Become an Alter super user with keyboard control

Hey everyone,

This week, we spent a significant amount of time on bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements.

We are also expanding our support for keyboard shortcuts to deliver a faster, more intuitive experience with Alter.

Finally, routers (Best and Light) are now available in our gateway, including the new Fair router, ahead of the Fair policy rollout.

Keyboard shortcuts, keyboard shortcuts everywhere

Alter now has complete keyboard shortcuts coverage, where every single entry in the menu bar can be associated with a keyboard shortcut.

All those keyboard shortcuts can be changed via the macOS system option described in this guide.

Multi session selection in the hub

Mouse control also sees a new feature with multi‑selection in the hub.

Use Cmd to select items one by one, and use Shift to select a range from the first to the last session for your group.

Fair use policy transparency and introduction of the Fair router

Recent features like Workspaces, Agent Skills, and the Code Runner are bringing the future of Alter to life, but they're also driving a massive increase in token consumption.

Our objective remains simple: stay true to our promise of using Alter unlimited.

That's why we're introducing the new Fair router alongside our existing Best and Light routers, with enhanced Fair Use Policy enforcement rolling out in 1 week.

Alongside this, you'll now have clear visibility into your usage and reset date directly within the settings, even if, based on our current projections, the fair use policy will only impact a handful of users.

When hitting your Fair Use limit, Alter will automatically switch to the Fair router. We have designed the Fair router to be almost invisible to the user, making sure it doesn’t impact the quality of your Alter experience.

However, the world of AI moves fast and we can't predict every use case, so we're eager to hear your feedback on using the new router.

Feel free to share in Discord or email us if you experience a degraded experience with the router, so we can improve it on our end.

We will publish a dedicated FAQ page to our Fair Use policy next week, based on your questions and feedbacks.

See you next week.

Olivier & Samuel

Full Changelog

New Features & Enhancements

• Hub Keyboard Navigation: Full keyboard support for Hub search results, workspace picker, and context strip — including multi-select with Shift+Arrow keys. Search/filter with Cmd+F everywhere, clear search with button or keypress

• Menu System: New workspace menu commands to switch workspaces, add files, and manage containers (start/stop, terminal). Single window management command group, hub menus for workspace permissions

• Hub Shortcuts: Cmd+T for new tab, Cmd+W restored for closing, icons added to hub commands. Default focus on input area when opening Hub

• Bulk Operations: Multiple selection in sidebar for deletion; bulk tagging and export from the sidebar

• Actions & Routers: Built-in actions have tools disabled by default. Alter fast and best backend routers are now available in the API gateway.

• Ephemeral Workspaces: Skills with ephemeral workspaces work without a real workspace

• Performance: Async save panels to prevent hangs, faster recording listing in notch header, lazy loading of context and tool calls. Earlier markdown content loading.

• UI Polish: Bigger sheet for managing custom models, better action form popup, more visible tab bar on light mode. Tool status moved below share overlay.

• Fair Policy: New router Alter Fair policy automatically used when the fair policy budget is exhausted. Usage shown in the Billing tab.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Hub & Conversations: Fixed conversations not removed from sidebar on delete. Fixed chats not opening, restored loading indicator

• Memory & Crashes: Fixed memory leak in Artifacts and AssistantMessages; double free when deinit messages. Prevent crash when switching sections from menu bar

• Recording & Transcripts: Fixed renaming transcripts deleting them when slugs match; proper handling of failed sessions; correct session removal at end of action recording

• Pasteboard & Paste: Restore paste synchronously to avoid overwriting; restore paste behavior in Hub for files, images, etc.

• Context Strip: Fixed keyboard navigation, focus after deletion, and deletion of context

• Models & Messages: Save model in assistant message and user defaults; fix model missing in message; custom model IDs use proper format instead of Custom prefix

• Whisper: Avoid unloading model while transcription is active

• Floating Panel: Avoid small height windows

• Sandbox & Workspace: Disable sandbox for ephemeral workspaces

• Skills: Fixed parsing failures for Skill.md descriptions

• Misc: Fixed multi-select delete glitch, sidebar search, focus when cancelling search. Clear workspace search when selecting in popover. Tool status view no longer always opened on load. Better error management when chat fails to start or continue. Remove error notifications when starting live transcript

Videos on Alter

1. AI can now read your clipboard : create incredible workflows

2. Unlock YouTube superpowers - extract info & master anything

3. Live AI chat with any website: documentation, articles & more

4. Automatic email outreach in 3 min - no effort - onboard your new users

5. Write a newsletter in 5 min with AI, walking in a parc