Ota v1.6.16 Now available

v1.6.16 is a contract-truth release.

Across real repos, two recurring risks showed up: machines could not always distinguish binary identity from capability support, and readiness signals could drift across command surfaces or selected execution paths. That creates uncertainty for maintainers and unsafe assumptions for agents.

This release focuses on one principle: contracts should fail early, report clearly, and keep provenance explicit.

v1.6.16 ships core improvements around identity, compatibility, and boundary safety:

1. Machine-readable build identity: ota --version --json now returns stable provenance fields (semver, source_build, commit, dirty), schema_version, and additive contract_capabilities[].
2. Compatibility-locked version JSON: the version output is now formalized with a published schema and conformance coverage.
3. Minimum-version enforcement at load time across command surfaces: contracts fail early on stale binaries, not only during validate.
4. Feature-first compatibility diagnostics: minimum-version failures now explain contract minimum, current binary identity, unsupported feature (when known), and next recovery step.
5. Unified preview verdict semantics: doctor, ota run --dry-run, and ota up --dry-run now share centralized status behavior and consistent preview_status output.
6. Stronger agent boundaries: duplicate path overlap between agent.writable_paths and agent.protected_paths is rejected; task side effects (writes, network, external_state) are surfaced and validated for safer execution.
7. Better selected-path determinism: scoped requirements, toolchain scoping, runtime probing, and readiness wait budgets now behave more accurately on the selected workflow path.

This is a reliability release. It reduces hidden assumptions and gives both humans and agents a clearer proof lane from contract to execution.

If you want to adopt these capabilities directly, use these docs:

• Get Started: Install Ota and verify with ota doctor.
• Contract reference: Contract (metadata.ota.minimum_version, agent, tasks, scoped requirements).
• Command reference: Commands (ota --version --json, ota doctor, ota run --dry-run, ota up --dry-run).
• JSON validation: JSON output for machine-readable command contracts.

v1.6.16 is live here: https://ota.run/releases/v1.6.16

If you already run Ota, verify quickly:

ota --version --jsonota validateota doctorota run <task> --dry-run --json

If your repo enforces minimum versions, this release gives you clearer capability diagnostics and safer boundary behavior for automated execution.