| name | dex-whats-new |
| description | Show recent system improvements — captured learnings plus new Claude capabilities. Use when the user says 'what's new', 'any updates to how Dex works'. Not for previewing and applying a version update; use `dex-update`. Not for unused existing features; use `dex-level-up`. |
Check for improvements to your Dex system from TWO sources:
- Learnings from your usage - Mistakes, patterns, opportunities captured during sessions
- New Claude Code capabilities - Features that could enhance your workflows
Usage
/dex-whats-new # Review learnings + check for Claude updates
/dex-whats-new --full # Include detailed explanations
/dex-whats-new --learnings # Only review session learnings
/dex-whats-new --claude # Only check Claude Code updates
Arguments
$MODE: Optional flags
--full - Detailed explanations of each feature--learnings - Only review learnings (skip Claude check)--claude - Only check Claude updates (skip learnings)
Process
Step 0: Review Session Learnings (Unless --claude flag)
Check for learnings to review:
- Read files in
System/Session_Learnings/ from last 30 days
- Read
06-Resources/Learnings/Mistake_Patterns.md - check for new patterns
- Read
06-Resources/Learnings/Working_Preferences.md - check for trends
Extract improvement opportunities:
- Recurring mistakes → suggest preventive measures
- Gaps in documentation → suggest additions
- Workflow inefficiencies → suggest automations
- User patterns → suggest customizations
Present findings:
🧠 LEARNINGS FROM YOUR USAGE
Since last review: [X] session learnings captured
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📊 PATTERNS IDENTIFIED
1. [Pattern name]
Observed: [frequency] times
Impact: [what this affects]
Suggestion: [concrete improvement]
2. [Pattern name]
...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
💡 SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS
Based on what you've learned, here's how to improve Dex:
1. [Improvement name]
Problem: [What's not working smoothly]
Solution: [Specific change to make]
Files: [What to update]
Effort: Low/Medium/High
2. [Improvement name]
...
Want me to implement any of these? (Enter number)
If no learnings:
Skip this section or show: "No session learnings captured yet. The system will learn as you use it."
Step 1: Read Current State (Unless --learnings flag)
Load System/claude-code-state.json:
{
"last_check": "2026-01-15",
"last_version_seen": "1.0.28",
"features_seen": ["hooks", "sub-agents", "skills", "commands", "mcp"]
}
If file missing or last_check is null, treat as first run.
Step 2: Fetch Current Changelog
Use WebSearch to find the latest Claude Code changelog:
- Search: "Claude Code changelog 2026" or "Anthropic Claude Code releases"
- Primary source: Anthropic's official documentation
- Fallback: GitHub releases, official blog posts
Focus on:
- New features and capabilities
- Breaking changes
- Deprecations
- Performance improvements
Step 3: Compare and Surface Changes
Identify what's new since last_check:
For each new feature:
- What it does (plain English, 1-2 sentences)
- Why it matters for PKM users
- How you could use it in Dex (concrete example)
- Effort to adopt (Low/Medium/High)
Step 4: Present Claude Findings
If Claude Code updates found:
🆕 CLAUDE CODE UPDATES
Last checked: [date] (X days ago)
Current version: [version]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🆕 NEW FEATURES
1. [Feature Name]
What: [Plain English description]
For you: [How this could improve Dex]
Effort: Low
2. [Feature Name]
What: [Description]
For you: [Specific improvement idea]
Effort: Medium
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
💡 SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS
Based on what's new, here are concrete things you could add to Dex:
1. [Improvement name]
Uses: [Which new feature]
What it does: [Specific description]
Pillar: [Which pillar it supports]
Want me to implement any of these? (Enter number)
Or run `/dex-improve` to workshop custom ideas.
If no Claude updates:
✅ Claude Code is up to date!
Last checked: Today
Current version: [version]
No new features since your last check.
Combined View (Default)
When running without flags, show BOTH sections:
🔄 DEX SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT REVIEW
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🧠 FROM YOUR USAGE
[Session learnings section]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🆕 FROM CLAUDE CODE
[Claude updates section]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
💡 COMBINED IMPROVEMENTS
Pulling together learnings + new capabilities:
1. [Improvement combining both]
Uses: [Your pattern] + [New Claude feature]
Impact: [What this unlocks]
Want me to implement any of these? (Enter number or 'all')
Step 5: Update State
CRITICAL: After presenting findings, you MUST update System/claude-code-state.json using the Write tool.
Steps:
- Read current state file to preserve existing
features_seen array
- Add any newly discovered features to the array (avoid duplicates)
- Update
last_check to today's date (YYYY-MM-DD format)
- Update
last_version_seen if a new version was found
- Write the updated JSON back to
System/claude-code-state.json
Example update:
{
"last_check": "2026-01-28",
"last_version_seen": "1.0.32",
"features_seen": [
"hooks",
"sub-agents",
"skills",
"commands",
"mcp",
"parallel-sub-agents",
"async-hooks"
]
}
Verification: After writing, confirm to user: "State file updated - next check will compare against today's findings."
Step 6: Backlog Synthesis (NEW — Innovation Concierge)
After presenting findings to the user, automatically create or enrich backlog ideas:
-
Call synthesize_changelog() from Improvements MCP
- This scans the changelog for Dex-relevant features
- Creates new AI-authored ideas for novel capabilities
- Enriches existing ideas with "Why Now?" evidence when a platform feature strengthens them
-
Call synthesize_learnings() from Improvements MCP
- Scans pending session learnings for improvement opportunities
- Creates ideas from learnings that have concrete "suggested fix" entries
- Enriches existing ideas when learnings relate to known backlog items
-
Report synthesis results to user:
🤖 BACKLOG SYNTHESIS
Changelog: Scanned X entries → Created Y new ideas, enriched Z existing
Learnings: Scanned X entries → Created Y new ideas, enriched Z existing
Top ideas created/enriched:
1. [idea-XXX] Title (action: created/enriched)
2. [idea-XXX] Title (action: created/enriched)
3. [idea-XXX] Title (action: created/enriched)
Run `/dex-backlog` to see full ranked backlog.
This step is what connects external intelligence to your improvement backlog.
Without it, findings are presented and forgotten. With it, every relevant discovery
becomes a tracked, ranked improvement opportunity.
Full Mode (--full)
When --full is provided, include educational deep-dives:
For each feature, add:
📚 DEEP DIVE: [Feature Name]
**What it is:**
[2-3 paragraph explanation of the capability]
**How it works:**
[Technical explanation with examples]
**Real-world example:**
[Concrete scenario showing the feature in action]
**In Dex, you could:**
- [Specific application 1]
- [Specific application 2]
**To implement:**
1. [Step 1]
2. [Step 2]
3. [Step 3]
Feature Categories
When evaluating relevance, categorize features:
| Category | Relevance to Dex | Examples |
|---|
| Automation | High | Hooks, triggers, scheduled tasks |
| Performance | Medium | Faster models, caching |
| Context | High | Memory, skills, knowledge bases |
| Integration | High | MCP improvements, new protocols |
| UI/UX | Low | IDE features, visual changes |
| Developer | Low | API changes, SDK updates |
Focus on High relevance categories. Mention Medium. Skip Low unless asked.
Capability Reference
Current Claude Code features to track:
| Feature | What It Does | Dex Potential |
|---|
| Commands | User-triggered workflows | /plan, /daily-review, etc. |
| Skills | Reusable behaviors, always loaded | Person lookup, writing style |
| Hooks | Auto-triggers at events | Session start, file changes |
| Sub-agents | Parallel workers, isolated context | Research, analysis |
| MCP | External service connections | Calendar, tasks, email |
| Memory | Cross-session persistence | Preferences, learnings |
| Tools | Built-in capabilities | File ops, search, terminal |
Example Output
📢 Claude Code Updates
Last checked: 2026-01-15 (8 days ago)
Current version: 1.0.32
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🆕 NEW FEATURES
1. Async Hooks
What: Hooks can now run without blocking the main conversation
For you: Faster session starts — load context in background
Effort: Low
2. Sub-agent Communication
What: Sub-agents can now pass data back to parent
For you: Research agent could update your notes directly
Effort: Medium
3. MCP Resource Subscriptions
What: MCP servers can push updates, not just respond to queries
For you: Get notified when calendar changes, tasks update
Effort: High (requires MCP server changes)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
💡 SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS
1. Background Context Loading
Uses: Async Hooks
What: Load your learnings and today's plan while you type
Pillar: Productivity
2. Auto-Research on New Topics
Uses: Sub-agent Communication
What: When you mention a new company, auto-research in background
Pillar: [context-dependent]
Want me to implement any of these? (Enter 1 or 2)
Error Handling
If web search fails:
"Couldn't fetch the latest changelog. Here's what I know was current as of [last_check]:
[List known capabilities]
Try again later, or check manually at docs.anthropic.com"
If state file is corrupted:
"Your capability state file has an issue. I'll create a fresh one and do a full scan."
Then proceed with first-run behavior.
Behaviors
Always Do
- Keep explanations in plain English, not developer jargon
- Tie every feature back to concrete Dex improvements
- Update the state file after every check
- Offer to implement suggestions
Never Do
- List features without explaining relevance
- Skip the state update
- Overwhelm with every minor change (focus on impactful features)
- Assume user knows Claude Code internals
Related Commands
/dex-improve — Full design partner (includes this + workshopping + audit)/create-mcp — Build new integrations when new MCP features enable them
Track Usage (Silent)
Update System/usage_log.md to mark what's new check as used.
Analytics (Silent):
Call track_event with event_name whats_new_viewed and properties:
update_available (boolean)
This only fires if the user has opted into analytics. No action needed if it returns "analytics_disabled".
