# open-design open-design-v0.21.1 — Open Design 0.21.1 — Community First: No Login Required

- Product: open-design (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/open-design)
- Vendor: open-design
- Date: 2026-08-31
- Version: open-design-v0.21.1
- Original notes: https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design/releases/tag/open-design-v0.21.1
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/open-design/releases/open-design-v0.21.1

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

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- **added** — Open Design no longer requires a Cloud account before you can begin creating
- **added** — Users can choose an existing local CLI or connect their preferred model provider through BYOK directly from Home
- **added** — Open Design Labs feature available in Settings to enable Open Design Harness and try a new generation strategy
- **added** — Design Harness switch in Settings allows opting into the latest generation strategy without installing another build
- **added** — When a prototype names a person, product, artwork, event or place, Open Design now searches for and uses the actual referent instead of inventing a look-alike
- **added** — Images keep their natural proportions and full frame instead of being forced into a placeholder crop
- **added** — OD Next understands the bones of a mobile interface with purpose-built structure for calendars, stats, settings rows, top bars, bottom navigation, images and confirmation dialogs
- **added** — Large Team workspaces can opt-in to a cumulative budget that keeps background materialization from growing without bound
- **changed** — Team projects open from a warm path using a short-lived, workspace-safe cache for repeated project-list and deep-link reads
- **changed** — Home starts with less competition for the screen by collapsing duplicate catalog reads and deferring the Automations area fetch
- **changed** — Stopping a run now cleans up the complete Agent process tree before declaring the attempt finished
- **fixed** — Local Agent and BYOK stay selectable while signed out or while Cloud is unavailable
- **fixed** — Signing out preserves provider keys, base URLs, model choices and media defaults stored on the installation
- **fixed** — An incompatible Agent handshake now asks you to change Agent versions instead of retrying
- **fixed** — Membership concurrency limits now show their reset guidance
- **fixed** — An AMR model rejection stops before a second, misleading prompt failure can replace the real cause
- **fixed** — Quota, rate-limit and availability signals keep priority over generic no-result classification so retry behavior follows the failure that actually happened

> **Nix distribution note (added August 31, 2026):** the repository-owned flake was retired on `main` in commit `49cc51058fd76ec825fcd6a9f684f8d3a138fca3` via PR #7644. If you still need the last repository-shipped flake, pin to tag `open-design-v0.21.1` (commit `fbd4d48ebe21b20f4a2faaad0ad5e53aaeb1dc4b`) or an earlier tag instead of updating against `main`.

###### 🌟 Codename: Community First: *No Login Required*

🔓 **Open Design has always been rooted in the community. Now we’re returning to
that promise: no account required.** Choose a local CLI or BYOK directly from
Home and start creating. Open Design Cloud is still available whenever you need
it.

##### 🔥 Highlights

- 🔓 **Start without signing in.** Open Design no longer requires a Cloud
  account before you can begin creating. (#7381) Thanks @Siri-Ray.

- 🧰 **Use your own tools from Home.** Choose an existing local CLI or connect
  your preferred model provider through BYOK. (#7381) Thanks @Siri-Ray.

- 🧪 **Introducing Open Design Labs.** Enable Open Design Harness in Settings to
  try a new generation strategy and create more polished results. More
  experiments are on the way. (#7445, #7514) Thanks @lefarcen.

> 📥 **Download:** Tag
> [`open-design-v0.21.1`](https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design/releases/tag/open-design-v0.21.1)
>
> | Platform | Architecture | Asset |
> |---|---|---|
> | macOS | Apple Silicon | [DMG](https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design/releases/download/open-design-v0.21.1/open-design-0.21.1-mac-arm64.dmg) |
> | macOS | Intel | [DMG](https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design/releases/download/open-design-v0.21.1/open-design-0.21.1-mac-x64.dmg) |
> | Windows | x64 | [Installer](https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design/releases/download/open-design-v0.21.1/open-design-0.21.1-win-x64-setup.exe) |

##### ✨ Added

###### Creation and experiments

- 🧪 **Design Harness is now one switch away.** Open Design Labs has a home in
  Settings, where you can opt into the latest generation strategy without
  installing another build or reaching for a terminal. The switch explains what
  it covers, saves across restarts and tells you when another policy owns the
  choice. (#7445)

- 🖼️ **Real subjects get real imagery.** When a prototype names a person,
  product, artwork, event or place, Open Design now searches for and uses the
  actual referent instead of inventing a look-alike. Images keep their natural
  proportions and full frame instead of being forced into a leftover
  placeholder crop. (#7436)

- 📱 **OD Next understands the bones of a mobile interface.** Calendars, stats,
  settings rows, top bars, bottom navigation, images and confirmation dialogs
  now receive purpose-built structure, so generated phone prototypes read
  clearly without flattening every pattern into the same generic row. (#7327)

###### Team collaboration

- 🧭 **Large Team workspaces can put a ceiling on background catch-up.** An
  opt-in cumulative budget keeps background materialization from growing without
  bound while leaving foreground project opens immediate and unaffected.
  (#7403) Thanks @lefarcen.

##### ⚡ Performance & reliability

- ⚡ **Team projects open from a warm path.** Repeated project-list and deep-link
  reads reuse a short-lived, workspace-safe cache; shares, unshares and workspace
  changes invalidate it immediately. (#7398) Thanks @lefarcen.

- 🚀 **Home starts with less competition for the screen.** Duplicate catalog
  reads are collapsed, and the hidden Automations area waits until you actually
  open it before fetching its data. (#7408, #7413) Thanks @lefarcen.

- 🧹 **Stopping a run now means the whole run has stopped.** Cancel, timeout,
  failure, retry and app shutdown clean up the complete Agent process tree before
  declaring the attempt finished, preventing abandoned children from continuing
  to consume resources. (#7432) Thanks @Siri-Ray.

##### 🐛 Fixed

###### Agents, models and setup

- ☁️ **Cloud sign-out no longer closes the door on local wo

_[Truncated at 4000 characters — full notes: https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design/releases/tag/open-design-v0.21.1]_