Releases — StoryCodex

1.9.1

Connect your AI with a browser sign-in — and let it add characters and places

Released August 8, 2026

This release is about the AI connection. If you use Claude Desktop or claude.ai, you no longer need to create a token and paste it into a header — add StoryCodex as a custom connector, leave the header fields empty, and approve the screen your browser opens.

A connected AI can also now create characters and places, if you let it. Writing is off by default and has to be chosen when you create a token, because it writes straight to your live codex — there is no draft step and no undo. Every token you already have stays read-only, permanently: those were issued under a promise that a connected AI could change nothing, and none of them were upgraded.

It is all managed in one place — Profile → Connect your AI — where you can see what each connection is allowed to do and revoke any of them at any time.

Added

Connect Claude Desktop or claude.ai without a token. Add StoryCodex as a custom connector, paste the MCP endpoint, and leave the header fields empty — your browser opens a screen naming the application that is asking, and approving it connects you. Nothing to copy, nothing to paste. The connection appears on your profile under Connect your AI with a "Connected app" badge, and revoking it there cuts that client off immediately.
You can now let a connected AI create characters and places — tick "Allow this AI to create characters and places" when you create a token. It writes straight to your live codex: no draft step, no undo, and duplicates cannot be merged, so the box is unticked by default and a token's access can never be changed later. Writing only works in collections where you are an Owner or Manager. Tokens created before this release stay read-only permanently; create a new one to allow writing.
Ask a connected AI to list the places in your collection, each shown with the place it sits inside.

Changed

The "Connect your AI" card on your profile now leads with the browser sign-in. The New token form used to be the only visible route, so people were creating credentials they never needed. The token list also now shows each entry's access — Read-only or Read & write — and badges the connections made through the browser.

Fixed

Tables wider than their card are no longer clipped on narrow screens. The right-hand columns — including the row action buttons — could be unreachable on a phone, with no scrollbar and no way to swipe across to them. Wide grids now scroll sideways as intended. This affected grids throughout the app.

1.9.0

StoryCodex for every storyteller — collection types, your own terms, and Connect your AI

Released August 7, 2026

StoryCodex began as an author's tool — this release makes it home for every kind of world. Give each collection a type (a book series, a tabletop game, a video game, or something else) and the entire app speaks that world's language: books and chapters, games and levels, or names you choose yourself.

You can also connect your AI: create a personal access token on your profile page and an MCP-capable assistant such as Claude can search your world, read characters and stat sheets, and load your whole codex as context. And the character progression build sheet — the heart of the RPG system — now loads dramatically faster.

Added

Collections now have a type — Book Series, Tabletop/Physical Games, Computer/Mobile Games, or Other — chosen when you create or edit a collection. The type decides the words the app uses for what you're building.
Custom terms: give a collection your own names for its works and sections — say, Campaigns and Episodes. Leave a box blank to keep the type's terms; clearing it later reverts.
Connect your AI: create a personal access token on your profile page and any MCP-capable AI assistant (such as Claude) can read your collections — search your world, look up characters and stat sheets, and load your whole codex as context while you create.
New collections start with the thirteen most common relationship types — Parent/Child, Sibling, Spouse, Friend, Mentor/Student and more — with gendered labels already wired. Existing collections that had none receive the same starter set.

Changed

Books are now Works and Chapters are now Sections — and the whole app speaks each collection's own terms. A book series still reads Books and Chapters, game collections read Games and Levels, and search, exports, dialogs and help all follow along.
The character progression build sheet is dramatically faster: the page appears instantly and every card loads in parallel, with calculated stats served from a cache that always reflects your latest edit.
The home page and mission statement now speak to every storyteller — authors, game designers and game masters alike.
Writing progress and word-count goals now apply only to Book Series collections — word counts describe manuscripts, so game collections no longer carry them.
The left navigation refreshes the moment you save collection settings, so a type change shows its new terms immediately — and the collection list's edit button is now a gear, because that dialog is your collection's settings.
The collection create/edit dialog was reorganized for clarity, with the RPG system switch moved into its card header.

Fixed

Purple text in the dark theme was hard to read on some surfaces — the primary purple is slightly brighter and now meets accessibility contrast guidelines.
Free point allocations now accept only positive numbers; clearing a value (or entering 0) still removes the allocation.

1.8.0

Frosted glass in the Android app, collaborator roles with real permissions, and faster grids

Released July 31, 2026

This release is mostly about the Android app growing up: it wears the website's signature frosted-glass look, its progression screen has become a full build sheet you can edit, and every screen now keeps itself up to date. Alongside it, shared collections gain a real permissions model, and the website's larger lists learned to page, sort, and filter.

If you share a collection, check your collaborators' roles. The three roles have been renamed — Author is now Owner, Co-Author is Manager, and Editor is Viewer — and they now control what each collaborator can do. A collaborator who held the old Editor role is now a read-only Viewer: if they should keep editing, set them to Manager on the Collaborators page.

If you are interested in joining our internal tester group for the Android app, please let us know by selecting the "Submit Feedback/Request Features" button on your workspace (sign-in required).

Added

The Android app's progression screen is now a full build sheet: cards for the race and each class slot with their grade badges, then resources and the stat computations — plus an editable free-point grid. Type in a stat's field to allocate points, clear it to remove them; the budget line flags over-allocation as you go.
Grid columns on the website can now be sorted by clicking their headings, and the taggable lists filter by tag right inside the grid — sorting, filtering and paging all work together.

Changed

The Android app wears the website's frosted glass: the header and the bottom navigation bar are translucent, with your content blurring through them as it scrolls beneath — in both themes. Older devices (before Android 12L) keep the previous solid bars.
Collaborator roles now mean what they say. Owners have full control, including deleting the collection and managing its collaborators; Managers can edit everything else; Viewers can read everything and comment, but change nothing. Editing controls disappear for Viewers on the website and in the app, and the server enforces the same rules everywhere.
Long lists — characters, titles, files, chapters and more — now load a page at a time, with a pager and a "Showing X of Y" count under the grid. Drag-to-reorder pauses while a grid is sorted or paged, so an arrangement you built can't be overwritten by accident.
Screens in the Android app quietly refresh whenever you come back to them — switching back to the app, returning from a deeper screen, or re-selecting a tab — so edits made on the web appear without a manual pull. An open comment thread also checks for new comments every half minute.

Fixed

Posting a comment from the Android app failed with "Couldn't save that — check your connection and try again" even on a perfectly good connection. Comments post again.
The Android app's pull-to-refresh arrow could stay stuck on screen after a refresh finished. It now retracts on every screen.
Every screen in the Android app carried a tall band of empty space under the clock — the status-bar height was being applied twice. Headers now sit exactly where they should, and each screen shows more content.
A character's progression list in the Android app never showed the classes beside each progression — the field had been silently dropped since the app first shipped. Classes and their levels now appear.

1.5.0

The Codex, starter genders, and wider search

Released July 28, 2026

This release renames the series bible to the Codex, gives every collection a starter set of genders, and teaches search to find your quests and plot threads.

Behind the scenes, it also carries the server-side groundwork for the StoryCodex Android app, which is on its way.

Added

Search now finds quests and plot threads — open it with Ctrl+K (or Cmd+K) and jump straight to a quest or storyline by name.
New collections start with four genders — Male, Female, Non-binary, and Unknown — so you can assign genders and get gendered relationship labels without a setup detour. Collections that had no genders yet received the same starter set; they are ordinary rows you can rename, reorder, or delete.

Changed

The series bible is now the Codex. The export button, the dialog, and any documents you save to the Library all use the new name — previously saved exports were renamed to match.

Fixed

Only a comment's author can edit or delete their comment — this rule is now enforced by the server itself, not just the pages you see.

1.4.0

Stronger access controls, and the groundwork for a StoryCodex Android app

Released July 26, 2026

This release is mostly about who can see what. Every record in StoryCodex is now checked against the collections you actually collaborate on at the moment it is read, rather than relying on the page you arrived from. A record belonging to someone else's collection is no longer reachable by editing a web address.

Underneath that, StoryCodex learned to recognize individual people rather than trusting the website to vouch for them. Nothing changes about signing in on the web, but it is what makes a StoryCodex Android app possible — and the first one, a read-only Android companion for looking things up away from your desk, now works end to end in development.

Release announcement emails now include their own unsubscribe link, and a duplicate that could creep into a book's cast has been fixed.

Added

Release announcement emails now include an unsubscribe link, and Gmail and Outlook will display their own Unsubscribe controls alongside it. The link works without signing in, and if you change your mind, you can resubscribe from the same page.

Fixed

Records are now checked against the collections you collaborate on whenever they are read. Previously, a direct link to a record in a collection you did not have access to could open it. StoryCodex now reports that it does not exist, which is also what it says for a record that has genuinely been deleted.
A character could be added to the same book's cast more than once. The picker now only shows characters who are not already cast, and the same character cannot be added twice.

1.3.0

Built-in help everywhere, and self-service data erasure

Released July 25, 2026

StoryCodex now explains itself. Nearly two hundred pieces of help content ship with this release — a help panel on every page, a short introduction at the top of the main dialogs, and popovers on the fields that genuinely need one. Everything is editable, so you can reword any of it without waiting for a release.

This release also gives you control over your own data: canceling your account now permanently erases your personal information rather than just hiding it. The rich-text sanitizer was updated to close a known security advisory.

Added

Built-in help across the whole application: a help panel on every page, an introduction above the fields of the main dialogs, and popovers on the fields that need explaining.

Changed

Cancelling your account now permanently erases your personal data — your name and email address are anonymized, your sign-in history is deleted, and your error reports are stripped of anything identifying. Comments and other work you contributed to shared collections are kept, unattributed.
Deleting an account from the Accounts page performs the same permanent erasure, and the confirmation says so.
The account cancellation page and the privacy policy now describe exactly what is erased and what is kept.

Fixed

Security: updated the HTML sanitizer to close a known mutation-XSS advisory in its parser. Rich text written by one collaborator and read by another is now processed by a patched parser.

1.2.0

Feedback, contextual help & account control

Released July 23, 2026

This release is about hearing from you and helping you find your way around. You can now send us feedback and feature requests right from your workspace, get contextual help where you need it, and manage your account on your own terms — plus a couple of fixes for emojis and sign-in hiccups.

Added

Feedback & feature requests — a "Submit Feedback/Request Features" button on your workspace opens a form where you can tell us what's working, what isn't, and what you'd like to see next.
Contextual help — look for the ? icons: one beside form fields shows a quick explanation of that field, and the ? button in the top bar opens a help panel about the page you're on. Help content will keep growing over time.
Cancel your account — you can now close your account yourself from the My Profile page. A confirmation page shows exactly what will be removed and what happens to collections you share with collaborators.
Emojis in descriptions — emojis typed into description and note fields are now saved and displayed correctly instead of turning into question marks.
Smoother sign-in — an occasional interruption during Google sign-in (for example after refreshing mid-sign-in) now returns you to the sign-in page with a friendly "please try again" message instead of an error page.

1.1.0

Skill & Spell Enhancements

Released July 19, 2026

This release brings level tracking to skills and spells — record each ability's level at every step of a character's progression, cap them, and promote them to a new rarity tier when they max out. It also adds two new administration tools and puts the protagonist front and center on the Characters page.

Added

Skill & spell level tracking: new collection settings let you track skill and spell levels per character progression, with a configurable level cap and optional rarity-tier and grade tracking per ability.
With level tracking on, the build sheet's Skills and Spells cards become inline editors over every ability in effect — including inherited ones — so you can set a level, rarity, or grade without opening a dialog.
Promote at the cap: when a skill or spell reaches the level cap, one click resets it to level 1 and advances it one rarity tier (or grade) — no wrap-around past the top rank.
Skills and spells can be marked "Does not level" for abilities with no level progression; these show a chip on their lists and skip the level controls on the build sheet.
Word stat-sheet exports now include each skill's and spell's level and grade (e.g. "Fireball — Lv 5 (F)") when level tracking is enabled.

Changed

The Characters list now shows your protagonist(s) first, with the rest of the cast following alphabetically.

0.1.0-alpha.323

Custom Calendars, Timeline Links & Easier Collaboration

Released July 18, 2026

This release puts your world's calendar entirely in your hands and ties your characters' growth to your story's timeline. Build custom calendar systems for each collection — your own months, day lengths, and clock. Link level-ups and evolutions to in-world events. Rounding it out: a cleaner left navigation, friendlier "page not found" pages, and a few fixes.

Added

Calendar Profiles — build multiple custom calendar systems per collection, each with its own unit names, day/hour lengths, 12- or 24-hour clock, and date formats.
Link a character progression to the Timeline — pin a level-up or evolution to an in-world event, with a jump back to the build sheet.

Changed

"Book collection" is now simply "Collection" throughout the app.
On 12-hour calendars, enter times as an hour plus AM/PM, and new events now pre-fill their date from your most recent event.
The Relationship graph moved to a button on the Characters page, and the Timeline is now reached from the Events page (both removed from the left nav).

Fixed

Mistyped URLs and missing records now show a proper, on-brand "page not found" page instead of a blank response.
Fixed the Events edit form so the month selection no longer resets and the minute field fits two digits.

0.1.0-alpha.294

Security Improvements

Released July 16, 2026

This release includes some minor application security improvements.

Added

You can now invite others to collaborate with you on your collection.

0.1.0.Alpha.291

Major System Enhancements

Released July 16, 2026

Good afternoon! If you've been keeping an eye on StoryCodex recently, you might have noticed a lot of changes appearing over the past few days. We've made many improvements and features, including the new release notification mechanism you are seeing now. The overall goal of these recent changes is to expand the potential use of StoryCodex beyond authoring books. We have several more upcoming features in the pipeline that will make StoryCodex even more useful to a broader spectrum of users, such as D&D fans, game developers, etc.

Added

Factions & Organizations - a way to track the guilds, houses, kingdoms, and orders of a world and who belongs to them. Non-RPG general authoring data, under the World nav group.
Tags & custom taxonomy - Free-form tags to label and slice a collection across eight entities
Recent-activity feed - A dashboard feed of recently created and edited records with quick jump-to links.
Collaborator comments - Let collaborators leave notes or comments on any record.
Quests and arcs with objectives (RPG) - Track quests with a giver, objectives, a reward, and a status per chapter, where the reward can be a title, skill, or item.
Writing progress and goals - A per-book word-count target and running total, a daily writing streak, and progress bars on the dashboard.
Series bible export - Export an entire collection (characters, places, relationships, timeline, and lore) as a single formatted Word or PDF series bible.
Scene and beat board (kanban) - A per-book outline of scenes or beats that the author can drag to reorder, optionally seeded from a story-structure template such as Three-Act, Save the Cat, or the Hero Journey.
Plot threads and storylines - Track subplots as threads, each with a name and a status (for example setup, developing, resolved), linked to the chapters where the thread is introduced, advanced, and paid off.
Global search and command palette - A fast search across entity names and rich-text bodies within the active collection, reachable from a keyboard shortcut (for example Ctrl or Cmd plus K) and from the app bar.
Wiki-style cross-links and backlinks - Allow any description or notes field to reference another record using a bracketed mention that renders as a link, and show a Mentioned-in / Appears-in panel on each detail page listing everywhere that record is referenced.
Relationship graph visualization - An interactive graph of the cast where each node is a character (optionally colored by gender or race) and each edge is a relationship labeled with its type.
Timeline and in-world chronology - A collection-scoped Event record (title, in-world date/time, related chapter, participant characters, and place) plus a visual timeline view of the story. Optionally a custom in-world Calendar (author-defined months and year length) so character ages and elapsed time can be computed.
Beastiary and NPC Stat Blocks - Stat blocks for antagonists, monsters, and non-player characters.
Character progression charts (RPG) - Line charts of a character stats and calculated resources across chapters and progressions.
Inventory over time (RPG) - A chapter-by-chapter view of what a character possesses, showing items gained and lost across the story.
Stat comparison and power-scaling (RPG) - Side-by-side stat sheets for two or more characters, or for one character at two different chapters.
Place hierarchy and map pins - Give Place an optional parent so locations can nest (for example world, then region, then city), and let an author upload a map image and drop pins that link to places.
Change history and revision log - A per-record history of edits, with optional snapshots of rich-text bodies so an author can view or restore a previous version.
Skill and spell prerequisite trees (RPG) - Optional prerequisite links between skills and spells, rendered as a visual skill tree.

Changed

Left navigation menu cleanup - Improved the left navigation menu behavior to reduce scrolling.