Codec — What's new

v0.4 — safety-policy negotiation as a TLS-style capability axis

Mon, 11 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Codec gains a sixth negotiation axis on the HELLO/READY handshake — a sanitized, hash-anchored `safety_policy` descriptor that lets servers advertise enforcement (categories, actions, classifier family) without leaking operator-internal banned-id lists or thresholds. Adds an optional `@codecai/web-safety` client package (prefilter + classifier registry), full operator-side enforcement in codec-supervisor (logits processor, multi-token matcher, classifier registry with three v1 implementations), and per-language tokenize/detok benchmarks across all six client libs. Wire numbers unchanged from v0.3.x — v0.4 is wire-additive.

CHANGELOG.md · spec/versions/v0.4.md · 2026-05-11T00-12-00Z bench matrix · docs/RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md

Cross-stack bench cleanup — 24/24 unanimous on every engine

Sun, 10 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Re-ran the full cross-stack matrix after patching two bench-driver bugs (C/TS token-decode fallback, vllm REPS=1 noise). All three engines × six client languages now produce byte-identical Codec frames per cell — including vllm, which previously read as 0/24 unanimous in the post-mortem.

MATRIX.md — 2026-05-09T17-09-35Z · Earlier post-mortem (now resolved) · Token-decode fix (commit)

v0.3 bench numbers from the lab — 3.6× on tools/list, 18× on text streams

Sat, 09 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

First end-to-end run of the v0.3 stack against codec-metamcp:v0.3.0 on a real lab box. tools/list collapses to 3.6× over JSON-RPC; text streams hit 18× over JSON-SSE on protobuf framing.

GitHub release v0.3.0 · MCP-live results — 2026-05-09T09-26-54Z · Bench methodology — SCHEMA.md

codec-metamcp v0.3.1 — leaf-mode validator fix; Codec-aware tools 4.2× e2e

Sat, 09 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

First end-to-end run with codec-time-leaf in a metamcp namespace surfaced (and we fixed) a CallToolResult validator bug that was rejecting all leaf-mode results. Codec-aware tool calls now compress 4.2× through the gateway.

GitHub release v0.3.1 · 2026-05-09T11-10-48Z bench results · metamcp validator-fix commit

v0.3 latent modality — VAE latents on the wire

Sat, 09 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Image and video diffusion models now stream VAE latents instead of decoded pixels. 48× smaller wire weight, decode at the leaf.

GitHub release v0.3.0 · codec-comfyui docs · codec-diffusers docs · PROTOCOL.md § Latent Modality

Codec-aware MCP gateway

Sat, 09 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Tool authors can now ship pre-tokenized results that bypass the gateway's back-compat shim. ~4.7× wire-byte reduction on real MCP traffic.

GitHub release v0.3.0 · codec-metamcp docs · codec-time-leaf reference image

tool_calling block in tokenizer maps

Sat, 09 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Tokenizer maps now carry the model's tool-calling convention. Auto-derived from the chat template — no per-deployment config.

GitHub release v0.3.0 · PROTOCOL.md § Tool-call calling conventions · tokenizer-map.schema.json

v0.3 latent bench — pipeline math validates byte-for-byte

Sat, 09 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

First end-to-end latent run against codec-diffusers with real SD-1.5 latents on the wire. The seven-pipeline registry collapses bytes exactly as the spec promises — int4 packs 3.9× over raw, ~5-10× smaller than JPEG.

GitHub release v0.3.4 · 2026-05-09T13-01-55Z latent results · spec/PIPELINES.md (the registry being validated)

v0.3.2 — leaf-mode bypass observable end-to-end on real MCP traffic

Sat, 09 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

The Codec leaf-mode bypass — the architectural target the entire v0.3 contract was designed for — fires end-to-end. `[Codec][leaf]` log line confirms the gateway is a transparent ID pipe; the tokenizer sits at the leaf where it belongs.

GitHub release v0.3.2 · 2026-05-09T12-17-48Z bench results · PROTOCOL.md § Tool-call calling conventions in the map

Java, Rust, and .NET clients reach feature parity

Thu, 07 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Six client libraries (TypeScript, Python, Java, Rust, .NET, C) are now byte-identical across the cross-stack benchmark matrix. 36 cells × 3 sizes, all green.

GitHub release v0.2.4 · Cross-stack benchmark matrix

zstd dictionary negotiation via Codec-Zstd-Dict header

Thu, 07 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Servers advertise the active zstd dict on the wire; clients fetch it once and decompress every frame against it. Identification by sha256, not URL.

GitHub release v0.2.5 · tokenizer-map.schema.json zstd_dictionaries[]