Open WebUI 0.13.3 brings coding agents into chats

Open WebUI shipped three releases on November 8, 2026 (UTC): v0.13.1 at 11:07, a v0.13.2 hotfix 46 minutes later, and v0.13.3 at 23:48. If you are on 0.12.x or 0.13.0, go straight to 0.13.3. The big changes are all in 0.13.1: coding agents show up as models, a desktop companion called Tether, a third tool permission mode, and changed retrieval defaults. 0.13.1 also carries security fixes that are not listed in the changelog.

Release facts

Before you upgrade

• Back up the database. 0.13.1 changes the schema. Multi-worker, multi-server and load-balanced deployments must update every instance at once; the notes say rolling updates are not supported.
• Preload files is off by default. With native function calling, attached files are no longer pushed into the conversation; models read them with file tools. Models without tool support, or without the Files built-in tool, stop seeing attachments until you turn Preload files back on in the model's Capabilities.
• Retrieval returns more text. Unless you saved your own values, RAG_TOP_K and RAG_TOP_K_RERANKER now default to 10 instead of 3, and CHUNK_SIZE to 1024 instead of 1000. Expect longer prompts with knowledge attached. Existing knowledge keeps its old chunks until reindexed.
• Custom pipes see a different message layout. Memory recall, the skills list and the attached knowledge list now arrive as hidden tool results after the user message instead of in the system prompt, so a pipe can find a tool message last.

What's new

• Coding agents as models (0.13.1). On an Open Terminal that offers them, agents such as Claude Code, Codex and Pi appear in the model picker. You can chat with them, pick reasoning effort and service tier, and approve their tool requests in the chat. One agent per conversation; agent chats cannot be regenerated or edited and resent.
• Agents in automations (0.13.3). The automation editor lets you pick a terminal, a working folder and a coding agent. Scheduled runs check that the terminal and agent are still there before starting, and post results to a chat.
• Tether (0.13.1). A desktop companion for macOS, Windows and Linux that connects your own computer to Open WebUI as a device in the terminal menu. It dials out, so no ports need opening; its session expires after 90 days unused by default (SESSION_EXPIRES_IN).
• Auto tool permissions (0.13.1, off by default). Next to Full access and Ask for approval, a review model can decide whether a tool call needs confirmation. It sends the tool, its arguments and your last few messages to the configured scoring API; anything it cannot review falls back to asking.
• Cheaper tool chats. Because citation instructions, memories, skills and knowledge are no longer rewritten into the prompt on every tool round, the start of the conversation stays stable and providers can serve it from their prompt cache.
• Full text for small files. Files under 50,000 extracted characters (RAG_FULL_TEXT_CHAR_THRESHOLD) are included whole instead of through retrieval.
• Speed. The notes report large chats opening about twice as fast and typing after a 16,000-line paste dropping from 8.6 seconds to 74 milliseconds per keystroke.

Fixes in 0.13.2 and 0.13.3

• Plain HTTP on a LAN or Docker address: 0.13.2 fixes chats stuck on a spinner with "crypto.randomUUID is not a function"; 0.13.3 makes copy buttons, clipboard prompts and Auto-Copy Response work there too.
• Agent leakage into pickers: 0.13.3 stops a connected terminal's agents from appearing in Admin Models, base-model selectors, Arena, task-model settings and the Playground.
• DeepSeek thinking mode with skills, knowledge or memories no longer fails on connections whose Provider is set to "llama.cpp".
• Docker image with Ollama: the build now fails if Ollama did not install, instead of producing an image that cannot start it.

Questions

Should I upgrade now? Yes, because of the unlisted security fixes in 0.13.1. Back up first, update all instances together, and decide whether you need Preload files back on for models without tools.

Can I skip 0.13.1 and 0.13.2? Yes. 0.13.3 contains both; there is no reason to stop on the intermediate tags.

Is Open WebUI open source? The code is public under the Open WebUI License, which is BSD-3-Clause-style but adds a clause forbidding removal of Open WebUI branding in deployments above 50 users in 30 days unless you have permission or an enterprise license. GitHub does not detect it as a standard license. See the Agent infra category for other self-hosted options.