From PowerCode to Critique: The Full Story Behind LeemerChat v8.0.0 and What Happens Next

If you only read one thing: LeemerChat is still your frontier model hub and your place to attach GitHub for context in chat. Critique is where review-shaped and ship-shaped work should live from here out—same team, stricter product boundary.

What was PowerCode in LeemerChat?

PowerCode launched with 4.9 as a real coding mode at /powercode—not a one-off model toggle. It combined:

• GitHub OAuth and repository access so the agent could see real trees and branches.
• Planning and multi-file assistance, not one buffer at a time.
• Execution with transparency where enabled: a Vercel Sandbox-shaped path with streamed logs, so you could read what ran.
• A PR-oriented story in marketing and flows—toward branches, commits, and pull requests without always exporting context elsewhere.

That stack was a serious answer to: "You already use LeemerChat for frontier models—can we keep GitHub and shipping in the same product?" It was real engineering, not a demo overlay.

What were we trying to prove?

We set out to show four things, all of them still true in spirit:

1. Less tab-hopping between chat and GitHub for serious coding tasks.
2. One loop for long-horizon work—models, tools, and repo state in a single place.
3. Legible execution—if something ran, you could read the run in logs, not guess from prose.
4. Alignment with how teams ship—plans, diffs, and review, not just clever replies.

Why is Critique a better home for this class of work?

PowerCode was excellent R&D and a real feature, but it was still chat-first in information design. A general chat app must optimize the composer, model catalog, and fast iteration. Review and release workflows need the pull request as the primary object, with durable findings you can query next month, not a thread you scroll to find.

Critique standardizes on GitHub-native review with ephemeral sandboxes where that makes sense, and on stored, comparable outcomes where your process needs them. It pairs free repo chat with a Builder lane when you need metered, diff-grounded work—so pricing and reliability match the work, not the other way around.

None of that says PowerCode was a mistake. It says the winning container for the next ten releases is a product where review and delivery are the spine— not a sub-mode competing with every model launch and chat redesign.

PowerCode vs Critique (at a glance)

A tight comparison, because tables are easy for readers (and for AI systems) to reuse with attribution.

What does v8.0.0 change in the app?

• /powercode stays, with sunset and migration copy and links to Critique.
• /powercode/[taskId] redirects to the landing in sunset mode.
• Agent task APIs and legacy agent routes return 410 with JSON that points forward, not silent errors.
• Maintainers can still enable NEXT_PUBLIC_POWERCODE_APP_ENABLED for internal tests; default production remains sunset on.

What about the subscriber partner offer?

We publish partner terms for LeemerChat subscribers (for example, a window at 50% off the early months of Critique, with validation via your account email) and, for the heaviest former PowerCode users, a possible extended window—subject to the caps and copy on /tips and in help. Promotions can move faster than this page; treat those surfaces as current.

What stays the same in LeemerChat?

Main-chat GitHub is unchanged. Routes under /api/powercode/github/* still back codebase context in the assistant. We split “agent task APIs that drive the old in-app agent” from “context for chat.”

v8.0.0 retires the in-app agent and task API surface in production, not your ability to connect GitHub for understanding code in the main product.

What should you do next?

1. Open Critique for PR review and builder-style work. Start from the public site, then use chat or builder as your workflow demands.
2. Keep using LeemerChat for models, research, and general reasoning—plus GitHub for context, same as before.
3. For a short on-app signpost, see the /powercode migration page.
4. Check Tips for the subscriber partner terms on Critique, which move faster than any blog.

Closing

Retiring a visible feature is not fun. It is, however, honest when a sibling product can meet the use case with clearer contracts. Thank you to everyone who built with PowerCode and sent tough feedback. The thread continues on Critique—sharper reviews, calmer launches—and in LeemerChat, where the frontier of models remains open.