AI agents and agent tooling — USASI news

OpenAI releases Codex CLI 0.162.0 with managed Git worktree tools

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

On October 8, 2026 OpenAI published version 0.162.0 of its open-source Codex CLI on GitHub. The release notes add tools for creating and listing managed Git worktrees from trusted local projects when the worktrees feature is enabled, and add task pinning in the agent Command Center with the p key. They also say live web access and remote compaction can be configured for custom Responses-compatible model providers, and that a signed PowerShell installer is now published with Windows releases. USASI has not tested these changes.

OpenAI releases Codex CLI 0.161.0 with GPT-6.1 Sol as the default model

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

On October 7, 2026 OpenAI published version 0.161.0 of its open-source Codex CLI on GitHub. The release notes say GPT-6.1 Sol is now the default model in the bundled and Amazon Bedrock catalogs, and that Amazon Bedrock supports multi-agent V2 and Ultra reasoning on compatible models. The notes also add a /mcp login command for signing in to MCP servers from an active terminal session, and make Daybreak opt-in through --enable cli_daybreak. USASI has not tested these changes.

GitHub MCP Server 2.0.0 adds structured outputs and output schemas for newer MCP clients

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

GitHub published version 2.0.0 of the GitHub MCP Server on October 6, 2026. The release notes say it adds support for structured outputs and output schemas to help agents that use Code Mode or programmatic tool calling, and that these schemas are advertised only to clients that declare support for the MCP 2026-07-28 specification or later. According to the notes, the server's compound tools needed changes to their allowed output schemas, so those schemas are not returned to older clients. The listed changes add typed outputs, and for some tools typed inputs, across issue, pull request, repository, search, security alert, and Actions tools. USASI has not tested this release.

Cline introduces Cline Desktop, an early desktop app for running Cline agent sessions

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Cline introduced Cline Desktop on September 14, 2026, describing it as an early version of its open-source app for open-weight models. The post says the app is a workspace for running agent sessions in parallel, scheduling recurring tasks, and extending agents through a Marketplace, and that it uses the same Cline harness, rebuilt around the Cline SDK. The beta is offered for Mac and Windows; the post says the Mac app is fully open source, like the extension and CLI. Sessions can be started in the CLI or extension and continued in the desktop app. USASI has not tested this app.

Terminal-Bench 4.0 released as a new major version of the continuous benchmark

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT

The Terminal-Bench team published version 4.0 of its command-line agent benchmark on August 28, 2026, a month after announcing that it would be maintained as a continuous benchmark with semantic versioning. The release removed eight tasks, fixed nineteen, and set a flat eight-hour agent timeout for every task; it is a major version because these changes require re-running trials. It runs through the Harbor framework.

Agent Plugins 1.0.0 published as an open specification for packaging agent skills and MCP servers

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

On August 6, 2026 Vercel announced Agent Plugins 1.0.0, an open, vendor-neutral specification for packaging extensions for AI agents so that one plugin format works across compatible clients. A plugin is a directory with a plugin.json manifest and fixed locations for its components, with Agent Skills under skills/ and MCP server configuration in mcp.json. Vercel says it initiated the proposal, that representatives from AWS, Anysphere, GitHub, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Vercel refined it into version 1.0.0, and that the initial Technical Steering Committee includes core maintainers from AWS, Cursor, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Vercel. ChatGPT and Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Kiro, and VS Code are listed as supported at launch.

Nous Research releases Hermes Agent 0.20.0 with conversational voice and A2A v1.0 support

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Nous Research published Hermes Agent v0.20.0 (tagged v2026.8.3) on GitHub on August 3, 2026, calling it "The Herald Release." The release notes list streaming conversational voice with barge-in and on-device wake words, and a new bundled plugin that implements the Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol v1.0 so Hermes can discover, talk to, and be driven by other A2A-compatible agents. The notes also list signed outbound webhooks, grounded research with citations and fact-checking, and a plugin SDK for the desktop app. USASI has not tested this release.

Model Context Protocol publishes its 2026-07-28 specification, removing protocol-level sessions

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

On July 28, 2026 the Model Context Protocol project published the stable release of the 2026-07-28 revision of the MCP specification, which follows the 2025-11-25 revision. The changelog lists removing protocol-level sessions and the Mcp-Session-Id header from the Streamable HTTP transport, and removing the initialize handshake so that every request carries its protocol version and client capabilities in _meta. It also adds a required server/discover method and a Multi Round-Trip Requests pattern, and moves tasks into an official io.modelcontextprotocol/tasks extension. The revision deprecates the Roots, Sampling, and Logging features and adopts a feature lifecycle and deprecation policy with a minimum twelve-month deprecation window. USASI has not tested implementations of this revision.