15 October 2026

Compass 0.4.0: Install captains from the page

An administrator can now install a catalog captain from Settings → Captains → Available, click Restart Compass, and start using it. Update and uninstall work the same way, and compass validate runs the CI's manifest checks on a captain you are writing.

Install, update, uninstall

Install and Update buttons on Available, and Uninstall on captains installed from the page. Restart Compass from the page; a banner waits until Compass is back.

POST /api/captains/install | uninstall | restart

Installs that can't half-fail

Compass installs the requested set into a fresh directory and swaps it in under a file lock, so the API and the daemon never install at the same time. If an install fails, the previous set stays in place and the page shows the error.

Trust settings

Only catalog entries with a pinned pip line can be installed: branches and version ranges are refused. Installing needs an administrator and is refused in read-only mode. COMPASS_CATALOG_ALLOW limits installs to the captains you name, and COMPASS_CATALOG_INSTALL=off turns page installs off.

COMPASS_CATALOG_ALLOW=hello

compass validate

Run the CI's manifest checks on your own captain before you publish it. compass install and compass uninstall do the same as the page from a shell in the container.

compass validate path=./my-captain

The development guide

docs/captain_development.md goes from an empty directory to a catalog entry: start from the example, the local loop, commands, settings, a dashboard page, tests, versions and publishing.

docs/captain_development.md

Compass is open source (Apache-2.0).

Code, changelog and issues: github.com/beamreach-ai/compass. Already running it? The update card on Settings → Updates shows these notes before you update.