Pup - the AI's own browser

The dashboard stops blinking: each live update now patches only what changed, so window and taskbar icons are no longer recreated and reloaded every 2 seconds (John on ConfRoomROG). Includes 2.0.720.

Groundwork for the macOS build of the Rust pup (Kyle's pull request #3, pup-bridge#128): the Mac host, per-platform process, browser and raise hooks with the Windows behavior kept as the default, and a bounded tab capture that falls back to the debugger frame when the window is not painting. No change in behavior on Windows.

A window whose birth never finished (titled PUPBIRTH-... on the taskbar) is closed as an empty leftover instead of adopted as an ownerless pup window (John's taskbar, 2026-10-13). Includes 2.0.718: the owner chip is off where the old default was saved; restored videos stay paused and never hold up a restore; input reaches isolated and named-profile windows. Promoted to public on 2026-10-14.

The owner chip is off on desktops that had the old default saved: a stored "on" from before 2.0.713 is turned off once at startup, and a choice made after that is kept. Includes 2.0.717: restored windows keep their videos paused however they come back, and never wait on it; 2.0.714: input reaches isolated and named-profile windows, and the foreground and jump-list gates run beside other threads' windows without touching them.

Restored windows keep their videos paused however they come back: when pup restarts a browser (an update, pup_restart_browser) and Chrome reopens the windows itself, pup re-adopts them and now guards those too; before, only windows pup relaunched were guarded. The guard runs in the background with a cap on a stuck tab, so restores never wait on it (a stuck tab used to delay each restore by 40 s). Includes 2.0.714: input reaches isolated and named-profile windows; the foreground and jump-list gates run beside other threads' windows.

Restored windows come back without waiting on the video guard, and their videos still stay paused: the guard runs in the background and waits up to 12 s for each page before guarding it, with a cap on a stuck tab. Includes 2.0.714: input reaches isolated and named-profile windows, and the foreground and jump-list gates run beside other threads' windows without touching them.

Restored windows come back without waiting on the video guard: it runs in the background with a short per-tab cap, where a stuck tab used to hold each restore for 40 s and delay every window behind it. Includes 2.0.714: input reaches isolated and named-profile windows, and the foreground and jump-list gates run beside other threads' windows without touching them.

Clicks, typing, keys and mouse input reach isolated and named-profile pup windows: they were sent down the main browser's channel, so typing into an isolated window searched another browser's page (found by the new shared-box gate run, 2026-10-12). The foreground and jump-list ship gates run on a desktop where other threads have pup windows, in their own profile, without touching those windows. Includes 2.0.713: no owner chip by default.

No more owner chip in the lower-left corner of pup pages: it covered the page's own controls there (a video player's buttons, a chat box), and the taskbar tile already names the thread. Off by default now; ownerChip:on in Settings brings it back (John, 2026-10-12). Includes 2.0.712: bot-wall detection and the pacing warning.

pup says when a page load lands on a bot wall: Cloudflare (Just a moment / Verify you are human), PerimeterX (press and hold), Akamai (Access Denied), DataDome and generic bot checks come back as botWall with what to do instead (stop loading that site, use adom-parts-search for parts data, or ask the user for one click), not as a normal load. Loading pages from DigiKey, Mouser, Arrow, TI, Analog Devices, ST, Octopart or Newark within 15 s of the last one adds a pacing warning before the wall goes up (John's ECAS window, 2026-10-11). Includes 2.0.711.

Alt+Shift+A starts Annotate in pup windows, including while focus is inside an embedded frame (a video player, an embedded document): the key is caught in every frame of the page. Chrome keeps Alt+Shift+A for itself, so the address bar and Chrome's own pages stay out of reach (John, 2026-10-11). Includes 2.0.709: closed isolated windows no longer leave Chrome for Testing icons in the system tray.

Test build: Alt+Shift+S registered as the browser-level Annotate shortcut (verifying Chrome binds it).

Alt+Shift+A starts Annotate in pup windows (the page catches it; Chrome keeps the key for itself and never bound the extension's shortcut). Closing an isolated window ends its private browser and deletes its throwaway profile within about 30 s: pup now reads window closes from every browser, and its lookup of a profile's browser processes matches the profile folder correctly (it searched a path with doubled backslashes and found nothing, so isolated browsers were never ended, at boot or after). John's system tray, 2026-10-11.

Alt+Shift+A starts Annotate in pup windows (Chrome keeps that key for itself and never bound the extension's shortcut, so it never worked; the page now catches it). Closing an isolated window ends its private browser and deletes its throwaway profile within about 30 s: pup only read window closes from the main browser, so isolated windows were never forgotten and their browsers sat in the system tray (John, 2026-10-11).

Alt+Shift+A starts Annotate in pup windows. It never had: Chrome keeps Alt+Shift+A for itself and never bound the extension's shortcut, so the key did nothing (John, 2026-10-11). The page now catches it before Chrome does (the tbSnipHotkey setting still turns it off), and it opens in Multi like the pen. Includes 2.0.706: a closed isolated window's browser ends and its profile is deleted, so no leftover Chrome for Testing icons in the system tray.

Annotate's quick colors are red, blue and green: the muddy yellow/orange third color is gone from the trio and from Multi's automatic cycle (red, blue, green, purple), so every mark has a color anyone can name to the AI. Yellow stays in the More flyout, and every swatch shows its color name on hover (John, 2026-10-07).

Annotate works again on Gmail, Google Docs, YouTube and every page that enforces Trusted Types: 2.0.701's new hint line was written as an HTML string, those pages refuse that, and the whole toolbar failed to start (John's Gmail tab, 2026-10-07). The hint and the corner pencil are built from DOM nodes, a test now fails the build if either script assigns HTML strings again, and an overlay that cannot start is logged with its reason.

Cancelling Annotate (Esc or the X) captures nothing and leaves your clipboard alone; it used to copy a screenshot of the page over your clipboard (found on John's laptop, 2026-10-07). Includes 2.0.702: the toolbar pen finds its window by tab id, so it works on Slack, Gmail and YouTube.

The toolbar pen works on pages that change their address in place (Slack, Gmail, YouTube): it finds its window by the browser's tab id, not by the page address pup last recorded, and falls back to the pup window in front. A pen click that still cannot start shows a ! on the button with the reason, and pup logs it (John's Slack window, 2026-10-07: 'it didn't ever show me the toolbar').

Annotate starts in Multi mode: draw several shapes, press Enter to finish. Space toggles Multi and Single (the old Auto), M and S pick one, Esc cancels, and a hint under the toolbar shows the keys (John, 2026-10-06). Includes 2.0.700: the taskbar progress bar on every page load, restored videos kept paused, update notices.