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v1.4.0 Release Notes

Release Date: February 20, 2026

Highlights

  • response_config.json auto-created on first boot — no manual setup needed; AI agents can control output verbosity immediately
  • Graph tools now respect response_config.json — token budgets finally enforced for the five highest-output tools
  • Hot reload — edits to response_config.json take effect without a server restart
  • Profile default alignment — fresh deployments and existing ones behave identically

New Features

response_config.json Auto-Init

On first codescalpel mcp boot or codescalpel init, the server now automatically creates response_config.json and response_config.schema.json in your .code-scalpel/ directory.

Previously, users had to manually create these files or know to run codescalpel init. Now they're always present and ready to edit.

exclude_when_tier Support

The generated response_config.json schema and template now document the exclude_when_tier field, which allows per-tool, per-tier field suppression.

Example: suppress heavy graph metadata for Community tier users to keep responses within their token budget.

Bug Fixes

Graph Tools Now Respect response_config.json

get_call_graph, get_graph_neighborhood, get_project_map, get_cross_file_dependencies, and cross_file_security_scan previously bypassed filter_tool_response entirely via envelop_tool_function. Response config profiles and exclusion rules were silently ignored for these five tools.

All five now go through the full filtering pipeline. Since these are the highest-output tools in the suite, this fix has real token-budget impact for users on tight context windows.

Hot Reload Now Works

_check_reload() was implemented but never called from filter_response, meaning edits to response_config.json required a full server restart to take effect.

The file is now checked on every filtering call (debounced to at most once per second), so changes are picked up automatically.

Profile Default Alignment

DEFAULT_CONFIG (the in-memory fallback used when no response_config.json is present) defaulted to "minimal" while the generated template defaulted to "standard". A fresh deployment without the config file and one with it would behave differently.

Both now default to "standard", eliminating this silent inconsistency.

Changes

Non-Functional parsing Section Removed

The parsing block (mode, sanitization_policy, error_reporting) has been removed from the response_config.json template and schema. This section was loaded into the config object but never read by any code path — shipping config knobs that do nothing misleads deployers.

The block will be wired up properly in a future release.

response_config.json Template Version

The template version field has been updated from 1.3.x to 1.4.0.

ResponseFormatter Deprecated

The ResponseFormatter class in response_formatter.py is now marked as deprecated. It is dead code that was never called by the tool pipeline — the active implementation is ResponseConfig in response_config.py. It will be removed in v1.5.0.

Breaking Changes

None. v1.4.0 is fully backward compatible with v1.3.x.

Upgrade Guide

From v1.3.x

pip install --upgrade codescalpel

No configuration changes required. Your existing response_config.json (if any) will continue to work. If you don't have one, it will be created automatically on next server boot.

Known Issues

  • Inherited from v1.3.0: path suggestions may be slow on very large workspaces (>10,000 files)

Full Changelog

See the detailed changelog for all changes.