Cicada- an agentic Python IDE Free to use ( comes with built in small model)

Cicada 0.4.0, an agentic Python IDE, is now free to use with a built-in small model. The release introduces zero-setup first launch with automatic model download, self-healing resilience for model failures, and actionable error feedback with one-click retry. The update targets developers seeking a frictionless AI-assisted coding environment.

Cicada 0.4.0 Frictionless first run and a self-healing pipeline. This release focuses on what happens when things go wrong — especially with a small local model — and makes recovery automatic or one click away. Zero-setup first launch The default model now downloads itself. On first run, if no .gguf is present, Cicada fetches Qwen2.5-Coder 3B Instruct ~1.9 GB from Hugging Face with live progress in the status pill — on top of the existing llama.cpp auto-install. Fresh machine → working agentic IDE with no manual steps.- Interrupted downloads never leave a truncated model behind atomic .part → rename, with a sanity check against error pages . Self-healing resilience Transient model failures are retried. Connection drops, 5xx and 429 responses in any pipeline stage, chat turn, fix loop, or inpaint heal are retried automatically, polling llama-server 's /health between attempts so a reloading server gets a real chance. Bad requests 4xx and user cancels are never retried. A crashed — up to 3 times in a rolling 10-minute window, narrated in the status pill "Model crashed — restarting it…" . Persistent crashes surface a real, actionable error instead of a dead pill. llama-server restarts itself No-code answers are re-asked. When a code-producing stage Generate, Apply Changes, Edit Selection returns prose with no usable fenced block — the most common small-model failure — the pipeline automatically asks once more with a firmer instruction before reporting an error. Token-budget truncation still gets the targeted "raise context size" message. Actionable errors, better feedback - Failed agent runs now raise an error toast with one-click Retry create, refine, and edit-selection runs all remember their last request . - The status pill is clickable when the model is stopped or errored: one click re-runs the full recovery path — find/download the binary, find/download the model, restart the server. Full error detail lives in the tooltip. - Starting a pipeline while the model is down now kicks recovery in the background and says so, instead of a bare "Model is not ready yet." - Setup failures binary or model download show a Retry toast. Fixes & polish - Windows path display fixes in the console header and Render captions no more full C:\… paths . - Windows-safe relative paths in multi-file compile error output. - Dock panes get a subtle fade/rise transition disabled under reduced-motion . - Guarded an unhandled-rejection path in background recovery. Verification - All 15 model-free test suites pass llm, inpaint, memory, env, datasets, repo, llama-installer, snapshots, experiments, github, doctor, stop, sysmon, insights, syntax check . - New retry layer covered by an integration check against a mock failing server 503×2 → success . Downloads: Cicada-Setup-0.4.0-x64.exe installer · Cicada-Portable-0.4.0-x64.exe portable, no install Binaries are unsigned; SmartScreen may ask to "Run anyway" on first launch.