CodeForge v0.2.0: free-first engineering is public

CodeForge is no longer only part of the machinery behind FDS projects. It is a public product: a Windows-first autonomous software-engineering platform with desktop, command-line, and VS Code surfaces.

The v0.2.0 release includes installer and portable Windows builds plus published SHA-256 checksums. CodeForge can carry a repository task through planning, implementation, testing, review, and verification while keeping the developer in control of execution.

Its free-first boundary is architectural. ForgeZero accepts only verified zero-cost cloud routes and fails closed instead of silently switching to paid inference, unknown-cost models, or local LLMs. Free provider capacity can still be quota-limited; the promise is no hidden billing fallback, not unlimited inference.

CodeForge installer and portable downloads are temporarily paused while the release is updated. See the CodeForge project page for current availability, or read the repository documentation.