Release: 16.09.26

[sdevil7th]

Release OpenStudio 0.1.02 by merging develop into main. This release brings recovery workflows, local AI improvements, plugin automation/state fixes, safer updates and refreshed branding to the published application.

Changes

• Recover interrupted project snapshots, recordings and AI requests; preserve recoverable audio when WAV finalization fails.
• Add click-only metronome practice and optional external-plugin isolation with explicit fault/retry handling.
• Improve host-exposed plugin parameter capture, Read/Write/Touch behavior, undo and saved plugin state; refine NAM Rack controls, TONE3000 handling and Monitor FX integration.
• Add in-app Hugging Face setup for Stable Audio and MiniMax, clearer download/generation progress, adaptive memory placement and separately installed INT8 variants for supported NVIDIA CUDA models.
• Harden project saves, background-task ownership, native window lifecycles, runtime packaging and installer/update handoff. Store packages use the Microsoft update route.
• Refresh native/package/frontend branding and expand the application and frontend documentation.

Review the actual changes since the published release in v0.1.01...a82d213. Main implementation: #15; frontend component documentation: #16. Earlier NAM Rack/JUCE/shortcut work visible in the commit history was already part of v0.1.01 and is not a new feature of this release.

Release order and gates

1. Finish review and require all CI checks on the final PR revision to pass. Do not bypass protected-branch requirements.
2. Merge this PR into main.
3. Validate the final release notes and any required checks on the merged revision; create v0.1.02 on that merged commit only afterward.
4. Let the tag-triggered Release workflow build the distribution artifacts from that exact tag. Use its MSIX for Microsoft Store certification; do not use a pre-merge local candidate.
5. Preserve the manual Store publishing hold. Certification submission and public Store publication are separate actions; never publish the old code/logo as a bootstrap workaround.

Microsoft Store readiness

• Associate the Entra directory and provision the Store automation application.
• Store the three required credentials in the encrypted GitHub microsoft-store environment; restrict environment access to v* tags, with no branches allowed.
• Resolve first-submission support before enabling automatic Store submission. The current script requires lastPublishedApplicationSubmission and refuses an unrelated pending draft. OpenStudio has no published Store baseline yet, so a tag alone cannot currently queue its first release.
• Complete and verify the new listing artwork, certification details and package from the approved release tag.
• Verify live API access and enable OPENSTUDIO_STORE_ENABLED only after the submission prerequisites are satisfied. It is currently false, which skips both Store packaging and submission in the Release workflow.

Validation and remaining qualification

CI is still in progress; local checks are supporting evidence, not a substitute for the final PR/merged-revision gates. On source commit 681fec8 (the same tracked source tree as current PR head a82d213), the frontend production build, Windows Release build, MSIX validation/payload parity, 35 Python checks (2 skipped), 5 package rejection checks and 42 packaged window-lifecycle checks passed. The installed checks used an unsigned development registration, not Store delivery.

• Bring docs/releases/0.1.02.md up to date in this PR before release: its committed text still says quantization is not enabled and omits newer branding/automation/recovery changes. Reviewed corrections exist locally but are not yet in the PR. Run python tools/validate-release-notes.py --version 0.1.02 against the final notes.
• Complete the applicable installed-release checklist. Store-delivered upgrades, clean-machine behavior, live OAuth, physical audio/GPU qualification and subjective audio quality are not established by these local checks.

Back up projects/presets before upgrading. INT8 variants require additional preparation/storage and supported NVIDIA CUDA hardware; they do not reduce the initial model download. Known plugin-automation and platform qualification limits must remain in the final release notes.