.22.2

What's in it

Fixed

A tab's own copy started in the right subfolder only when Windows spelled the path out in full. Under a shortened folder name (like C:\Users\RUNNER~1\), a conversation started in a subfolder of a git project landed at the top of its copy instead. Shellby now asks git where the folder sits in the project rather than comparing the two spellings. This failed the checks for 0.22.0 and 0.22.1, so neither was published. 0.22.2 is the first release with everything from both.

0.22.1 October 2, 2026

3 fixed

the lights come on for slow boards

What's in it

Fixed

Desk lighting could never connect on some PCs, including ones with Corsair memory. Shellby misread OpenRGB's description of each device, which shifted everything after it, so the lighting never matched up with the hardware.
OpenRGB on a board that takes a while to start (memory and motherboard lighting found over SMBus can take a minute or more) no longer gets a second copy started on top of the first. The two fought over the hardware and neither one answered. Shellby now waits up to a minute and a half for the copy it started. If it still hasn't answered by then, the message says where to find it in the tray and what to check.
"New trick" no longer repeats itself. A skill or plugin that briefly went missing from a scan and then came back (two cached versions of a plugin, or a skill deleted and put back) was announced as newly learned again. Each one is now announced only once.

0.22.0 October 2, 2026

3 new

answer from your phone, see what changed

What's in it

New

Allow or Deny from your phone. With Telegram or ntfy set up under Settings → Tell me when I'm away, turn on Let me answer Allow or Deny from my phone and the permission notification gets the two buttons. Telegram uses inline buttons in your chat with the bot; ntfy's buttons answer on a second topic beside yours. Nothing goes through a server of ours. Each prompt carries its own single-use code that expires after 30 minutes, and the card on your desktop says Allowed from your phone when you do. Only your own private chat with the bot can answer, and on ntfy the topic has to be one nobody will guess (like the one Shellby picks) or the server needs a token. Questions, plans, Always allow, commands too long to read on a phone, and anything the desktop card would warn you about still wait for you at the desk. Answering at the desk takes the buttons off the phone.
See what every turn changed. In a git project each turn now ends with a ± files changed block: every file it touched, with lines added and removed. Click a file for its diff. Undo (press it twice) puts those files back the way they were before the turn, and refuses if any of them changed again since. It sees everything the turn did, including files written by scripts and installs, not just Claude's own edits. Your staging area, branches and stash are never touched.
A copy of the project for each tab (optional). Settings → Working folder → Give each new conversation its own copy of a git project gives each new tab its own git worktree on its own branch, starting from your last commit, so two tabs in one repo stop stepping on each other. The branch shows next to the folder. Bring it home commits what's left, merges it into the branch it came from and removes the copy; Throw it away deletes it unmerged. A merge that would clash is backed out completely, with an offer to have him sort it out on his own branch. Routines and his own errands (like Look over my changes) still work in your real checkout.

0.21.3 October 2, 2026

2 fixed

a fresh coat for the README

What's in it

Fixed

A "⚙ 0" badge sat on every crab in the top-left corner, even with nothing left running in the background. It now only shows up when there's actually something to see.
"fingers crossed" read as "Angers crossed" in his speech bubble: the pixel font joins "fi" into one glyph that looks like an "A". Every "fi" in his bubble is spelled out now — "this file again?" included.

Docs

The README is rebuilt around everything since 0.17: his voice, the shells he grows into, the shellby command and MCP server, phone notifications, the OBS overlay, desk lighting, the new packs and crabs, the security read and tickable chats. A What's new grid sits near the top.
New pictures, all rendered from the real app: a banner, lineups of the head-to-tail sets, the new crab species and his moods, the phone-notification QR screen, refreshed screenshots, and a new demo reel in which he talks while he works. python scripts/make-banners.py rebuilds the composites after npm run screenshots.

0.21.2 October 2, 2026

Shellby 0.21.2

What's in it

Releases

A release can't go out wrong any more. 0.21.1 was briefly published empty, which broke "Check for updates" with a missing latest.yml. The release build now stops before building if the tag doesn't match the version, has moved to another commit, or already has a published release. Before publishing, it checks the installer, portable build, blockmap, checksums and a latest.yml for that exact version are all there. If a tag is pushed again, the older run is cancelled instead of racing it.

0.21.1 October 2, 2026

1 fixed

nobody gets left at the edge

What's in it

Fixed

Helper crabs no longer get cut off when they spawn. One that arrived just as another finished was pushed past the edge of Shellby's window, and one that arrived just after could stay clipped until the crew changed again.

0.21.0 October 2, 2026

3 new2 fixed

he sets it up himself

What's in it

New

Phone notifications in one scan. Turn on Settings → Tell me when I'm away and Shellby picks an ntfy topic nobody will guess and shows a QR code. Scan it with your phone, open the link in the free ntfy app, and press Send a test. No account, nothing to type.
Telegram finds your chat by itself. Paste your bot's token, send the bot any message, and Shellby fills in the chat id (or press Find my chat).
OpenRGB, installed for you. Settings → Desk lighting → Install OpenRGB for me installs it with winget after you confirm (Windows asks for permission too). Whenever the lighting is on, Shellby starts OpenRGB in the tray with its SDK server running, including when Shellby itself starts.

Fixed

Switching where notifications go no longer carries the old address over. A Telegram chat id would otherwise have become a public, guessable ntfy topic.
0.20.4 couldn't start: a line meant for the PATH update sat outside its function. Its release never published, so nobody got it.

0.20.4 October 2, 2026

1 fixed

Shellby 0.20.4

What's in it

Fixed

After Add to my PATH, a new Command Prompt opened from the Start menu still said "'shellby' is not recognized" until you signed out. Shellby now tells Windows the PATH changed, so the next terminal you open has it.

0.20.3 October 2, 2026

2 fixed

Shellby 0.20.3

What's in it

Fixed

shellby could go missing right after you added it. Settings said it was ready, but cmd answered "'shellby' is not recognized". A test run of Shellby on the same PC was deleting the real command along with its own copy. Test runs now keep theirs to themselves.
The shellby command card no longer says "Ready" while React to Claude Code sessions outside Shellby is off. The command reaches him through that, so the card now tells you to turn it on.

0.20.2 October 2, 2026

1 fixed

Shellby 0.20.2

What's in it

Fixed

The Where, topic and token boxes under Settings → Tell me when I'm away were plain white Windows controls. They now look like every other field in Shellby.

0.20.1 October 2, 2026

1 fixed

Shellby 0.20.1

What's in it

Fixed

The OpenRGB link in Settings was dark blue, hard to read and did nothing when clicked. It now matches the sea-glass links in chat and opens openrgb.org in your browser. Links in a helper's summary got the same color fix.

0.20.0 October 2, 2026

he gets out more

What's in it

Claude can drive him now

The plugin brings an MCP server with it, so Claude can put a line in Shellby's bubble on purpose instead of Shellby guessing from hook events. A skill can have him say what it's up to, celebrate when a release actually lands, or put a hat on.
status works the other way round: Claude can ask how the machine is doing — his level, what's running, CPU and GPU temperature, memory, a drive that's filling up — which is worth knowing before kicking off something heavy.
It cannot start tasks. Anything running on this PC can reach that port, and spending your Claude subscription is not something a local port should be able to do. Shellby's own permission cards are still the only way work begins.

A `shellby` command

Hand him a task from any terminal: shellby do "tidy my Downloads", in whatever folder you're standing in. Also shellby say and shellby status.
Settings → Claude Code everywhere → the shellby command puts it on your PATH. It's appended, never prepended, so it can't shadow anything you already had, and removing it puts your PATH back exactly as it was.
Starting a task needs a token Shellby writes into its own settings folder, so a web page can't do it, and Autonomous is not reachable from a terminal at all.

He can tell you when you're not at the desk

Autonomous mode expects you to walk away, and walking away meant missing the moment he raised a claw. Now a permission prompt, a finished run, a reset usage limit, a red build or an overheating GPU can reach your phone.
ntfy, Pushover, Telegram, a Discord or Slack webhook, or your own endpoint. One pasted address, no account, no app to install, and nothing goes through a server of ours. Off until you ask for it, and Guard my focus holds them back unless you say otherwise.
A task that took four seconds doesn't buzz your pocket; the prompts that need you always get through.

On a stream

Settings → On a stream serves him as an OBS browser source on a transparent background: the same crab, the same outfit, the same animations, reacting live in the corner of a stream.
It's the critter's own stylesheet and sprite builder behind it, so he can't drift out of sync with the one on your desktop, and it listens on 127.0.0.1 only.

Your desk lights up with him

Through OpenRGB: coral while he works, amber when he needs you, red when a build goes red or something overheats. No account, no cloud, no vendor software.
Health beats CI beats what he's doing, so an overheating GPU is what the room shows you.

He listens along

Shellby notices what's playing — Spotify, a browser tab, anything in the volume flyout — and puts his headphones on, with the odd remark about it. Read from Windows itself, so there's no account and nothing leaves the PC.
A Now Playing pack comes with it: a boombox, a vinyl record, a microphone, and notes drifting up while it plays.

He can see more of your PC

AMD and Intel cards get the rest of their gauges. Load, memory, power and fan speed were only ever read for NVIDIA; now whatever LibreHardwareMonitor knows about your card shows up beside its temperature.
Drive temperatures, case fans and the battery are read too, and a drive cooking itself gets its own warning — an NVMe throttles somewhere around 75°C and nothing else tells you.
HWiNFO works now, through its Remote Sensor Monitor, for the people who already run that instead.
What Docker, WSL and the package caches are sitting on. On a developer's PC these are usually the biggest things on the drive and none of them show up as something you can point at. He'll say when there are tens of gigabytes to reclaim, and Ask Shellby comes back with what's safe to clear and the exact command — it never prunes or deletes anything itself.

He knows which editor you're in

Three Claude Code sessions open in three places used to read as three identical "Claude Code" rows. Now it's "shellby in Cursor", or VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, a JetBrains IDE, Windows Terminal and the rest.
The hook works it out and sends one word: the paths it recognised it from carry your user name, and those stay on your PC.

Eleven more packs to wear

The empty slots are filled in. His shell had three things you could put on it and his face had four, so there are now ten things for the shell — a backpack, a satellite dish, a bonsai — nine for the face, and seven for his neck. Two of the face items ride his eyes, so they scan along with him while he reads.
Sets that dress him head to tail: a dev desk with a rubber duck, a tide pool he'd actually come from, and an on-call kit with a pager and an extinguisher. Each one covers every slot, so you can wear the whole thing at once.
The quiet seasons got their due. Summer, autumn and Valentine's had two items each. They have ten, ten and nine now — a parasol, a wheat sheaf, cupid wings — and the look he puts on when a season opens actually uses them. Valentine's used to hand him a rose and leave it there; now he turns up in heart antennae, a blush and a pair of cupid wings. Seasonal items are still only collectable while their season is running, so be around for it.
Ten new crabs: four that aren't the classic shape at all — a fiddler with one enormous claw, a crab that outgrew its shell, a flat one, and one that's mostly legs — and six recolours for a themed desktop, including a monochrome one and a pale one for light wallpapers.
Most of it is earned, not handed to you. Twenty-two of the new pieces hang off trophies you already have: the rubber duck arrives when you let him run a script he wrote, the barnacles after seven days together, the starfish once you've petted him twenty-five times. Trophies hand out two or three things each now instead of one.
All of it is in the app, so it's there the moment you update — nothing to download, nothing to turn on. The wardrobe holds 119 things to wear and 12 crabs, and 91 of them are still waiting on a trophy or a season.

He can look over your changes

The shield next to a project in Trophies hands the work you haven't pushed yet to Claude for a security read: your uncommitted changes, plus the commits on this branch that aren't on the default one. He comes back with a list — file, line, what someone could do with it, and the smallest fix — worst first.
He reads and reports, and changes nothing. The prompt tells Claude not to edit, commit, push or fix, and the task runs in Ask-first mode whatever mode you're in, so every tool it reaches for still comes to you. Only a folder he already knows as one of your projects can be reviewed.
He won't give you a clean bill of health. Finding nothing, he says what he looked at and what still wants a human: it's one read of one diff, not an audit. There's no trophy or XP for a clean result either, so there's nothing to farm.
A focus session wears a helmet now. ⛑️ replaces the shield on the Focus card, in Claude Code's status line and on the Deep Focus trophy — which is what Shellby actually puts on while he guards you anyway. The shield moved to the review.

Chats you can tick off

A ✓ on every row in History marks that conversation done. The list shows what isn't done by default, so the twenty you've finished with stop burying the two you haven't — and Not done / Done / All appears above the list once you've ticked anything, with a count on each.
Nothing is deleted or hidden for good. A done chat still opens, still searches, and still turns up in the command palette. Ticking one brings up an Undo, and sending it something new marks it not done again on its own — you're clearly not finished with it.
It's kept with the rest of your history, on your PC, so it's still there next time he starts.

Tabs you can put in order

Drag a tab along the strip to move it. The ones you cross slide out of the way as you go, and if the strip is too full to show where you're heading, holding the tab against either edge scrolls it along. Let go and that's where it stays.
The order comes back with the tabs. It's the same order he reopens your conversations in, so the one you keep returning to can sit on the left instead of wherever it happened to open.
Ctrl+Shift+PageUp / PageDown moves the tab you're in one place over, for when dragging isn't an option. Ctrl+K knows how to do it too.

0.19.0 October 2, 2026

4 fixed

steadier on his feet

What's in it

Updating is a button now

Settings → About tells you where you stand: the version you're on, whether a new one is waiting, and a progress bar while it downloads. When it has landed, Restart and update installs it and brings Shellby back — no more closing him twice to find out there was an update at all.
Check for updates is there too, for when you don't want to wait for the six-hourly check. A failed check says why (offline, rate-limited) instead of going quiet.
The same button is in the tray menu, so you never have to open the panel for it, and a dot on the ⚙ gear says an update is waiting from whatever screen you're on. The "update ready" notification now takes you straight to it.
Quitting Shellby still installs a downloaded update, exactly as before.

When something goes wrong

Report a problem, in his right-click menu, opens a GitHub issue with the facts already filled in: his version, your Windows build, whether Claude Code was found, and the last lines of his log. Your home folder is shortened to ~ and anything token-shaped is cut out before you ever see it, and nothing is sent anywhere until you've read it and pressed submit.
He keeps a log now, in logs/ inside his data folder. Until now a crash took him off the desktop with nothing written down at all.
A stray error no longer makes him disappear. He carries on, says so once, and writes it down.

Kinder to your battery

He stops animating when you aren't looking. The drifting light and his breathing stop while the panel isn't the window in front, and everything in both windows stops while your screen is locked — together, about half of what he costs when idle. Spinners and progress carry on, so a task that's still running still looks like one.

Tasks can fix your CI now

"…including changes to CI workflows", under Settings → GitHub. repo access was never enough to push a file in .github/workflows — GitHub refuses those pushes without a scope of their own — so "Shellby, fix my failing build" got all the way to the push and then failed. Turning this on asks GitHub for that permission.
It's off by default and its own decision, not folded into "Let Claude tasks push", because a workflow is what runs on GitHub's machines with your repository's secrets. Shellby spells that out before asking, and it can't be granted by a first sign-in.

Claude Code in an unusual place

Find it myself… in setup, for when Shellby can't find Claude Code where it normally lives: a portable copy, another drive, a locked-down work PC. He runs the file once to check it really is Claude Code before keeping it, so a wrong pick tells you straight away instead of becoming a task that won't start.

Fixed

A crash can no longer empty your conversation list. The index of past conversations was written in place, so losing power partway through left a half-written file — which reads as empty and took every conversation out of History with it. It goes through a temp file and a rename now, the way settings always have. A half-written last line in a transcript is skipped rather than discarding the rest of it.
Old transcripts no longer pile up for ever. History keeps 200 conversations, but the ones that fell off the end left their transcripts in the data folder with nothing listing them and nothing able to delete them. They go with their entry now, and any left behind by older builds are cleared on the next start.
A full or locked disk can't take him down mid-task. Antivirus holding a file, a cloud-synced folder, a disk with nothing left: writing a transcript line is allowed to fail quietly and go to the log, instead of throwing in the middle of a running task.
A very long conversation stays quick. An overnight run with thousands of steps kept every one of them on screen for the life of the window. The oldest are hidden now, with a line saying how many — and the whole conversation is still in History.

Under the hood

The twelve end-to-end checks that need no Claude account now run in CI, so the panel and the desktop crab are covered by something other than a person remembering to run them. ESLint runs there too.
scripts/idle-cost.js measures what he costs while doing nothing, per process, with the numbers written down in docs/DEVELOPMENT.md.

Open source, properly

He's GPL-3.0 now, up from MIT. Nothing changes if you just use him, and he's still free and still yours to read and change. The difference is for anyone handing out a changed version: it has to stay open under the same licence, so fixes come back to everyone instead of vanishing into a closed-source app. Everything up to and including 0.18.0 stays MIT.
The name and the crab are reserved, in the new TRADEMARK.md. Fork the code all you like — give your crab its own name, so nobody downloads a fork thinking it's this one.
Pull requests now say what licence they land under, in CONTRIBUTING.md, so the project can keep being licensed as a whole.

0.18.0 October 2, 2026

6 new

he has a voice

What's in it

New

He says things. The bubble that used to hold a single mark now holds a few words of his own: "on it" while he works, "nailed it" when it lands, "uh oh" when it doesn't. He never quotes Claude; the lines are all his.
He reacts to what the work actually is, not just that work is happening. A test run gets "fingers crossed" and passing tests "all green!"; a push that lands gets "shipped it"; a big write gets "phew"; the third visit to the same file gets "this file again?". Three helpers out and he mentions the crowd; a task still going after three minutes gets "bear with me".
He notices the time and your absence. A "morning" first thing, "you too?" in the small hours, and "you're back!" when Shellby hasn't run for a few days.
Little habits when he's idle. He digs a hole in your wallpaper, buffs his shell, leans out to peek at what you're doing, has a proper stretch, or flops over for a moment. They're separate from his strolls, which Settings → Look → stroll still governs.
Your crab has a temperament. Every install picks one of four — chipper, fussy, cocky or sleepy — from a seed made on first run, so it never changes on you. It adds lines of its own (a cocky crab says "obviously") and shifts which idle habits he favours (a sleepy one flops more).
A chirp when he speaks, synthesized on the spot rather than shipped as audio files. Off by default, under Settings → Look → Chirp when he speaks.

How talkative he is

Settings → Look → Personality has three settings, and Normal is the default:

Quiet is exactly the Shellby you had before: a single mark in the bubble, never a word.
Normal lets him say a few words about what he's up to, with at least 40 seconds between any two lines.
Chatty shortens that to 12 seconds and lets him mutter to himself when nothing's happening.

He never speaks while he's guarding your focus, he never repeats a line while another one is unused, and anything that matters — a health warning, a red build, a countdown — still takes the bubble back off him.

Install and packaging

winget manifests for winget install x-salmon.Shellby, in packaging/winget. winget fetches with its own HTTP client, so it usually skips the SmartScreen dialog entirely, and it checks the installer's SHA-256 from the manifest. The first submission to microsoft/winget-pkgs is manual; every release after that is updated by the release workflow when a WINGET_TOKEN secret is set.
Two free stopgaps for SmartScreen written up in docs/SIGNING.md: submitting each build to Microsoft's file-submission form, and publishing to winget. Neither replaces code signing, and both are explained alongside what they don't fix.

0.17.0 October 1, 2026

9 new

Shellby's own life

What's in it

New

He grows into new shells. Hermit crabs move into bigger shells as they grow, and now Shellby does too: level 3 brings a Snail Shell, then a Tin Can (level 5), a Teacup (8), a Toy Brick (12) and the Golden Conch (20). The level-up that unlocks one plays a molt on your desktop: he crawls out of the old shell, shivers for a moment without one, and the new shell drops onto his back. Pick any shell you've grown into under Outfits → Homes, including the one he hatched with.
Pet him. Rub the mouse back and forth over him (no clicking) and he squints happily, wiggles and sends up hearts. Petting a sleeping Shellby wakes him up.
Throw him. Flick him while dragging and he tumbles through the air, bounces off the screen edges and lands on the taskbar. Where he lands is his new spot.
He strolls a little. When he's idle and awake he sometimes ambles a few steps (sideways, like a crab) and always stays near his spot. Turn it off in Settings → Look.
He guards your focus. Right-click him (or the tray icon, or Ctrl+K) → Guard my focus for 15, 25 or 50 minutes. He puts on a helmet and counts down in his bubble, and notifications that can wait are held back and summed up afterwards. A task waiting for your OK and health alerts still come through. When time's up he takes a short break with you. A finished session earns 15 XP and keeps your streak going, and the Focus card on Trophies & XP shows the clock.
He watches CI on your pull requests. Turn it on in Settings → GitHub. When a build goes red he holds up a ✗ sign and his bubble says so, when it's fixed he dances, and a review request makes him raise a claw. Settings lists your open pull requests, and Ask Shellby why starts a task that reads the failing logs and explains them without changing anything. Public repos need nothing beyond the sign-in; private ones need "Let Claude tasks push" too.
Four new trophies: Good Crab (secret) for petting him, Frequent Flyer (secret) for throwing him, Deep Focus for 5 focus sessions and Green Light for fixing a red build. They unlock Heart Shades, an Aviator Cap, a Guard Helmet and a Green Flag.
A heads-up when your usage limit resets. When Claude Code says your 5-hour or weekly limit is reached, Shellby tells you when it resets and naps with a countdown in his bubble. The moment it resets he wakes up with a big stretch and taps you, so anything you queued can go. It also works after your PC wakes from sleep or Shellby restarts.
The status line shows a running focus session (🛡️ focus 18m), red CI (❌ CI) and when a reached limit resets (⏳ limit · back in 2h 5m).

0.16.4 October 1, 2026

Shellby 0.16.4

What's in it

Docs

A quicker README. A three-step "Get started" sits right under the demo, the demo is the one image at the top, badges show the latest release, downloads and license at a glance, and the screenshots are bigger.
Developer docs have their own page. Building, every test and maintenance script, and the map of the code moved to docs/DEVELOPMENT.md, linked from CONTRIBUTING.md.
An everyday Outfits screenshot, so the README doesn't look out of season after Halloween.
GitHub now recognizes the MIT license. The fonts note moved from LICENSE to the README footer, so LICENSE is the standard MIT text (same terms as before).

0.16.3 October 1, 2026

1 fixed

Shellby 0.16.3

What's in it

Fixed

"No XP yet" fits on one line in Trophies & XP. Before your first XP it was squeezed into a narrow column, one word per line.

Docs

An easier-to-read README. It now leads with the crab, each section opens with a few one-line points, and the longer explanations, protocol notes, script list and project layout fold away until you open them.
Clean screenshots of Shellby's screen. A trophy card was covering the Outfits and Trophies & XP screenshots; the screenshot script now clears it first.

0.16.2

Shellby 0.16.2

What's in it

Docs

A new demo at the top of the README, recorded with the 0.16 layout: the bottom bar with Shellby leading it, helper crabs, and a trophy unlocking.

0.16.1

Shellby 0.16.1

What's in it

Docs

The README catches up with everything through 0.16.0: the bottom bar, Ctrl+K and the other shortcuts, question cards, one-click plugin install, the plain-text status line in cmd.exe, and Find Shellby. Its screenshots now show the new layout, and the project layout and test-script list are complete again.

0.16.0 October 1, 2026

5 new4 changed

easier to get around

What's in it

New

A labeled bar along the bottom of the panel: Shellby, Chat, Toolbox, Routines, Health and History, always visible, with the current screen lit up. Shellby leads it, drawn as himself in whatever he's wearing. The title bar keeps just Settings, search, and the window buttons.
Shellby's own screen. Outfits and Trophies & XP are now two tabs of one screen, instead of the Wardrobe hiding behind the logo and Trophies hiding inside the Wardrobe. Click the yellow level badge to go straight to your level, XP and streak.
Jump anywhere with Ctrl+K (or the magnifier in the title bar). Type a few letters to open any screen, any Settings section, a permission mode, a past conversation, or a skill or command (it's put in the composer for you).
Keyboard shortcuts for every screen in the bar: Ctrl+1 for Shellby through Ctrl+6 for History.
Settings has section links. A row of links (Mode, Folder, Look, Claude Code, GitHub and more) stays at the top while you scroll, and highlights where you are.

Changed

Back and Esc go up one level. From the Skill Shop they return to the Toolbox instead of jumping all the way to Chat. Esc on any other screen goes home, and Esc on the home screen hides the panel, as before. In just-the-crab mode, Health is home.
Clicking the screen you're already on scrolls it back to the top (or, in Chat, puts the cursor in the composer) instead of quietly switching to Chat.
Trophy celebrations and notices sit just above the bottom bar on every screen, instead of floating over the middle of what you're reading.
History's note now says exactly where to clear it: Settings → About → Data folder.

0.15.1 October 1, 2026

1 fixed

Shellby 0.15.1

What's in it

Fixed

The level badge no longer covers Shellby in the top-left of the panel. It used to sit on top of the crab; it now follows his name as a small yellow pill (or sits right next to him when the window is narrow and the name is hidden). The new-outfit dot moved over a little so it doesn't touch the pill either.

0.15.0 October 1, 2026

5 new

GitHub sign-in

What's in it

New

Sign in with GitHub (Settings → GitHub). Shellby shows a short code and you approve it on github.com, the same way gh auth login works. You never type a password into Shellby. The sign-in is encrypted by Windows in its own file (never in settings.json), and GitHub is asked only for what the features you turn on need. Turning on another feature later asks GitHub again for just that.
Sync between PCs. Trophies, collected seasonal items, XP, streak days, your outfit and your color go into a private gist. Sign in on another PC and they meet there. Syncing only ever adds progress (nothing gets lost on either side), and the outfit and color follow whichever PC changed them last. It syncs every 15 minutes, shortly after you change an outfit or win a trophy, or when you press Sync now.
Publish Wardrobe packs. Your own packs get a Publish button. After one confirm, Shellby forks x-salmon/shellby-packs, adds packs/<id>/pack.json on a new branch and opens the pull request, so the gallery's Pack check takes it from there. It won't publish a pack with invalid items or an unchanged version number.
Let Claude tasks push code. Off by default, and Shellby warns you first. When it's on, tasks in Shellby's tabs get your sign-in, so git push, git pull, gh pr create and the official GitHub plugin's tools (issues, pull requests, reviews) just work, including for private repos. It's provided through environment variables, so your git config is never changed, and Claude Code in your terminal isn't affected.
Your GitHub name and avatar in Settings, and "@you's Shellby" on the share card.

0.14.3 October 1, 2026

1 fixed

Shellby 0.14.3

What's in it

Fixed

A cleaner status line in cmd.exe. The plain-text line no longer starts with the ASCII crab (V)(;,,;)(V), which read as garbage more than as a crab. It now just says Shellby working | Lv 5 Claw Coder [###--].

0.14.2 October 1, 2026

1 new2 fixed

Shellby 0.14.2

What's in it

Fixed

Shellby no longer vanishes or drifts on PCs with mixed display scaling (for example a 4K screen at 150% next to monitors at 100% or 125%). When his window crossed between monitors, Windows kept its pixel size instead of its real size, so it shrank or grew under him: "Reset position" could clip him out of sight, and dragging made him wander away from his own effects (like the autumn leaves). Every move now keeps his size, and any size Windows forces on him afterwards is put back.
Dragging follows your mouse exactly, across monitors too. It used to compute the motion from inside his own moving window, which drifts when the scale changes mid-drag.

New

Settings → Look → Find Shellby puts him back in the bottom-right corner of your main screen (same as the tray's Reset position).

0.14.1 October 1, 2026

1 new2 fixed

Shellby 0.14.1

What's in it

Fixed

No more question marks in cmd.exe. The classic Windows console can't draw emoji or the ▰▱ XP bar, so Shellby now also writes a plain-text status line (Shellby working | Lv 5 Claw Coder [###--] | streak 4d). The status-line command picks it automatically there, and keeps the emoji line in Windows Terminal, VS Code, macOS and Linux. If you already added Shellby's status line, it's updated for you.
Shellby stops missing your terminal sessions. The plugin only talks to Shellby while a small "I'm listening" marker file exists. A second copy of Shellby that couldn't get the port (a restart racing the old one, a dev run) used to delete the real one's marker, and from then on every Claude Code hook quietly did nothing. Now only the Shellby that wrote the marker can remove it, it puts it back every minute if anything else does, and dev/test copies listen on their own port.

New

Settings → Claude Code everywhere → Shellby plugin says whether the plugin is installed on this PC, with an Install the plugin button: one confirm, then Shellby adds the marketplace and installs the plugin with Claude Code for you. (Each computer needs it, and each talks only to its own Shellby.)

0.14.0 October 1, 2026

4 new

Streaks and nudges

What's in it

New

Streaks. Finish a Claude task on consecutive days, in Shellby or with the plugin anywhere, and the 🔥 streak grows. It stays alive until the end of the next day. The status line shows it ("🔥 6d").
Projects. Shellby remembers the git repos you work in (by repo root, even from a subfolder) and reads each one's real last commit with git log, so commits made outside Claude count too.
Nudges: "You haven't committed to 3d-rack in 5 days 🐚".
- Limits: at most one a day, only between 9:00 and 21:00, only for projects you touched in the last month, and never in just-the-crab mode.
- Pick it up opens a new tab in that project with a "where did we leave off?" prompt ready to send.
Trophies → Streaks card: your streak and best streak, your projects with days since their last commit (quiet ones highlighted), a mute button per project, and how many quiet days before a nudge (2 days to 2 weeks).

0.13.1 October 1, 2026

2 fixed

Shellby 0.13.1

What's in it

Fixed

Questions from Shellby look like questions. When Claude asks you something (Claude Code's multiple-choice questions), you used to see the raw JSON in a permission card. Now you get a proper question card:
- Layout: the question, a topic chip, and each option with its description.
- Answering: press 1–9 to pick, select several when it's multi-choice, or type your own answer. Send returns your answers to Claude, or Skip tells Claude you'd rather not answer.
- Afterwards: the card shows what you answered, the activity line reads "Asked you: …", and the notification says "Shellby has a question".
Your prompt is no longer cut off after you send it. The "Working…" bar appearing above the box made the conversation shorter right as your message arrived, hiding its last line. The conversation now stays pinned to the bottom when the box area grows (the Working bar, queued messages, attachments), and sending always brings your prompt into view, even if you'd scrolled up. A reply still won't pull you away from history you're reading.

0.13.0 October 1, 2026

2 new

Status-line face

What's in it

New

Shellby in Claude Code's status line, right under the prompt in the terminal and VS Code, for example 🦀💨 Shellby working · Lv 5 Claw Coder ▰▰▰▱▱ · 🥵 GPU 84°C · +25 XP.
- His face follows his mood: 💨 working, ✋ needs your OK, 🎉 done, ⭐ level up, 💤 napping. Helper crabs show as "+3 🦀".
- The line also shows his level, title and XP bar, any health warning, and a fresh "+XP".
- It's fast and quiet: the line comes from a file Shellby keeps up to date, so it costs about nothing, and it's simply empty when Shellby isn't running.
Turning it on or off:
- In the app: Settings → Claude Code everywhere → Status line shows a live preview and Add to Claude Code. It asks first, keeps a backup of your settings, and warns if it would replace an existing status line. Remove puts yours back.
- In the terminal: /shellby:statusline, a new command in the Shellby Claude Code plugin (v1.1.0), has Claude's statusline-setup agent add Shellby while keeping your existing status line.

0.12.0 October 1, 2026

5 new

XP and levels

What's in it

New

Shellby earns XP and levels up. The biggest award is for writing himself a new skill or agent (+150), which usually tips him into the next level:
- Deploys and publishes (vercel --prod, wrangler deploy, gh release create, npm publish and more): +50
- git push: +40
- Passing tests (npm test, pytest, go test, cargo test, dotnet test and more): +25
- Trophies: +20
- Finished tasks: +10
- Each day you use him: +5
It counts everywhere you use Claude Code: in Shellby's tabs and, with the Shellby plugin, in your terminal and editor.
Levels have crab titles, from Hatchling through Claw Coder and Reef Architect to Legend of the Tides.
On the desktop, "+25 XP" floats up from him, and a level-up gets a gold "LV 5" bubble, a jump and confetti. In the panel, level-ups get a celebration card, plus a notification if the panel's closed.
Your level is always visible as a gold badge on the crab in the title bar, with a thin XP bar. Trophies has an XP card: level and title, progress to the next level, how he earns XP and a recent XP log. The crab card shows his level too.

Fair play

Only successes count. Failing test runs earn nothing, and --dry-run rehearsals don't count.
Hourly caps stop a test loop from farming XP.

0.11.0 October 1, 2026

1 new

Skill Shop

What's in it

New

Skill Shop. Toolbox → Get more lists every plugin in your Claude Code marketplaces (skills, agents, commands), most popular first, with search and a filter per marketplace:
- Install and Remove with one click; new plugins are ready in your next conversation
- Installed shows what you already have, with its version and a link to its source
- Add a marketplace from a GitHub repo or link; Anthropic's official marketplaces are one click
- It all runs through Claude Code's own claude plugin commands, so plugins installed here show up in your terminal and editor too, and vice versa

Security

Skill Shop installs always ask first, in the isolated confirmation window, which names where the plugin really comes from and shows a red warning for anything outside Anthropic's marketplaces. Cancel is the default. After an install, Shellby says plainly if it added hooks or MCP servers. Plugins that install by running a command are never installed from Shellby: you're told to review them in a terminal.
What you approve is what gets installed. Marketplaces aren't refreshed while an install confirmation is open, and if the catalog changed anyway while you were deciding, Shellby asks you to look again instead of installing.
A stalled install is cleaned up completely. When an install times out, its whole process tree is stopped, including any git it started, not just Claude Code.

0.10.0 October 1, 2026

5 new

Outfit codes

What's in it

New

Outfit codes. Every look has a short code like SHB-B1T7-2DB1-7MXH-JW90. It's shown under the Wardrobe preview with a Copy button. Post it in a comment, a thread or on Discord.
Wear a code… previews a pasted code on your crab before you put it on:
- Items you have are worn.
- Locked items say which trophy unlocks them.
- Items from community packs you don't have are looked up in the gallery, with a Get pack button (the usual install confirmation).
Codes are forgiving: any case, spaces, and O/0 or I/L/1 mix-ups all work. A built-in checksum catches typos instead of putting on the wrong outfit.
No server, and future-proof: a code doesn't depend on the order of items, so it keeps working as new items and packs arrive.
The crab card shows your code ("Wear my look"), and the X and Bluesky post text includes it.

0.9.0 October 1, 2026

1 new

Queue it up

What's in it

New

Queue messages while Shellby works, like in Claude Code:
- Keep typing while a task runs. Enter queues the message, and queued messages are sent one at a time as each turn finishes.
- They show as chips above the box. Click one, or press ↑ in an empty box, to pull it back and edit it; ✕ removes it. The status line shows how many are queued.
- Stop hands the queue back: your queued messages go into the box instead of firing.
- If a turn ends with an error, the queue pauses until you press Send next now.
- Each tab has its own queue, and a background tab keeps draining its queue while you look at another.

For developers

SHELLBY_FAKE_CLAUDE=test/fixtures/fake-claude.js runs a dev build against the fake CLI, with no account and no usage. The fixture gained wait <ms> and fail [ms] turns.
node scripts/e2e-queue.js covers the whole queue flow.

0.8.0 October 1, 2026

3 new

Claude Code everywhere

What's in it

New

Shellby reacts to every Claude Code session on your PC, not just the ones started in Shellby. Install the Shellby plugin in Claude Code (/plugin marketplace add x-salmon/shellby, then /plugin install shellby@shellby):
- he scuttles while Claude works in your terminal or editor
- he raises a claw when it needs permission
- he celebrates finished turns, which count toward trophies
- he sends out helper crabs, labeled with the project, for subagents
Settings → Claude Code everywhere: copy the install commands, turn the feature on or off, and see your connected sessions live (project, working or waiting, tool, helpers).
The plugin costs nothing when Shellby is closed: the hook checks a marker file and returns in milliseconds.

Security

The listener is local only (127.0.0.1), refuses browser-originated requests, caps bodies, and keeps only event, tool and folder names. Details in SECURITY.md.

0.7.0 October 1, 2026

2 new1 fixed

Just the crab

What's in it

New

Just the crab: no Claude needed. First run now offers two paths:
- Just the crab: a desktop pet that watches your PC, with Health, the Wardrobe, trophies and crab cards. No account and no CLI.
- Crab + Claude Code: the full setup, as before. In crab mode, Health is home, and chat, permission modes, Toolbox, Routines and History are hidden.
The Claude bits explain themselves. In crab mode, Ask Shellby why, dropping files on him, and a "Give Shellby a brain" card in Health show what Claude Code would add, with a Set up Claude Code button. Settings switches modes either way, and your conversations stay saved.

Fixed

A trophy celebration and a toast arriving together no longer stack on top of each other, and dialogs always sit above both.

0.6.0 October 1, 2026

3 new1 changed

Show him off

What's in it

New

Crab card. 📸 Share in the Wardrobe or Trophies makes a 1200×630 picture of your Shellby as he's dressed (with his effect), titled by your best trophy, with tasks done, trophies, helper crabs sent and your trophy shelf. One click copies it to the clipboard and saves it to Pictures\Shellby. The preview has Post on X and Post on Bluesky buttons with the text filled in; paste the image into the post. The card contains counts only: no name, email or folders.
New trophy: 📸 Show-Off. Share your crab card to unlock a camera for him to hold.
Trophy unlocks get a proper celebration card: a medallion, the trophy's name and description, pixel previews of each reward, Wear it (or Wear them) and Share. It stays up while you hover, and several unlocks queue up instead of replacing each other.

Changed

Notifications inside the panel are rounded cards instead of pills, so longer messages and their buttons no longer look squashed.

0.5.1 October 1, 2026

3 new1 fixed

Shellby 0.5.1

What's in it

Fixed

Health view: the "Set up CPU temperature" link was cut off when the panel was wide enough for three gauge columns. Cards without a reading now wrap their text instead of clipping it.

New

Demo GIF at the top of the README (and an MP4 for sharing). npm run reel records it through the real UI with scripted data.
Checksums: every release now includes SHA256SUMS.txt for verifying downloads.
Code signing support: releases are signed automatically once Azure Artifact Signing credentials are configured. See docs/SIGNING.md.

0.5.0 October 1, 2026

7 new

Health

What's in it

Shellby now keeps an eye on your PC, and his mood follows it.

New

Health view (the pulse icon in the title bar):
- live GPU and CPU temperatures, CPU and GPU load, memory and every drive, with 10-minute sparklines
- a sensor checklist, adjustable thresholds and a log of recent alerts
- a titlebar badge when something needs attention
Health moods on the desktop:
- hot: sweat, flushed cheeks and fanning with his claw
- scorching: panting and a heat shimmer; it wakes him if he's asleep
- dizzy (memory): stars circling his eyes
- stuffed (full drive): junk spilling out of his shell The speech bubble shows the reading, e.g. 84° or C: 8.4 GB. Readings must hold for about 20 seconds, so short spikes are ignored.
Notifications when a reading crosses your line (once per problem, with a 30-minute cooldown) and when it recovers.
Ask Shellby why: one click starts a read-only Claude Code task that finds what's heating the GPU, eating memory or filling a drive.
CPU temperature through LibreHardwareMonitor's local web server, with step-by-step setup in the Health view. NVIDIA GPUs work out of the box through nvidia-smi. See docs/HEALTH.md.
Three new trophies and four accessories:
- 🩺 Check-Up: Stethoscope
- 🧊 Keep Your Cool (secret): Sweatband and Handheld Fan
- 🧹 Spring Cleaning: Broom
Health in the tray: the menu and tooltip show what's wrong.

For developers

Dev builds can fake sensors with SHELLBY_FAKE_HEALTH=hot|scorching|dizzy|stuffed|calm|nocpu.
node scripts/e2e-health.js checks every mood end to end.
The pack schema accepts the new trophy ids as unlock conditions.

0.4.1 October 1, 2026

1 fixed

Shellby 0.4.1

What's in it

Fixed

While a command ran, its tool card spun three garbled letters instead of the ◌ spinner, and the ✓ / ✕ / ⊘ result icons were garbled too. A Windows-1252 re-encode had mangled them in 0.3.0. A new test now fails the build if any source file contains garbled text or stray control characters.

Docs

The README has a Community wardrobe section and a top-level link to the community gallery.

0.4.0 September 30, 2026

4 new3 fixed

Community packs

What's in it

Find wardrobe packs other people made and add them in one click.

New

Community gallery: https://x-salmon.github.io/shellby-packs/. Browse packs, try items on Shellby in the browser, design your own in Pack Studio (live preview with Shellby's own validator and renderer), and submit by pull request.
Themed confirmations. "Install pack?", "Enable Autonomous?" and error notices now appear in Shellby-styled windows instead of plain Windows dialogs. The install confirmation previews every item in the pack as pixel art. Each confirmation is a separate, isolated window, so the panel can't answer it, which keeps the security of a native dialog.
One-click installs from the community gallery. Every pack on the Shellby community gallery has an Add to Shellby button. Click it and Shellby opens the Wardrobe, downloads the pack, shows you what's inside and asks before installing. If you already have that version, Shellby tells you instead of reinstalling.
Browse community packs button in Wardrobe → Wardrobe packs.

Security

Gallery links (shellby://install?pack=<id>) carry only a pack id. Shellby never downloads from an address that comes from a link.
Packs are only fetched from the official registry, and the download must match the sha256 checksum published in the registry's index, byte for byte. Downloads are size-capped while they stream and time out.
Nothing is installed without the native confirmation dialog, and gallery packs go through the same strict validation as packs you install from a file.

Fixed

Toasts without an action button showed a stray "null" at the end.
Opening Shellby from an Add to Shellby link now lands on the Wardrobe even when the link launched the app.
Clicking a notification could open Electron's default page. Dev and test builds no longer post Windows notifications and use a separate app identity, so notifications always belong to the installed Shellby.

Developer

SHELLBY_REGISTER_PROTOCOL=1 makes a dev run register itself for shellby:// links (off by default so it doesn't take them over from an installed Shellby). SHELLBY_REGISTRY_URL points a dev run at a different registry.

0.3.0 September 30, 2026

6 new1 fixed

The Wardrobe

What's in it

Dress Shellby up, earn outfits by using him, and let him celebrate the seasons.

New

Wardrobe. Open it by clicking the crab logo (or tray → Wardrobe). It has 32 hand-drawn accessories and 7 particle effects across hats, face, neck, held items, shell and effects, plus seasonal color schemes. There's a live preview stage where you can hover any item to try it on, even locked ones, and switch moods to see the outfit while working, asking or sleeping. There's also a 🎲 randomize button.
Trophies. 18 achievements, a few of them secret, each rewarding an item. Unlocks celebrate on the desktop (★ bubble and confetti burst) and in the panel ("Wear it"). Your existing history is credited on first launch, so you don't start from zero.
Seasons. Spooky Season, Winter Holidays, Valentine's, Spring, Summer and Autumn, each with its own look that Shellby wears automatically. Change it and he respects your choice for the rest of that season. Seasonal items are collectibles you keep once their season has come around.
Effects around the desktop crab: snowfall, orbiting bats, falling leaves, floating hearts, fireflies and sparkles, plus a confetti burst when a task finishes (once earned). All CSS-animated and cheap on the CPU.
Helper crabs wear matching hats.
Community wardrobe packs. A documented JSON format with a JSON Schema (docs/addon.schema.json) and a creator guide (docs/ADDONS.md). Install from the Wardrobe or by dropping a .json file on it. Packs are validated strictly, are data only (no code), and are previewed in a native confirmation dialog before install. The built-in wardrobe uses the same format.

Fixed

The long-standing "top of the panel gets messed up when scrolling" bug. The drifting background layer was larger than the window, which made the page itself scrollable by code. Any scrollIntoView that ran out of room (for example an approval card appearing) shoved the whole panel up, hiding the title bar. The layer is now position: fixed, which adds no scrollable area. scripts/ui-regressions.js reproduces the old bug (the title bar was pushed up 44–114 px) and verifies the fix.

Developer

SHELLBY_USER_DATA runs a dev build in its own profile, so tests never touch your real settings or need your Shellby closed. Screenshot runs use a throwaway profile automatically.

0.2.2 September 30, 2026

3 fixed

Shellby 0.2.2

What's in it

Fixed

Closing the last tab opened two blank tabs. All tab creation now goes through one shared request, so simultaneous "make sure a tab exists" calls can't double up.
Tooltips (including hovering a helper crab) used the unstyled Windows tooltip. They're now themed to match Shellby's speech bubbles and also appear on keyboard focus.
The crab window now carries the app icon explicitly.

0.2.1 September 30, 2026

1 fixed

Shellby 0.2.1

What's in it

Fixed

The panel's close button (✕) was clipped at the default width in Autonomous mode, the widest mode label. The title bar now adapts to its own width: window buttons never shrink, the mode label truncates if needed, and the "Shellby" wordmark steps aside on narrow panels. Checked at every width from 400 to 494 px in all five modes (node scripts/titlebar-fit.js).

0.2.0 September 30, 2026

8 new4 fixed

Crew, Toolbox, Routines

What's in it

Shellby now works the way people actually use Claude Code: orchestrating helpers and building tools for itself.

New

Crew view. Subagents get their own lanes in the conversation, with live activity, tool count, tokens, elapsed time and a summary when done. Helper crabs appear next to Shellby on the desktop for each running subagent. Click one to jump to its conversation.
Helper permission prompts show up inside the helper's lane, labelled with which crab is asking.
Parallel conversations. Tabs, each backed by its own Claude Code process, with Ctrl+T, Ctrl+W and Ctrl+Tab. Open tabs come back after a restart. The desktop crab shows how many are running.
Toolbox. Skills, subagents, slash commands and MCP servers with status, merged from Claude Code's own report and a scan of ~/.claude and the project's .claude/. Includes search, pinning and "show file".
Learns new tricks. When Claude writes itself a new skill, agent or command, Shellby notices, celebrates on the desktop, tags it new and offers to pin it.
/ autocomplete for skills and commands in the composer, and pinned tricks as one-click chips on the start screen.
Routines. Daily, weekly or every-N-hours tasks with their own folder and permission mode. They catch up after sleep or shutdown, and have run-now, pause and templates.
Safety flags for self-built tooling. Permission cards warn when a command runs a file Claude wrote earlier in the conversation, or when an edit touches Claude Code's own setup (skills, agents, hooks, settings, CLAUDE.md).

Fixed

Scrolling artifacts at the top of the panel on high-DPI displays. The header is now opaque and isolated, scroll areas are separate compositor layers, and the full-window blend-mode grain that forced repaints on every scroll frame is gone.
The panel no longer tucks under an auto-hiding taskbar.
Background subagents can finish after the main turn without their pending prompts being cancelled.
Releases publish as a single, complete release (no more stray drafts).

0.1.0 September 30, 2026

Shellby 0.1.0

What's in it

First release: desktop-layer critter, chat panel on the Claude Code CLI, permission cards, five permission modes, usage meter, history, drag-and-drop, hotkey, tray, notifications, auto-update and skins.

Get the newest crab.

He updates himself once he's installed. Follow along with the RSS feed, or watch releases on GitHub.

Download Shellby All releases on GitHub