Release Notes - v0.2.22

🔥 Critical Windows Hotfix

Fixed Windows npx Installation Failures (#279) [CRITICAL]

This is a critical hotfix for Windows users experiencing installation and connection failures.

Desktop Commander now properly handles npx commands on Windows using the officially recommended cmd /c wrapper pattern. This resolves the widespread connection failures and crashes that occurred when Claude Desktop tried to start the server via npx on Windows.

What Was Broken:

• Windows users experienced "Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'cmd')" errors
• Server failed to start when installed via npx on Windows
• Claude Desktop showed "Connection closed" or "Cannot connect to MCP server" errors

What's Fixed:

• Windows npx installations now use cmd /c npx wrapper instead of npx.cmd
• Debug mode inspector flag (--inspect-brk) moved to NODE_OPTIONS environment variable
• Follows Anthropic's official MCP server configuration guidelines for Windows

Impact: Windows users can now successfully install and run Desktop Commander via npx. If you experienced connection issues on Windows, please reinstall:

npx @wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest setup

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🐛 Additional Bug Fixes

Enhanced Ripgrep Stability (#275)

Improved search functionality reliability with better ripgrep binary management and crash prevention.

What Changed:

• Added verification script to validate ripgrep installation
• Implemented robust binary path resolution system
• Enhanced error handling and crash tracking for search operations
• Removed 283 lines of legacy code for better maintainability

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✨ Enhancements

Streamlined Onboarding v2 (#278)

Simplified the new user onboarding experience from multiple steps to just 2 steps with 5 focused prompts, helping new users get started faster.

Release Process Improvements (#280)

Release script now tracks state and can resume from failed steps, making the release workflow more robust and recoverable.

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# Release Notes - v0.2.21

🐛 Bug Fixes

Improved Shell Compatibility #270

Desktop Commander now uses your system's default shell when possible, including login shells. This provides better compatibility with your existing shell configuration and environment variables.

Fixed Cline Notification Clutter #269

Cline displays notifications as both chat messages and toasts, which clutters the UI. We've disabled logging that uses notifcations for Cline clients specifically while keeping it enabled for Claude Desktop and other MCP clients.

Fixed Ripgrep Permissions for Claude Extensions #267

When Desktop Commander is installed as a Claude extension (MCPB/DXT), ripgrep binaries now automatically receive correct executable permissions (0o755) at runtime. This fixes EACCES errors on macOS/Linux where zip archives don't preserve Unix file permissions.

Technical Details: The ripgrep-wrapper.js now ensures binaries are executable when loaded as an extension, preventing "spawn rg EACCES" errors.

Full Changelog: v0.2.19...v0.2.21

Release 0.2.19

Release Notes - v0.2.19

🚀 Performance Improvements

160x Faster Terminal Interactions

After Discord user reports that terminal commands felt slow, we investigated and found a critical bug: interact_with_process was always waiting the full 8-second timeout even when output arrived in milliseconds.

Fixed! REPL interactions now complete in 50-100ms(when process finishes as fast, or waits for process) instead of 8 seconds.

New: Performance Debugging
Added optional verbose_timing parameter to help diagnose performance issues:

• Shows exit reasons, timing data, and output event timelines
• Available on start_process, read_process_output, and interact_with_process

🐛 Bug Fixes

Fixed Code Search on Windows #260

When installing Desktop Commander as an MCPB extension in Claude, code search wasn't working on Windows. Our bundling process wasn't including ripgrep binaries for all platforms.

Fixed! Now bundles for all platforms: macOS (x64/ARM), Windows (x64/ARM/x86), Linux (x64/ARM/ARM64/PPC64/S390X).

Note: This fix is pending Anthropic's review before it appears in the Claude extensions store.

Fixed Installation Error #259

Fixed incorrect mkdir call that was breaking installation. Thanks @bhowell2 for finding and fixing this!

Fixed Terminal Listener Bug

Resolved issue where terminal commands would break after the first use due to improper listener cleanup.

Cleaner Console Output

Removed diagnostic messages that were cluttering terminal output.

✨ New Features

Feature Flags & Survey

Added feature flag system and new user survey.

Full Changelog: v0.2.17...v0.2.19

Release v0.2.17

Release Notes - v0.2.14-v0.2.17 - Enhanced Context Management & Directory Navigation

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✨ Major New Features

📜 Tool Call History System (get_recent_tool_calls)

A powerful new tool for maintaining context and recovering from lost conversations.

How it works:

• Automatically tracks all tool calls made during your session
• Stores the last 1000 tool calls in memory (resets on restart)
• Retrieve calls with optional filters by tool name and time range
• View complete details including arguments and outputs

Why this matters:

• Restore Lost Claude Chats: Sometimes Claude errors out and fails to save a conversation along with the tool calls. This tool lets you recover what was done.
• Pass Context Between Chats: Start a new chat and quickly review what was accomplished in previous sessions
• Best Practice Tip: Ask Claude to keep a log of work or a task list in markdown files. Combined with tool call history, you can almost completely restore lost context from failed sessions.

Example usage:

"Show me what commands were run in the last hour"
"Get my recent file operations"
"What did I do with GitHub tools today?"

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📂 Recursive Directory Listing with Depth Control

The list_directory tool now supports a depth parameter for exploring directory hierarchies in a single call.

Depth Levels:

• depth=1: Only direct contents (files and folders in the specified directory)
• depth=2: Contents plus one level of subdirectories (default)
• depth=3+: Multiple levels deep for comprehensive exploration

Context Protection:
Large directories (like node_modules) can contain thousands of files. To prevent overwhelming your context window:

• Top-level directory: Shows ALL items (no limit)
• Nested directories (depth > 1): Limited to 100 items per folder
• When a folder exceeds 100 items, you'll see: [WARNING] node_modules: 500 items hidden (showing first 100 of 600 total)

Example output structure:

[DIR] src
[FILE] src/index.ts
[DIR] src/tools
[FILE] src/tools/filesystem.ts
[FILE] src/tools/terminal.ts
[DIR] src/utils
[FILE] src/utils/logger.ts

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🚫 Disable Onboarding Option

You can now disable the automatic onboarding system using the --disable-onboarding command-line parameter.

Configuration example for Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "desktop-commander": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "@wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander@latest",
        "--disable-onboarding"
      ]
    }
  }
}

This is particularly useful for:

• Power users who don't need getting-started guidance
• Custom MCP client integrations
• Automated setups where onboarding prompts aren't needed

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🏛️ Official Claude Desktop Extension Release

Desktop Commander is listed in Claude's official Desktop Extensions Directory!

Improvements made for that release:

• ✅ More human-readable tool call names for better Claude integration
• ✅ Updated to latest MCP SDK (v1.9.0)
• ✅ Protocol compliance improvements for cross-platform compatibility
• ✅ Enhanced tool annotations and metadata
• ✅ Proper manifest formatting for official registry

Release Notes - v0.2.14 - Search Improvements & MCP Registry

✨ New Features & Improvements

• Enhanced Search Performance: Fixed pattern matching in search queries and improved search reliability with better error handling
• MCP Registry Ready: Prepared Desktop Commander for official MCP registry publication with proper configuration
• VS Code Compatibility: Added compatibility handler for VS Code MCP integration contributed by andriyshevchenko
• Updated Dependencies: Upgraded to @modelcontextprotocol/sdk v1.9.0 for latest MCP features contributed by andriyshevchenko

Release Notes - v0.2.13 - Enhanced Onboarding and Prompts

✨ New Features & Improvements

• Intelligent Onboarding System:
  • Automated Guidance: Desktop Commander now includes intelligent onboarding for new users (fewer than 10 successful commands). AI Client will automatically offer helpful getting-started guidance and tutorials after successful tool use.
  • On-Demand Help: Users can now explicitly ask AI Client for onboarding assistance at any time with phrases like "Help me get started with Desktop Commander," "Show me Desktop Commander examples," or "What can I do with Desktop Commander?".
  • Curated Examples: AI Client will present beginner-friendly tutorials and examples, including:
    • Organizing your Downloads folder
    • Analyzing CSV/Excel files with Python
    • Setting up GitHub Actions CI/CD
    • Exploring and understanding codebases
    • Running interactive development environments
    • Building a shopping list app and deploying it online
    • Analyzing data files
    • Checking system health and resources
    • Finding patterns and errors in log files

In future we plan to add way more to prompt library, allow to save your own private prompts or publish and share with others.
This is just first step.

• get_prompts Tool:

  • A new tool get_prompts has been added to browse and retrieve curated Desktop Commander prompts.
  • Actions:
    • list_categories: List all available prompt categories.
    • list_prompts: List prompts, with optional filtering by category.
    • get_prompt: Retrieve and execute a specific prompt by ID.
  • This tool allows users to discover and leverage pre-built workflows and examples directly in AI Client like Claude/Claude Code/Cursor and others.

• Enhanced Client Compatibility & Type Safety:

  • set_config_value Fixes: Improved handling for allowedDirectories and blockedCommands when setting values via the set_config_value tool. It now robustly parses various string inputs (e.g., comma-separated, JSON array strings, single values) into arrays, ensuring compatibility with strict client environments like Gemini. This avoids previous issues where certain input formats would cause errors.
  • Stricter Type Definitions: The value parameter in SetConfigValueArgsSchema now uses z.union to explicitly define accepted types (string, number, boolean, array of strings, null). This provides clearer type hints for clients and prevents unexpected type-related errors, leading to more reliable tool usage across different LLM clients.

That fixes few bugs:
#235
#209

Release Notes - v0.2.11 - unified content and file name search

Release Notes - v0.2.11

🔍 Unified Search System - Major Change

Search Tools Rewrite

• Breaking Change: Replaced search_files and search_code with unified search system
• Both file name and content searches now use ripgrep backend (previously only content search used ripgrep)
• Simplified codebase by unifying two separate implementations into one consistent system

New Streaming Search Workflow

• Parallel Searches: Start multiple searches simultaneously like processes
• Progressive Results: start_search runs in background, get immediate first results
• Session Management: get_more_search_results for pagination, list_searches to track active searches, stop_search to cancel
• Non-blocking: Read first results without waiting for full completion

Enhanced Search Features

• Multi-Extension Support: Search across multiple file types with *.ts|*.js|*.py|*.java|*.go patterns
  Thanks to @genkernel for the contribution!
• Better Ripgrep Integration: Optimized command construction and flag usage
• Early Termination: Option to stop searches after first match found
• Case Sensitivity Control: New ignoreCase parameter for precise control
• Improved Accuracy: Fixed result counting to separate matches from context lines

New Tools:

• start_search → get_more_search_results → stop_search → list_searches

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🛠️ Other Improvements

• MCP Catalog Badge: Added official MCP Catalog integration badge
• Security Documentation: Added SECURITY.md with transparent security approach
• Website Fixes: Updated navigation, installation links, and mobile responsiveness
• Code Quality: Various cleanups, better error handling, enhanced type safety
• Bug Fixes: Server initialization issues, NPX uninstall command, search timeouts

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Upgrade: NPX users get automatic updates, manual installations should update to @latest

Release Notes - v0.2.9 - Docker install scripts

🚀 Major Features

🐳 Secure Docker Support with Persistence

We know people install us from Docker Hub Docker Hub
But way it works there is suboptimal. Does not support mounting host system folders and looses changes on container restarts.

In this release we added custom installation scripts that solve the key limitations: file persistence and folder mounting.

Installation instructions: Docker Setup Guide

Why it matters: Secure, isolated environment for AI work with persistence and access to selected folders with files

🛠️ Additional Enhantments

• Process Output Fix: Resolved critical bug where completed process outputs couldn't be read by AI
• Uninstall Script: Clean removal with npx @wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander remove

Release Notes v0.2.7

Release Notes - v0.2.7

Overview

This release includes important bug fixes, improvements to binary file handling, and new features to enhance the user experience.

Changes

✨ Enhancements

• Improve binary file handling (#187)
  • Not dumping binary files into context anymore
  • Enhanced binary file detection and processing capabilities
  • Added comprehensive test suite for binary file detection
  • Updated filesystem tools to better handle binary content

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Released on: July 23, 2025

Disable feedback requests due to bug and needed refinement

Bug was reported that when opting out and turning off feedback requests they still show up.
Should not be the case. Disabling the functionality here quickly.