# Upgrade Guide — v0.12.17

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## What Changed

1. **Autonomy profile system**: New `AutonomyProfileManager` with four levels (supervised, guided, autonomous, fully-autonomous). Agents can operate at different autonomy levels with corresponding notification and approval behaviors. Includes `AutonomySkill` for agents to self-assess and request elevation.

2. **Trust elevation tracking**: `TrustElevationTracker` records trust-building events (successful jobs, user approvals, clean operations) and supports time-based decay. Feeds into autonomy profile decisions.

3. **Dispatch scope enforcement**: `DispatchScopeEnforcer` ensures jobs only take actions within their declared scope. Prevents scope creep during autonomous operation.

4. **Execution journal**: `ExecutionJournal` provides provenance tracking for all autonomous actions — what was done, why, and what the outcome was.

5. **Pattern analyzer and reflection**: `PatternAnalyzer` identifies recurring patterns across job executions. `ReflectionConsolidator` and `JobReflector` enable structured learning from completed work. New `instar reflect` CLI command.

6. **Autonomous evolution**: `AutonomousEvolution` subsystem for agents to propose and track their own improvements within trust boundaries.

7. **Topic resume map**: `TopicResumeMap` enables session handoff by tracking which Telegram topics map to which sessions, supporting clean resume on respawn.

8. **Auto-spawn history fix**: When a new session auto-spawns for a Telegram topic (both local and remote HTTP path), it now fetches JSONL thread history and includes it in the bootstrap message — matching the existing `respawnSessionForTopic` behavior. Previously, sessions spawned via the HTTP auto-spawn path had no conversation context.

## What to Tell Your User

- **Autonomy profiles**: "Your agent can now operate at different autonomy levels. Start supervised, and as trust builds through successful operations, the agent can handle more independently."
- **Execution journal**: "Every autonomous action your agent takes is now logged with full provenance — you can always see what happened and why."
- **Session continuity fix**: "When a session hands off to a new one, the new session now gets the full conversation history. No more 'what were we talking about?' moments."

## Summary of New Capabilities

| Capability | How to Use |
|-----------|-----------|
| Autonomy profiles | `GET /autonomy` dashboard, `POST /autonomy/profile` to set level |
| Trust elevation | Automatic — tracks trust events over time |
| Dispatch scope | Automatic — enforces declared job scopes |
| Execution journal | `GET /journal` — full audit trail of autonomous actions |
| Pattern analysis | `instar reflect` CLI command |
| Auto-spawn history | Automatic — new sessions get thread context |
