What's new in v4

Delivery now runs through nwdes

nwdes is a command that builds one canonical handoff per feature — a JSON file at docs/feature/ID/handoff.json in your repository that holds the feature's recorded facts — and renders briefs, role prompts, output schemas and review packets from it. It replaces the old delivery runtime as the way work is structured.

The split of work is now explicit:

• The host (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, OMP, ...) runs the models and invokes the roles.
• nwdes builds the prompts and packets, and records the typed values that roles supply. It makes no model calls and enforces no gates.
• The root assistant (the session you are talking to) reads the results and decides what happens next.
• Humans decide genuine scope and trade-offs.

In practice this makes nwdes your assistant's tool: you point your assistant at the guide and decide scope — see For your assistant.

Work moves through one of three routes: spine waves (the /nw-* commands with their gates and independent review), host-led nwdes steps (the root drives roles with generated prompts), or working directly (no gate or delivery authority). You choose by what must survive the session and what a late refusal would cost. See Understanding nwdes.

The DES runtime is retired

DES is the name of nWave's predecessor delivery runtime (the name itself is historical; nWave documents no expansion of it). v4 removes its source tree, nwave-ai doctor no longer checks a DES module, and the installer writes no runtime copy. Two consequences:

• A 3.x delivery in progress is finished on 3.22.2 (the last public 3.x release) or restarted with nwdes feature new from the original request. There is no converter for the old roadmap and execution log.
• Upgrading the package and rerunning nwave-ai install for your host removes the predecessor's footprint, including any legacy runtime copy a 3.x install left at ~/.nwave/runtime/. Hook and plugin wiring (a hooks file for Cursor and Copilot, a plugin for OpenCode, an extension for OMP) remains part of what the installer deploys on those hosts.

Other changes that touch daily use

• Python 3.11 or newer is required. pip and uv refuse the install on Python 3.10, and the python_version doctor check fails below 3.11.
• Commit attribution is on by default. Commits in nWave-active repositories carry a Co-Authored-By: nWave trailer when no preference was ever declared. An explicit off still wins: nwave-ai attribution off.
• Jev is on by default. Jev, the remote TypeSafe System One service used for bounded semantic judgments, is authorized by default: no declaration is needed and no prompt refuses. Refuse it with --jev unauthorized on a call, or "jev": "unauthorized" in ~/.nwave/config.json (the flag wins; nwdes never writes the key). The service works only when the TYPESAFE_API_KEY environment variable is set — that variable is a technical prerequisite, not the authorization. nwdes only checks that it is set. See Understanding Jev and Configure Jev.
• Cursor and Devin are install platforms. nwave-ai install --platform cursor wires Cursor through global user hooks; --platform devin installs the skills-only Devin integration.

Support depth differs per host: Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode have container end-to-end install tests; Cursor, Copilot, OMP and Devin rely on the installer's own validation. The honest matrix, including what each host does and does not get, is Vendor support. The --backup-only recovery point snapshots the Claude Code and Codex installations; --restore restores the Claude Code snapshot (on a Codex-only install it currently finds nothing to restore), and no backup or restore exists for the other hosts.

Where to go next