Rhino Release Notes - 3.09.0

Rhino 3.09.0 builds on the 3.x platform transition with a strong focus on system-scoped content management, spreadsheet generation integrity, packaging and cross-system reuse, artifact extensibility, and a broad round of scalability, reliability, and security fixes. This release continues the move toward Knowledge Reserve as the system of record, expands what admins can control through System Reserve, and improves large-scale routine and graph workflows uncovered during benchmarking and release testing.

At a glance: 3.09.0 adds promote/demote for Knowledge Reserve items, expands System Reserve controls and redesign, introduces application packaging for cross-system SYSTEM import, improves artifact capabilities including KR upload and agent-trace reads, hardens spreadsheet generation so output opens cleanly in Excel, and delivers a substantial batch of COBOL, graph, memory, Copilot, and security fixes identified during benchmarking and validation.

Highlights

• System Reserve and Knowledge Reserve expansion: admins can now manage more system-scoped content with redesigned reserve tables, enable/disable flows, provenance labels, and promote/demote journeys for Knowledge Reserve items.
• Application Packaging: Rhino can export selected definitions and import them into another Rhino system as SYSTEM-scoped content, making solution packs a practical cross-system delivery path.
• Spreadsheet generation hardening: workbook integrity issues were addressed across external references, defined names, table headers, table range growth, totals-row handling, and Excel ListObject consistency.
• Artifact extensibility: artifacts can now upload Knowledge Reserve objects through a host-mediated flow and read agent traces, expanding artifact-driven workflows without widening security exposure.
• Scalability and COBOL quality: major work landed across COBOL extraction, code-graph search, citation persistence, project copy, memory reclaim, and large-asset performance diagnostics.
• Security and dependency hardening: this release includes fixes across auth/session handling, external MCP SSRF protection, frontend template execution risk, and a large batch of CVE and dependency updates.

What changed in 3.09.0System Reserve, promote/demote, and reserve UX

3.09.0 significantly advances Rhino's system-scoped content model, moving beyond visibility into more complete lifecycle and administration flows.

• Promote/demote for Knowledge Reserve items, allowing admins to move supported KR content between project scope and system scope.
• System Reserve redesign with updated bucket navigation, table layout, pagination, file/folder icons, bulk-action patterns, and clearer per-bucket management.
• Enable/disable groundwork for Knowledge Reserve items, so system content availability is more explicit and consistent.
• Provenance clarity through Built In, Installed, and Promoted labeling, including cleanup work so promoted items are labeled correctly.
• Apps hidden from System Reserve until archive explosion support is ready, preventing a misleading incomplete experience for system-scoped app archives.

Why this matters: admins get a safer and more understandable way to control which shared content is available across projects, while users see a more consistent reserve experience with fewer misleading or half-supported paths.

Application Packaging and reusable system content

3.09.0 introduces a practical packaging path for moving reusable definitions between Rhino systems.

• Selective export of packagable definitions rather than full-project cloning.
• Cross-system import as SYSTEM scope, so imported content becomes available for use across projects on the destination system.
• Pack registry and seed-based import flow to preserve installed-pack identity without depending on durable extracted files on disk.
• Support for reusable definitions such as custom routines, artifact types, KR content, and task templates, while excluding runtime graph instances, runs, and customer asset data.

Why this matters: customers and partners can move solution definitions across environments in a controlled, inspectable format, without confusing packaging with project copy or runtime data migration.

Spreadsheet generation reliability

A substantial cluster of spreadsheet-template fixes landed in 3.09.0 to address Excel repair prompts and structural workbook corruption in generated outputs.

• External reference cleanup so dangling external-book references do not survive after safe I/O strips workbook links.
• Defined-name and workbook integrity protection to prevent removed-records recovery flows on open.
• Excel Table header reconciliation so table column metadata stays aligned with written header cells.
• Scoped table growth that avoids swallowing distant blocks or overlapping the next table.
• Totals-row handling so growing a table does not accidentally convert appended data into the totals row.
• Integrity-checker coverage to validate generated workbook structure more systematically across save paths.

Why this matters: generated workbooks are often the end-user deliverable. These fixes make spreadsheet output more trustworthy, open cleanly in Excel, and preserve the structure template authors expect.

Artifacts, traces, and project customization

3.09.0 expands artifacts from passive outputs into richer workflow surfaces.

• Artifacts can upload KR objects through a host-mediated upload flow that uses existing authenticated product surfaces rather than direct sandbox network access.
• Artifacts can read agent traces, including past run and chat evidence needed for learning, review, and workflow support experiences.
• Multi-file artifact editor support advances artifact authoring beyond a single long source blob.
• Configurable artifact homepage and project feature access improve project-level tailoring of user experience.
• Server-side aggregate queries for artifacts make KPI and chart-style artifact views more scalable than client-side math over paged results.

Why this matters: artifacts become more useful as operational applications inside Rhino, not just rendered outputs, while still respecting the platform's security and authorization boundaries.

Scalability, reliability, and security hardening

Much of 3.09.0 is stabilization and scale work discovered through release-candidate validation and large-scale benchmarking.

• COBOL and code-graph scalability: fixes landed for malformed-file isolation, per-file identity handling, paragraph-source caching, large DataItem analysis, bounded search behavior, citation persistence, and project-copy graph correctness.
• Memory and worker improvements: proactive allocator tuning, trim/reclaim behavior, and worker recycling reduce retained RSS after large jobs.
• Copilot and routine reliability: fixes improved publish-confirm behavior, routine data selection correctness, system-content enforcement, and release diagnostics coverage.
• Authentication and session hardening: revoked roles and deactivated users are enforced more consistently across JWT-bearing surfaces.
• External MCP security hardening: SSRF protections were tightened across connection URLs and OAuth endpoint handling.
• Frontend security updates: high-risk template execution paths and unsafe rendering paths were removed or sanitized.
• Dependency hardening: multiple vulnerability-driven package updates landed across backend, frontend, transformers, and infrastructure-related toolchains.