Changelog

Release notes

What’s changed in each build of Focus Forge.

v0.4.4

pre-alpha current September 7, 2026

The Assistant no longer needs an API key: pick "Focus Forge hosted" in its settings, sign in with Discord, paste the token the page shows you, and start building. Focus Forge covers a small monthly allotment per modder (about $0.50 — roughly 15–40 branches, refreshing on the 1st); the tab header shows what's left and when it resets, and a plain message with an Open settings button appears if it runs out.
Your own key still works exactly as before: the settings dialog keeps both the hosted token and your own key, so you can switch between them without re-entering anything. In hosted mode the assistant talks to Meta's model through OpenRouter via Focus Forge's relay; prompts and the parts of your mod it reads are sent there, and the contributor tier may use them for training.

v0.4.3

pre-alpha September 6, 2026

New Assistant tab: chat with a hosted model that builds and edits your tree for you, live on the canvas — no Claude Code or MCP setup needed. Bring your own API key (OpenRouter by default, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint works), pick a model, and watch each tool call appear as it runs. Deletes, saves and exports ask you first; a Stop button halts it at the next step; the header shows the running token count and estimated cost.
Privacy: the assistant sends your prompts and the parts of your mod it reads to the provider you configure, and only when you send a message. The key is stored on this computer only. The existing LLM tab and the MCP bridge are unchanged.
Editing an existing Millennium Dawn tree now replaces it instead of silently loading next to it: importing an MD tree exports under MD's own file name, and the import dialog offers a prefixed separate copy if you'd rather keep MD's tree too.
If an export would still clash with an MD tree (same focus ids, different file), Validation says so in plain words, the Export tab shows a red status with a Fix button, and Export itself stops to offer the one-click fixes before writing anything broken.
Custom tooltips now carry their text: fill in Tooltip text and it is written to your mod's localisation; Validation warns about tooltip keys that would show raw in-game.
The focus filter list is now the set both Millennium Dawn editions actually localise (44 filters; FOCUS_FILTER_AIR is gone, FOCUS_FILTER_AIRCRAFT and thirty others are new). Validation warns about filters the mod doesn't define, so a filter button that would never appear in-game is caught here; country-specific filters stay allowed.
The AI bridge now refuses mistakes up front instead of accepting them silently: an id with a space, a focus dropped on an occupied cell (it suggests the nearest free cells), an unknown reward or condition preset, a misspelt or missing param, a prerequisite pointing at a focus that doesn't exist, a filter that isn't a FOCUS_FILTER_* token, and an icon that doesn't resolve. Every refusal says what was wrong and what to do. Nothing is half-applied.
Every focus write (and each batch) returns the validation issues touching the focuses it changed, so an agent sees problems the moment it makes them rather than after a separate validate.
Inside a batch, prerequisites may reference focuses created later in the same batch; anything still missing at the end rolls the whole batch back.
Arg names are checked against a per-op spec: unknown names are rejected with the accepted list and a did-you-mean hint, and the obvious aliases (focus_id, completion_reward, focus/prerequisite, focus_a/focus_b, top-level x/y on update_focus) just work. New ops: describe_op (the spec of any op with an example) and guide (the Millennium Dawn authoring guide, now starting with a step-by-step procedure and served by the editor itself).
Cheaper reads for token-limited agents: list_focuses takes prefix / ids / x-y bounds / fields / limit, reference_data takes sections and drops HOI4's dynamic D01..D75 tags by default, and the preset catalogues have a compact form (about one fifth the size) plus a single-kind lookup.
Bridge error messages no longer leak Python exception names.

v0.4.2

pre-alpha September 2, 2026

Every real Millennium Dawn focus carries ai_will_do modifiers, and now yours can too. Inspector → AI Priority → "Modifiers…" opens an editor for conditional weights: factor or add, plus a trigger built from the same condition cards as Availability (or raw lines). One-click templates cover the common shapes: never take this, only after a date, prefer early, skip while at war, gate on a flag or government.
Importing an MD tree now keeps its ai_will_do blocks (base and modifiers, triggers preserved verbatim) instead of dropping them.
The AI bridge accepts aiWillDo and aiModifiers on add_focus / update_focus and documents the idioms in reference_data, so an agent-built tree comes with sensible AI behaviour.
Validation warns about AI weights that misbehave: negative bases or factors, modifiers with no weight, modifiers with no trigger (fold them into the base), and broken trigger script.
Projects that never set a modifier export exactly as before.
Raw script is now checked against what the game and your MD edition actually define. Every effect or trigger in raw lines (rewards, availability, bypass, AI triggers, events, decisions) is looked up in an index of the real script files: typos and renamed helpers get a warning instead of failing silently in-game.
State ids in raw script and in building/resource cards are checked too: a state that doesn't exist is an error, one your country doesn't own at game start is a warning. Equipment types are checked against the edition's real archetypes — the beta renamed several (Inf_equipment is now infantry_weapons_type), and the equipment picker now lists the edition's own names.
Does it load? Export to Mod now runs a smoke check on every file it wrote: each is parsed with the app's own script reader and checked for what the game trips on at load — unbalanced braces or quotes, a focus tree without an id, prerequisites pointing at focuses that aren't in the tree, events outside their namespace or with no option or no way to fire, localisation without the l_english header or BOM, and any focus, idea or event left without text. Also on demand from the Export tab.
Scan HOI4 error.log (… menu and Export tab): after you launch the game with the mod, Focus Forge reads the game's error.log, keeps only the lines about your mod, and maps each one back to the focus it came from — with a jump to that focus. It tells you when the log is older than your last export.
Both checks are available to AI agents over the bridge (smoke_check, scan_error_log) so a generated tree can be verified end to end.

v0.4.1

pre-alpha September 2, 2026

Switching a project's Millennium Dawn edition in Settings now also re-points its stored mod descriptor (dependency name and game version) at the new edition, so the first export declares the right base mod.
Export to Mod fixes an already-exported mod folder too: if its descriptor.mod and launcher .mod still name the other edition's base mod, they are rewritten in place. Custom dependencies and hand-typed versions are left alone.
Validation warns about raw script that calls a helper the target edition doesn't have (the main branch's party-popularity helper, or the radicalization system the beta removed), pointing to the preset that adapts automatically.
Validation also warns when a country tag in the project, a reward or a condition doesn't exist in the target edition — the beta renamed about fifteen tags.

v0.4.0

pre-alpha September 2, 2026

Focus Forge now works with the Millennium Dawn BETA as well as the main mod. Pick the edition when creating a submod, or switch it any time in Settings → Millennium Dawn Edition; each project remembers its target.
Exports match the edition: the right dependency name and game version in descriptor.mod, and the beta's renamed party-popularity helper. The Radicalization reward (a system the beta removed) is hidden for beta projects and flagged by validation if a project still carries one.
Game data follows the edition too — icons, parties, leaders, techs and importable focus trees are read from the beta's own folder, found automatically in your Steam library.
Country tag lists are now read from the mod itself instead of a built-in copy, so new or renamed beta countries show up in every country picker.

v0.3.4

pre-alpha July 22, 2026

Canvas minimap: the whole tree as a constellation in the corner, with your viewport marked — click or drag it to jump anywhere. Big trees stop being a scroll marathon.
Hover a focus to light up its entire ancestry — every prerequisite path back to the roots, OR-groups included. See what a capstone really demands at a glance.
Structure raw script: convert raw reward script into editable reward cards — per focus in the inspector, or the whole project at once from the "…" menu (all-or-nothing per focus, so the exported mod stays identical; one undo restores everything).
Stats and the political-power economy now understand raw-script rewards too.
Smarter validation: idea references are checked against the game/MD's real idea list (no more false alarms on base-mod ideas), and a new structural check catches unbalanced braces or quotes in raw script before they corrupt an export.
Opening a project shared from another computer now cleans up machine-specific paths it carried, instead of exporting to a folder that doesn't exist here.
New in Settings: Copy Diagnostic Report — app, project, and recent event log in one paste for bug reports — plus an event log the app keeps automatically.
Fixed a hidden canvas bug that spammed hundreds of paint warnings every time a big tree was fitted to the window.

v0.3.3

pre-alpha July 21, 2026

Redesigned inspector: the selected focus shows as a dossier card — its icon in the canvas-style bracket frame, title and id edited in place, position and cost chips (cost shown in in-game days), and a live validation dot. The Idea and Event editors open with the same card.
New command bar: buttons grouped into labeled banks with a single green Export button; rare and destructive commands live under "…". The toolbar no longer clips off-screen on smaller windows.
Focuses list: every row shows its focus icon, id, and a validation dot — and warnings are clickable, jumping straight to the offending focus.
Stats tab: headline tiles plus branch-length and reward-mix charts, so you can see at a glance if your rewards lean too hard on one effect.
Welcome screen: recent projects are cards with a constellation thumbnail of each tree’s real shape.
Dragging focuses on big trees (500+) is about 3× smoother.
Export safety: exporting one project can no longer overwrite a different mod’s folder. Destinations are remembered per project, mismatches warn first, and Export As offers to create a proper mod folder (descriptor included) so the mod actually appears in the HOI4 launcher.
Retitling an existing focus updates its auto-generated id again.
New validation warning when two same-row focuses sit close enough to overlap in-game.
New reward presets: doctrine cost reduction, corruption, national budget lines, and ideology popularity.

v0.3.2

pre-alpha July 19, 2026

Auto-update no longer trips over "Setup was unable to automatically close all applications" — the installer now waits for Focus Forge to finish closing before touching files.
Fixed a repeating crash when a focus listed itself as mutually exclusive; it is now a normal validation error.

v0.3.1

pre-alpha July 6, 2026

Focus tree shortcuts — the clickable branch bookmarks big trees show in the bottom-left in-game. Add them from the toolbar or by right-clicking a focus; they export and re-import like vanilla MD.
Author OR-group prerequisites in-app: chips show a group as "a | b", and right-clicking a connection switches it between required (AND) and an OR alternative (drawn dashed on the canvas).
Custom leader descriptions, and vanilla MD party descriptions now load into the Politics tab.
Multi-select works properly: Ctrl+click to extend, rubber-band a group, then drag, copy, duplicate or delete them all together.
A full-audit bug sweep: 27 fixes across saving, undo precision, export edge cases (names with ":", quotes in leader names, non-Latin portraits), and a batch of crash bugs.

v0.3.0

pre-alpha July 6, 2026

Focus Forge now updates itself — it checks for a new version at startup and offers to download and install it, release notes included. Downloads are integrity-checked before they run.
Choose Later or Skip this version; a status-bar notice stays so you can grab it whenever. On-demand check in Settings → Updates.

v0.2.2

pre-alpha June 12, 2026

Fixed a crash that could make a project unopenable (malformed prerequisite link, usually written by the AI bridge). Affected projects repair themselves on next open.

v0.2.1

pre-alpha June 12, 2026

Large trees (USA, China, 700+ focuses) are now smooth — the canvas redraws only what changes, and focus art decodes in the background while the app stays responsive.

v0.2.0

pre-alpha June 12, 2026

Full decision creator — cost, timers, cooldowns, missions, conditions, effects, AI weighting and custom categories, with custom or in-game decision icons.
Undo & redo across everything (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y, 50 steps), plus copy, paste and duplicate for focuses that keep a branch’s layout and internal links.
New Stats tab — branch lengths in days, political-power economy, tree depth and size at a glance.
Exact-date and bypass conditions, per-focus AI priority, hover tooltips on every reward and condition, and smarter validation (broken conditions, missing ideas/events, unresolved icons).
AI Bridge security hardening: connections need a one-time secret only your own machine can read.

v0.1.9

pre-alpha June 12, 2026

Every reward and availability preset audited against Millennium Dawn’s actual files — a dozen fixes, plus new News Event, Puppet Country and Annex Country rewards.
Crash-safe saving: projects and exported mods are written atomically, so a crash or full disk can never truncate your work.
Much snappier on big projects, and corrupt game files can no longer crash the app.

v0.1.8

pre-alpha June 11, 2026

Events can fire on an exact date — the export generates the HOI4 plumbing (date trigger + on_actions) for you, and Validation flags malformed dates.
UI consistency pass across every editor and dialog; scrolling no longer accidentally changes dropdowns under the cursor.

v0.1.7

pre-alpha June 10, 2026

Import your own focus icon — auto-scaled to the in-game 100×88 size, shown on the canvas instantly, and exported as a .dds with its sprite definition (shine included).

v0.1.6

pre-alpha June 9, 2026

Import focus trees (and their custom icons) from any custom mod folder.
Custom event pictures, party logos and portraits — all imports auto-scale to the correct in-game sizes.
The AI Bridge is bundled into the installed app — no separate Python install.
Startup launcher (New Submod / Open / Recent), autosave, "Load MD parties", a "Put Leader in Power" reward, and flag previews for every country.

v0.1.5

pre-alpha June 7, 2026

AI Bridge: connect an AI assistant (Claude) over a local MCP connector and build or edit your tree by asking in plain English — focuses, ideas and events appear live on the canvas.
In-app Help tab: searchable, categorized how-tos and gotchas.
Robust Steam auto-detection for HOI4 + Millennium Dawn across any drive or custom library.
Country editor: real MD leader portraits, categorized traits with bonus tooltips, MD starting popularities and flags.
Project & export metadata validation, with the blocking issues listed before export.

v0.1.0

pre-alpha June 5, 2026

First packaged release: one-folder build + Windows installer (per-user, no admin).
Visual node-graph editor with drag-to-connect prerequisites and WYSIWYG, in-game-accurate focus nodes.
Real in-game .dds focus icons via a built-in pure-Python decoder, plus a searchable icon picker.
Byte-identical HOI4 exports from an editable .focusforge.json project.
Structured rewards & availability builders, idea creator with ~1000 modifiers, submod scaffolding, and tree import.