Orca v1.4.246 takes Chat UI out of Experimental and hands off chats that hit a limit

Orca's Chat UI is out of Experimental, and each agent opens as Chat or CLI. Messages you send mid-turn now wait in a queue. New installs still start in the terminal.

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Chat UI is out of Experimental, and each agent opens as Chat or CLI

Settings

Agents has a Chat or CLI choice in every agent’s row

Queue

messages you send while the agent works wait as cards and send when the turn ends

New installs start in the terminal. Upgrades keep the choice they had.

When a chat hits its usage limit, the warning now offers Switch Account and Hand Off to Another Agent, so Claude's work can carry on in Codex. Continue Now appears once the limit resets.

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A chat that hits its usage limit can switch accounts or hand off to another agent

Continue Now appears only once the limit’s reset time has passed.

Agents in Orca's browser now hear what each click changed. A failed sign-in returns the page's error, with no fresh snapshot needed. Sign-in and payment popups are now pages they can fill.

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Agents in Orca’s browser see what each click changed, and get into sign-in popups

$ orca click --element @e6
Clicked @e6
Page changes:
      - StaticText "Invalid username or password"

Sign-in and payment popups show up as pages the agent can fill and click.

Orca's plugin list now shows community plugins. Before one installs, Orca names its publisher and asks whether you trust them. Plugin panels now run sealed off in their own process.

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Orca’s plugin list now shows community plugins

Before any plugin that isn’t Orca’s own installs, Orca asks you to trust its publisher.

Orca's terminals can now let your desktop show through, blurred or clear, on Mac, Windows and Linux. Themes can carry a background image, and the editor takes its own theme. On a Mac, Blurred saves battery.

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Orca’s terminals can show your desktop through them, on Mac, Windows and Linux

Window

Opaque, Translucent or Blurred, with background opacity below 100%

Themes

a theme plugin can carry a background image

Editor

its own light and dark themes, apart from the app’s

On a Mac, Blurred costs far less power than Translucent.

On your phone, Orca's Home screen now opens on agents waiting for you, with Tasks and New workspace under your thumb. You can also run automations and finish merge conflicts from the phone.

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Orca’s phone app opens on the agents that need you

Automations and merge conflicts now work from the phone too.

Also, needs-input alerts get their own switch, each agent gets a default model and effort, and Orca wakes orchestration coordinators when workers report. If you hit usage limits, I'd update for the hand-off alone.

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Alerts

“Agent Needs Input” has its own switch, apart from finished turns

Defaults

pick each agent’s model and effort in Settings, Agents

Orchestration

coordinators end their turn, and Orca wakes them when a worker reports

Hitting usage limits? Update today.

The full change list is in Orca’s v1.4.246 release notes on GitHub