What's New in 1.9.x¶

Bernstein 1.9 collects four feature tracks that landed as tickets oai-001 through oai-004. This page summarises them in terms of what changes for someone upgrading from 1.8.x. Full detail lives in the dedicated architecture pages and the CHANGELOG.

OpenAI Agents SDK v2 adapter (`openai_agents`) — oai-001¶

Bernstein now ships a first-class adapter for the OpenAI Agents SDK v2. It wraps agents.Agent + Runner.run_sync in a CLI-spawnable subprocess so the existing Bernstein spawner can manage lifecycle, timeouts, rate-limit back-off, and cost tracking the same way it does for every other coding agent.

pip install 'bernstein[openai]'

# plan.yaml
steps:
  - title: "Add unit tests"
    role: qa
    cli: openai_agents
    model: gpt-5-mini

Structured JSONL event stream (start, tool_call, tool_result, usage, completion).
MCP bridging — Bernstein-managed MCP servers are forwarded into the SDK's RunConfig so tool calls show up in the central audit log.
Rate-limit handling maps SDK exception classes onto COST.rate_limit_cooldown_s.
Pricing rows for gpt-5, gpt-5-mini, and o4 land alongside the adapter.

See the adapter reference and the decision guide for when to pick openai_agents vs codex vs claude.

Pluggable sandbox backends — oai-002¶

Every spawned agent now runs inside a SandboxSession. Four first-party backends ship:

Backend	Extra	Notes
`worktree`	core	Local git worktree. Zero overhead. Default.
`docker`	`bernstein[docker]`	Per-session container; cgroup + namespace isolation.
`e2b`	`bernstein[e2b]`	E2B Firecracker microVMs. Supports `SNAPSHOT`.
`modal`	`bernstein[modal]`	Modal serverless containers. Supports `SNAPSHOT` and optional `GPU`.

# plan.yaml
stages:
  - name: risky-execution
    sandbox:
      backend: docker
      options:
        image: python:3.13-slim
        memory_mb: 2048
    steps:
      - title: "Run untrusted code analysis"
        role: security
        cli: claude

bernstein agents sandbox-backends   # list every installed backend

Third parties register backends through the bernstein.sandbox_backends entry-point group.

Full detail: architecture/sandbox.md.

Cloud artifact storage sinks — oai-003¶

.sdd/ persistence (WAL, audit log, task outputs, cost ledger) now decouples from the local filesystem via an async ArtifactSink protocol. First-party sinks:

Sink	Extra	Provider SDK
`local_fs`	core (always on)	stdlib
`s3`	`bernstein[s3]`	`boto3`
`gcs`	`bernstein[gcs]`	`google-cloud-storage`
`azure_blob`	`bernstein[azure]`	`azure-storage-blob`
`r2`	`bernstein[r2]`	`boto3` (R2 is S3-compatible)

The BufferedSink wrapper preserves the WAL crash-safety contract by fsyncing the local write first and mirroring to the remote asynchronously, so synchronous write latency stays bounded by local disk.

Full detail: architecture/storage.md.

Progressive-disclosure skill packs — oai-004¶

Role prompts migrated from monolithic templates/roles/<role>/system_prompt.md files to OpenAI Agents SDK-shaped skill packs under templates/skills/<role>/. Every spawn's system prompt now receives only a compact skill index; agents pull full bodies on demand through the load_skill MCP tool.

Net effect: fewer tokens on every spawn, retry, and fork.

bernstein skills list             # compact table of every skill
bernstein skills show backend     # print SKILL.md body
bernstein skills show backend --reference python-conventions.md

Plugin authors can ship additional skill packs via the bernstein.skill_sources entry-point group. 17 built-in role packs (backend, qa, security, frontend, devops, architect, docs, retrieval, ml-engineer, reviewer, manager, vp, prompt-engineer, visionary, analyst, resolver, ci-fixer) are migrated — the legacy templates/roles/ tree remains on disk for backwards compat for two more minor versions.

Full detail: architecture/skills.md.

Installing the new extras¶

All four features are additive — pip install bernstein continues to pull a minimal core. Combine extras to opt into just what you use:

# OpenAI Agents adapter + Docker sandbox + S3 artifact sink
pip install 'bernstein[openai,docker,s3]'

# Everything
pip install 'bernstein[openai,docker,e2b,modal,s3,gcs,azure,r2]'

See the install section in the README for the full extras matrix.

ACP native bridge — `bernstein acp serve`¶

Bernstein speaks Agent Client Protocol natively. Editors that ship ACP support can plug Bernstein in as their backend with no per-IDE plumbing.

bernstein acp serve --stdio          # IDE embedding (Zed, etc.)
bernstein acp serve --http :8062     # remote / CI / debugging

Full detail: reference/acp-bridge.md.

Autofix CI daemon — `bernstein autofix`¶

A long-running daemon that watches Bernstein-opened PRs, pulls failing CI logs via gh run view --log-failed, and dispatches a scoped repair run. Each attempt is HMAC-audited and label-gated; the daemon stops after three consecutive failures on the same PR.

bernstein autofix start              # start the daemon
bernstein autofix status             # show watched PRs and attempt counts
bernstein autofix attach             # tail the daemon log live
bernstein autofix stop               # graceful stop

Credential vault — `bernstein connect`¶

API tokens now live in the OS keychain, not in .env files. bernstein connect <provider> runs the OAuth / API-key flow for the named provider and stores the result securely. Agents receive scoped credentials at spawn time via core/security/vault/.

bernstein connect github             # OAuth flow for GitHub
bernstein connect openai             # store OpenAI API key
bernstein creds list                 # show all stored credentials
bernstein creds test github          # smoke-test stored credential
bernstein creds revoke github        # delete from keychain

This is now the recommended first step before bernstein init when you are setting up Bernstein for the first time with external providers.

Dev preview — `bernstein preview`¶

After an agent runs a dev server, bernstein preview start captures the bound port, tunnels it, and returns a shareable HTTPS link with configurable expiry and auth mode.

bernstein preview start              # expose the running dev server
bernstein preview list               # list active previews with URLs
bernstein preview status             # check tunnel health
bernstein preview stop               # tear down all tunnels

Fleet dashboard — `bernstein fleet`¶

A cross-session view of all Bernstein instances running on the same host (or reachable via the configured server URL). Useful for teams running parallel sessions on a shared development machine or CI cluster.

bernstein fleet                      # TUI fleet view
bernstein fleet --web localhost:9000 # browser fleet dashboard

MCP catalog client — `bernstein mcp catalog`¶

Browse and install MCP servers from the community catalog without leaving the terminal. The catalog schema lives at docs/reference/mcp-catalog-schema.json.

bernstein mcp catalog browse         # paginated catalog listing
bernstein mcp catalog search pytest  # search by name/tag
bernstein mcp catalog install <name> # install and register a server

Notification sinks — `bernstein notify`¶

Bernstein events (task complete, budget threshold, quality gate failure) can now fan out to pluggable notification sinks — Slack, email, webhooks, and more. Configure sinks in .sdd/config.yaml under notifications:.

bernstein notify test --sink slack   # send a test notification to a named sink

Plan archival — `bernstein plan ls/show`¶

Completed plan runs are now archived and inspectable after the fact.

bernstein plan ls                    # list all plan runs with status and cost
bernstein plan show <id>             # show task breakdown for a specific run

PR review responder — `bernstein review-responder`¶

A persistent daemon that monitors open PRs for new review comments and auto-dispatches an agent to address each comment, committing a follow-up and re-requesting review.

bernstein review-responder start     # start the daemon
bernstein review-responder status    # show watched PRs and response queue
bernstein review-responder tick      # manual single-pass (useful in CI)

Review pipeline DSL — `bernstein review --pipeline`¶

Quality-review flows can now be expressed as YAML pipelines. Starter templates live in templates/review/*.yaml.

bernstein review --pipeline review.yaml  # run the review pipeline

Example pipeline fragment:

# review.yaml
phases:
  - name: lint
    adapter: ruff
  - name: type-check
    adapter: pyright
  - name: security
    adapter: bandit
    fail_fast: true

Upgrade notes¶

No breaking changes. Existing plan.yaml and bernstein.yaml files keep working unchanged. The new sandbox: block on a stage is entirely optional; when omitted, behaviour is byte-identical to 1.8.x.
Default sandbox is still worktree. You must opt in to Docker / E2B / Modal explicitly.
Default artifact sink is still local_fs. Remote sinks need the matching extra plus explicit config.
Legacy templates/roles/ still loads. Skill packs are preferred when both are present for the same role.

What's New in 1.9.x¶

OpenAI Agents SDK v2 adapter (openai_agents) — oai-001¶

Pluggable sandbox backends — oai-002¶

Cloud artifact storage sinks — oai-003¶

Progressive-disclosure skill packs — oai-004¶

Installing the new extras¶

ACP native bridge — bernstein acp serve¶

Autofix CI daemon — bernstein autofix¶

Credential vault — bernstein connect¶

Dev preview — bernstein preview¶

Fleet dashboard — bernstein fleet¶

MCP catalog client — bernstein mcp catalog¶

Notification sinks — bernstein notify¶

Plan archival — bernstein plan ls/show¶

PR review responder — bernstein review-responder¶

Review pipeline DSL — bernstein review --pipeline¶