Release Notes: v0.8.3.1

Release Date: January 7, 2026 Release Type: Patch Release (Sprint B1 FTUX improvements)

Overview

This patch release delivers the Sprint B1 P0 “First Time User Experience” (FTUX) improvements, focusing on making Piper’s first impression warmer and more oriented.

What’s New

FTUX-PIPER-INTRO (#547)

Piper greeting panel in setup wizard

New users now see a friendly greeting from Piper Morgan at the start of the setup wizard:

“Hi, I’m Piper Morgan, your PM assistant! You can call me Piper.”

“I’m here to help you with product management work—tracking tasks, managing GitHub issues, prepping for standups, and staying on top of your calendar.”

Friendly introduction sets expectations
Dismissible panel (doesn’t block setup)
Accessible with ARIA role and keyboard support

FTUX-EMPTY-STATES (#548)

Voice-guided empty state copy

Empty states across all primary views now use Piper’s voice instead of generic system messages:

View	Before	After
Todos	“No todos yet. Create your first todo.”	“No todos yet. Say ‘add a todo: [task]’ to create one, or I can suggest some based on your open GitHub issues.”
Projects	“No projects found.”	“No projects set up yet. Projects help me understand your work context. Say ‘create a project called…’ to get started.”
Files	“No files uploaded.”	“No documents in your knowledge base yet. You can upload files, connect Notion, or just paste content into our chat—I’ll remember it for later.”
Lists	“No lists yet.”	“No lists yet. Say ‘create a list called…’ to get started. Lists help you group and organize related items.”

FTUX-POST-SETUP (#549)

Post-setup orientation modal

After completing setup, users now see a brief orientation modal:

“You’re all set! Here are some things we can do together…”

Shows integration-aware suggestions (GitHub, Calendar, Todos)
Only appears once (persisted dismissal)
Dismissible with button or Escape key

Bug Fixes

#549 UUID fix: Fixed orientation modal not appearing due to UUID type mismatch in SQL parameter binding
#548 CSS fix: Fixed Files empty state not spanning full grid width

Technical Details

Commits Included

88a8faab fix(#549): Convert UUID to string for SQL parameter binding
ebbc93d9 fix(ui): Files empty state spans full grid width
7c1b3168 fix(test): Use naive datetime in orientation integration tests
b82b674a feat(ftux): Add post-setup orientation modal (#549)
e993005f feat(ftux): Replace empty state copy with voice guide templates (#548)
ab6716e1 feat(ftux): Add Piper greeting panel to setup wizard (#547)
c801450f docs: Add Lists View section to empty state voice guide

Database Migration

Migration 336bd317e5cc: Adds orientation_seen column to users table

New Endpoints

POST /api/v1/orientation/dismiss - Marks orientation as seen for user

Test Coverage

15 new tests across FTUX features
1198 unit tests passing

Upgrade Notes

From v0.8.3:

Run database migration: alembic upgrade head
Restart application

No breaking changes. Existing users will see the orientation modal on first login after upgrade.

Known Issues

See ALPHA_KNOWN_ISSUES.md for current known issues.

New follow-up issue:

#550: Add “Ask Piper” button to empty states (bridges users to chat when on pages without chat input)

Contributors

PM: xian
Lead Developer: Claude Code (Opus)
Subagents: Task agents for #547, #548, #549 implementation

Release managed by Lead Developer session 2026-01-07