ZenOS-AI 2026.9.0 “Steel Magnolia” is released
Steel Magnolia has been promoted to main and tagged as the current stable release.
This is the biggest change to the way ZenOS-AI understands and operates the home since the project began.
The best bits
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Room Manager v3 now resolves live room state from actual physical evidence, including occupancy, doors, motion, sleep signals, holds, emergencies, nested rooms, and manual control.
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REFLEX lets rooms respond automatically by firing state-matched lighting scenes through ZenLux. A rehearsal mode lets you watch its decisions before allowing live action.
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Identity certificates now stand between an AI agent and sensitive controls. Locks, alarms, covers, infrastructure, climate, room overrides, lighting, and spa operations gain explicit capability gates. The riskiest actions require fresh approval on your mobile device.
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Hospitality workflows connect structured guest stays to arrival preparation, preferences, allergens, room assignments, checkout notices, and turnover work.
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AutoVac now properly supports the core Roborock integration, including room targeting, consumables, map analysis, manually started runs, dock cycles, and automatic room election.
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ZenZork Chapter 1 adds real quests, achievements, loot, book lore, household discoveries, threats, and wonderfully unnecessary Lite-5e combat across your actual Room Manager map.
There is a great deal more under the hood, including Security Manager expansion, shared tool scanning, dependency mapping, scope-level certificate denial, history fixes, manifest auditing, and a substantial Room Manager reliability pass.
Read this before upgrading
Confirm that your Home Assistant Companion App can receive a notification from your Home Assistant instance before restarting into 2026.9.0.
Steel Magnolia requires a real mobile approval path when granting certifications. An existing installation will not automatically walk you through that prerequisite during upgrade, and there is no fallback approval mechanism.
If you are not ready to adopt the identity-gate and certification architecture, 2026.8.1 “Chef” is the final supported pre-certification release and remains available as a deliberate legacy stopping point.
Release notes:
ZenOS-AI 2026.9.0 “Steel Magnolia”
Repository:
nathan-curtis/zenos-ai
The duck looks calm, and the fence is exactly where it is supposed to be.
Special thanks to Ms. Dolly Parton - Truvy, you will be missed, ma’am.
Get checked in. 
edit: 2026.9.1 pushed to main 9/12/2026 and promoted to current stable.