Create, refine, share. ✦

A beautiful character bio is rarely finished in one sitting.

You build something, adjust the spacing, experiment with colors, change your mind, save a version, and eventually discover a small piece that would look perfect somewhere else.

This update focuses on making that process easier.

Bio Studio now offers more ways to refine your work, preserve your progress, and share reusable designs with other creators. We've also continued improving My Media, particularly the information it provides about where your images are being used.

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✦ Bio Studio: more control, less rebuilding

The Visual Builder has received another round of improvements focused on editing existing designs more carefully.

Instead of rebuilding the entire HTML document for every adjustment, supported visual edits target the relevant source fragment. Additional checks help reject changes that could introduce structural problems.

The Inspector also offers more ways to work with your design, including:

• CSS variable editing through the Palette.
• A custom color picker.
• Layout measurements for the active preview viewport.
• Experimental editing of HTML class attributes.

The class editor allows you to modify an element's class attribute. It does not include a verified library of Janitor AI classes or guarantee that a particular class will affect the final character page.

Advanced HTML and CSS still benefit from manual inspection. Code and Build are complementary tools, not interchangeable guarantees.

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✦ Save the parts worth keeping

Not every good design needs to become an entire biography.

My Blocks lets you save useful HTML fragments to a private library and insert independent copies into another project.

A dialogue highlight, a navigation element, a decorative header, a character information panel—if you've made something you want to reuse, you no longer have to rebuild it from scratch.

Your original block remains separate from the copy you insert, so you can customize each use independently.

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✦ Better ways to protect and move your work

Bio Studio's project workflow now includes several improvements for longer editing sessions.

Named checkpoints make version history easier to navigate. You can search saved versions and inspect actual source differences when comparing changes.

We've also introduced portable .forge-bio.json project files, allowing complete projects to be exported and imported without relying exclusively on the browser or a single workspace session.

Unsaved-draft recovery and import handling have received additional attention, including clearer options for dealing with an existing local draft.

The Forgeworks Bio Bridge has also been refined to reduce the risk of mixing a previously captured biography with the character you're currently importing.

These safeguards are useful, but the integration remains unofficial. Always verify the resulting bio on the actual Janitor AI character page.

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✦ Introducing Community Library

Your designs can now travel further than your own workspace.

Community Library brings discovery and sharing directly into the Bio Studio hub.

Creators can publish two kinds of resources:

Complete bios — full designs that other creators can explore and turn into independent projects.

Reusable blocks — individual HTML components that can be saved to a private My Blocks library and inserted into other designs.

Each publication is a separate snapshot. Sharing does not expose your original private project, unpublished changes, or version history.

The library includes search, type filters, creator attribution, and detailed previews. Designs open in responsive dialogs, with isolated HTML previews that help you inspect a creation before using it.

The discovery cards also have lightweight typographic covers, so browsing the library doesn't require loading every design's full HTML at once.

Sharing and moderation

Community Library includes permission acknowledgment, reporting, and moderation tools.

Staff can publish their own creations directly. Regular creator submissions enter a review queue.

Authors can withdraw a publication, but copies already created by other users remain independent.

Community Library is still in beta. We're keeping its initial sharing workflow deliberately focused while we learn how creators use it.

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✦ My Media: understanding your images better

My Media was introduced in our previous update as a central place to organize and reuse artwork.

This release builds on that foundation rather than introducing the library again.

The Used in feature now has broader reference coverage, including Resources articles and submissions. Reference labels have also been improved so it's easier to recognize the actual content behind a usage record.

Historical bot references can display the bot name and version number, while Creator Page section references provide clearer page and block context.

We've also improved how these references are displayed:

• Markdown-formatted titles render more cleanly.
• Usage counts better reflect the entries actually shown.
• Switching between images no longer allows an older request to replace the next image's results.
• Loading failures provide a retry option without immediately discarding the previously loaded library.

Privacy checks remain in place when resolving references. My Media does not expose another creator's private resource details merely because an image URL appears there.

One important limitation remains: Used in reports references found in supported, indexed Forgeworks content. It cannot detect every external copy or use of a public image URL.

Now deleting an image from the library is possible; once the process is started, the image will not be usable and will be automatically deleted at a certain time, although you can do the process manually once it is available.

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✦ Still building, still beta

This update makes Bio Studio more useful beyond the moment a design is first created.

You can preserve reusable pieces, compare changes, move complete projects, discover community creations, and build on another creator's shared work without editing their original.

There is still more to improve.

Complex HTML may require manual adjustments, Janitor AI may render certain CSS differently, and Community Library's publishing and moderation workflows will continue evolving.

Keep copies of important work, inspect changes before publishing, and let us know when something behaves unexpectedly.

Make something. Keep what works. Share what might help someone else. ✦

A new home for your characters. ✦

Your bots deserve more than a small card and a few lines of text.

This update introduces a complete character presentation experience, expands how creators manage and reuse their artwork, and makes it easier to connect characters to the platforms where they live.

✦ Meet the new Bot Page

Every bot now has its own dedicated page, designed to give characters room to shine.

• A cinematic character presentation with artwork, creator information, tags, descriptions, and visibility indicators.
• Fully responsive layouts for mobile, tablet, and desktop.
• Collapsible character sections with smooth animations and quick navigation.
• Reading preferences for text size and content width.
• A reading progress indicator and convenient navigation for long character definitions.
• An expanded artwork viewer to appreciate character illustrations without unnecessary cropping.

The page also respects bot visibility and the creator's choice to hide sensitive character fields.

✦ Initial messages, made interactive

Explore a character's greetings without scrolling through every message at once.

Switch between introductions, copy their content, or compare two messages side by side.

The new preview lets visitors enter a temporary name and choose or customize pronouns to see how supported variables would appear in an opening message.

Supported variables include {{user}}, {{subj}}, {{obj}}, {{poss}}, {{poss_pr}}, and {{refl}}.

Preview settings do not modify the original message or save the visitor's personal information.

✦ My Media: one library, more possibilities

My Media brings reusable artwork into your creative workflow.

• Upload and organize images in a central library.
• Reuse existing artwork across supported Forgeworks features.
• Search images, review file information, and rename library entries.
• Check Used in to discover references to your images across indexed Forgeworks resources, including historical bot versions.

The reference index helps creators understand where an image is being used. It does not claim to detect every external or unindexed use, and physical deletion remains unavailable.

✦ Visit Bot: connect your characters across platforms

Your characters aren't limited to one website.

Creators can add up to 10 external destinations to a bot, organize their order, and choose how each platform is displayed.

Visitors can use Visit Bot to open an external destination, while View Bot continues to open the full character page on Forgeworks.

External links are optional and validated before saving.

✦ Better discovery and creator navigation

The character preview modal now connects to the full Bot Page.

Creator Spotlight provides a way to discover other public characters from the same creator, combining shared tags with a daily rotation instead of repeatedly displaying the same recently updated bots.

The Bot Manager also restores quick access to View Bot from its card menus.

✦ Bot creation and editing improvements

Creating a work-in-progress character should not mean filling out every field first.

Bots can now be saved with empty character fields, while a default name is provided when necessary.

We've also improved:

• Persistence of the Hide sensitive fields setting.
• Image replacement behavior without deleting artwork referenced by bot history.
• Support for pronoun macros in variable validation.
• An expandable variable reference with explanations and examples directly in the bot editor.
• Responsive controls and smoother expandable sections.

✦ Polish and fixes

This update includes improvements to character-page responsiveness, artwork sizing, navigation behavior, reading controls, progress indicators, section interactions, and TypeScript compatibility.

These changes establish the first complete version of the Bot Page while leaving room for future improvements.

Forgeworks is still in beta. Feedback and bug reports are welcome as we continue refining the experience.

A new way to bring your characters to life. ✦

Bio Studio is officially available in BETA!

Custom character biographies can be so much more than a few paragraphs and colored text. They can have their own visual identity, layered artwork, responsive layouts, interactive sections, and all the little details that make a character feel like your character.

But building those designs directly inside Janitor AI's native editor can be frustrating, especially when more complex HTML gets modified during editing.

So, we built a dedicated workspace for it.

Bio Studio brings visual editing, source code, previews, project management, and publishing into one place.

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✦ One workspace. Three ways to create.

Build — edit the design visually

The Visual Builder lets you select elements directly from a canvas, navigate their structure, and adjust their properties through an Inspector.

Work with text, layout, spacing, typography, colors, borders, and other CSS properties without manually editing every declaration.

You can also inspect and edit background images, including their size, position, and repetition.

The Builder is functional, and its core editing workflow has been tested. It's especially useful for making targeted adjustments to existing designs.

More elaborate HTML structures may still need some manual work in Code, and certain edits or CSS combinations can behave unexpectedly while the feature remains in beta.

Code — take full control

For creators who prefer writing HTML directly, we've introduced a proper code editor powered by CodeMirror.

It includes syntax highlighting, line numbers, code folding, autocompletion, indentation tools, and a redesigned search and replace experience.

Your source code stays readable while you work, and you can switch between Code and Builder as needed.

Preview — see the result before publishing

Switch between preview modes and test your biography at desktop, tablet, and mobile sizes.

It's a convenient way to catch layout problems early, although the final result may still differ in Janitor AI's own renderer.

The actual character page remains the final compatibility check.

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✦ Your biographies are now projects.

Bio Studio isn't just a temporary HTML editor.

Save your work as a project, return to it later, and keep your original source code available for future changes.

We've also worked on the editing and saving experience with unsaved-change tracking, save-state feedback, error handling, revision conflict detection, and project history.

These safeguards make the workflow more practical, especially when you're experimenting with larger designs.

We still recommend keeping backups of particularly important biographies during the beta.

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✦ Introducing Forgeworks Bio Bridge

One of the biggest challenges was getting a finished design into Janitor AI without losing its HTML structure.

Forgeworks Bio Bridge is our Tampermonkey userscript that connects the two platforms.

It allows you to bring a saved Janitor AI biography into Bio Studio, edit it, and send the finished result back through Janitor AI's normal character-saving flow.

We've also improved the export process.

Bio Studio now automatically prepares your HTML for JAI, cleaning up source formatting that could otherwise cause the biography to appear as literal code.

And the best part? Your editable source stays intact. You don't need to manually minify your project every time you publish.

The Bridge also provides clearer save feedback rather than treating a triggered save as confirmation that publishing succeeded.

Please note that Bio Bridge is an unofficial integration. Future changes to Janitor AI may affect its behavior or require updates.

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✦ Built for more creative freedom

You can create biographies with custom typography, gradients, responsive Grid and Flexbox layouts, background images, layered compositions, and native collapsible sections.

We've also improved the Builder's handling of simple text edits to reduce unnecessary canvas reloads.

Code, Builder, and Preview are intended to complement one another. Not every advanced CSS technique has a dedicated visual control, and that's okay — the source editor is always there when you need it.

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⚠️ A word about the BETA

Bio Studio is available and usable, but it is not a finished product.

Its main workflows have been tested, including creating and publishing real custom biographies. The Visual Builder is functional, and you can already use it to make meaningful changes to your designs.

However, bugs, unusual behavior, and compatibility issues can still happen.

Complex HTML structures may not always behave as expected in the Builder. Some CSS properties and layered designs may render differently on Janitor AI, and external changes to its editor or saving system could affect Bio Bridge.

Please keep backups of important projects, review your changes before publishing, and check the actual character page on both desktop and mobile.

If you discover a bug, a strange interaction, or something that could be easier to use, send us feedback through Forgeworks.

Your reports will help shape what we improve next.

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What's next?

We'll continue refining the Visual Builder, improving compatibility, expanding the editing experience, and addressing issues discovered during the beta.

This release gives Bio Studio its foundation. There's still plenty of room to grow.

Now go make something pretty. ✦

Before Forgeworks had a changelog

For a while, Forgeworks did have development logs.

They just lived in the worst possible place for long-term release notes: the public Janitor AI bot description.

As Forgeworks grew, those updates became longer and more technical until maintaining them there stopped making much sense.

This entry preserves that period without pretending it was something it wasn't.

It is not a commit-by-commit history, and it does not reconstruct dates we never recorded.

It is the development log we actually had.

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It started with Forms

Forgeworks was not originally planned as a large platform.

The project started from an idea to help a friend after an unfortunate experience managing submissions through Google Forms.

Forms and submissions were therefore central from very early on: giving bot creators a more organized way to collect requests without relying on DMs or scattered tools.

From there, more creator tools started accumulating around that workflow.

---

July — the toolkit was taking shape

By July, Forgeworks already had several of the systems that would later become much larger parts of the platform.

Profile avatars and banners gained direct image uploads.

Forms gained banners, visual improvements and GIF support through GIPHY.

Bot Manager gained direct bot image uploads.

Logs and Resources gained likes, dislikes, comments and view counters.

This was also when the first major Markdown transition started.

Markdown v1

Raw Markdown textareas began being replaced with a more visual editing experience.

The first version introduced things such as:

• bold
• italic
• code
• links
• lists
• toolbar controls
• undo and redo
• better editor sizing and responsive behavior

Markdown support also began expanding across Forms, Bots, creator content and profiles.

Export was starting to receive a more visual workflow too.

There was already a lot of cleanup happening behind the scenes, but many of these systems were still early versions of what they would later become.

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August — polish turned into reconstruction

August was much larger.

Instead of only adding isolated features, several existing areas began receiving deeper structural work.

Resources V2

Resources was rebuilt from a simple collection of links into a proper library and knowledge hub.

The rebuild introduced:

• a redesigned Resources directory
• search and category browsing
• multiple resource types
• Forge Picks
• full dedicated resource pages
• contributor and source information
• related resources
• Helpful voting
• discussions
• community resource suggestions
• contributor update suggestions
• staff review and publishing tools
• improved Markdown rendering
• custom Forgeworks scrollbars

Resources started behaving like a real content system instead of a directory.

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Markdown v2

The Markdown editor also received its first major rebuild.

Paragraphs and line breaks finally saved and reloaded reliably.

Formatting expanded to include things such as:

• bold and italic
• strikethrough
• colors
• links
• lists
• quotes
• headings
• inline code
• code blocks

The editor gained a Bubble Menu, Slash Commands, keyboard shortcuts, safer link handling and much better consistency between the editor, saved Markdown and final rendered content.

This was also the point where Markdown stopped feeling like an isolated textarea replacement and started becoming shared Forgeworks infrastructure.

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Profiles became much more configurable

Profiles received one of their largest updates at the time.

Creators gained more control over which content appeared publicly, including:

• Bots
• Featured Bots
• Creator Pages
• Worlds
• Forms
• badges
• follower counts

Public, Followers Only and Private profile visibility became more clearly defined.

Profile appearance controls also became more consistent between the editor, owner view and public view.

This work later exposed an important limitation:

profile privacy and resource privacy were still too closely connected.

That problem would remain until after this archive ends.

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Forms kept becoming more capable

Forms and the Form Builder continued receiving usability and presentation work during August.

Long titles and descriptions became safer.

Appearance presets became more consistent.

Collapsible sections improved.

Save and Cancel actions became persistent during long edits.

Banners, section images, accent colors and responsive behavior were refined.

Form deactivation also became customizable, with:

• custom messages
• accent colors
• optional redirects
• custom button labels
• live preview

---

Moderation became more reliable

Moderation and Form safety received another reliability pass.

Sensitivity settings became more consistent.

Suspicious submissions could be flagged for review.

Flag details and review tools improved.

Custom blocklists and IP blocking remained available for repeat offenders.

Submission and Kanban views were also cleaned up so labels, Markdown and moderation state remained easier to understand across the workflow.

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Export became a real system

Export grew beyond the early submission download workflow.

CSV and JSON submission exports were unified into a dedicated export window with:

• Form filters
• status filters
• previews
• safer spreadsheet handling
• better duplicate-label handling
• preserved full responses

Forgeworks also gained account-level JSON exports from Settings, including separate downloads for Bots, Forms, Creator Pages and Atlas.

Sensitive anti-abuse metadata remained excluded from those account exports.

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September — the workspaces arrived

September changed the shape of several major Forgeworks systems.

Instead of continuing to fit increasingly complex editors inside normal management screens, larger tools started moving into dedicated fullscreen workspaces.

That pattern would become important across the platform.

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Collaboration became a real workspace

Collaboration received a major rebuild.

Shared Bots stopped opening as another Bot Manager panel and gained dedicated workspaces with areas for:

• Overview
• Editor
• Changes
• Discussion
• History
• Activity
• Team
• Settings

The rebuild also introduced:

• Owner, Co-owner, Editor and Viewer roles
• realtime presence
• live activity information
• field-level editing locks
• concurrent editing across separate fields
• local drafts
• unsaved-change handling
• Change Requests
• review workflows
• visual diffs
• conflict detection
• version history
• restore controls
• team management

Collaboration moved from an experimental shared editing feature toward an actual multi-user workflow.

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Creator Pages became a site builder

Creator Pages received one of the largest rebuilds Forgeworks had seen.

The old editor was replaced by a dedicated block-based fullscreen builder.

The new system separated page management from page editing and introduced a Live Canvas, inspectors and real responsive preview modes.

Creator Pages gained fourteen block types covering things such as:

• Heroes
• Banners
• Bot showcases
• Worlds
• Lorebooks
• long-form text
• galleries
• standalone images
• embeds
• Forms
• social links
• dividers
• spacers

The builder also introduced stronger responsive image layouts, section anchors, safer links, motion controls and performance-specific behavior for the editing canvas.

This changed the goal of Creator Pages entirely.

They were no longer being treated as a small extension of a Forgeworks profile.

They were becoming flexible public creator spaces of their own.

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Forms followed the workspace model

Forms then received their own major rebuild.

The older editing flow was replaced with a dedicated fullscreen builder.

The workspace introduced:

• Structure
• Live Form
• Inspector

along with Desktop, Tablet and Mobile preview modes.

Form management and Form editing became separate responsibilities.

The builder gained stronger controls for:

• fields
• sections
• validation
• conditional logic
• Appearance
• Availability
• deactivation pages
• dirty state
• pending assets
• authentication and persistence

The legacy Form Builder was removed after the migration to the new workspace was complete.

---

Atlas became a knowledge workspace

Atlas also received a major structural rebuild.

Entries became independent reusable pieces of knowledge instead of requiring a World or Lorebook parent.

They could represent:

• Characters
• Locations
• Factions
• Organizations
• Events
• Objects
• Species
• Concepts
• Lore
• Notes
• custom knowledge

Relations connected Entries without forcing a rigid hierarchy.

Worlds became optional contexts.

Collections provided lightweight organization.

Lorebooks became independent and reusable.

Existing Janitor AI lorebooks could be imported and later exported again.

Entries could participate in multiple Worlds, Collections and Lorebooks without duplicating the underlying knowledge.

Atlas had become a genuine worldbuilding and knowledge workspace.

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Somewhere in there, JanitorForge became Forgeworks

The platform also changed identity.

JanitorForge became Forgeworks, and the project moved to its current Forgeworks domain.

That change reflected what had already happened to the product itself.

It was no longer just one utility around Forms.

Forgeworks now included Forms, submissions, Bot management, profiles, Creator Pages, Atlas, Resources, moderation, exports, collaboration and other connected creator tools.

---

One problem was still waiting

At the end of the old development log, one larger structural issue was still explicitly listed as planned:

Resource Privacy.

Profiles had much better control over what appeared on them, but individual resources still needed stronger ownership of their own access rules.

A private profile should not automatically decide the visibility of every Bot, Form, Creator Page or World belonging to that creator.

That work was still ahead.

And that is almost exactly where the new changelog begins.

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The archive ends here

The old bot description did its job for longer than it probably should have.

It documented a period where Forgeworks was changing quickly enough that a public bio gradually turned into release documentation.

From this point forward, updates have somewhere better to live.

The next entry is no longer reconstructed history.

It is the changelog.

A lot changed underneath Forgeworks

Not every update needs a shiny new tool.

This one was mostly about making the systems already inside Forgeworks more predictable, more independent, and easier to grow without creating weird side effects later.

The biggest changes landed around resource visibility, staff access, badges, and the Admin Panel.

---

Resources now own their visibility

Profile privacy and resource privacy are no longer treated as the same thing.

A profile can have its own visibility while public-capable resources decide their audience independently.

That means things like Forms, Creator Pages, Atlas Worlds and Lorebooks no longer have to inherit a visibility decision that belongs to the profile itself.

This separation also makes embedding and displaying resources much easier to reason about:

Being included somewhere does not override the resource's own audience rules.

It sounds small, but this removes a lot of ambiguity from how public content works across Forgeworks.

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The old admin boolean is gone

Forgeworks used to have an older access model based around a simple admin flag.

That system has now been fully replaced by staff roles.

The current model is intentionally clearer:

Owner handles platform-level and sensitive operations.

Moderator handles day-to-day moderation and management without automatically receiving owner permissions.

Regular users have no staff role.

The application, database functions, triggers and row-level security policies now use the same model instead of mixing old and new authorization logic.

The legacy is_admin field and its old helpers were removed completely.

---

Badges can award themselves now

Badges are no longer limited to manual awards.

Forgeworks now has an automatic badge engine capable of evaluating profile and resource activity against badge rules.

Current rule types support things such as:

• profile completeness
• active bots
• Atlas resources
• account age
• resource thresholds
• created-before rules

Automatic awards also record that they came from the rule engine, while manually managed badges continue to work normally.

For now, automatic achievements stay earned once awarded.

---

Admin tools got some cleanup too

The Admin Panel now has a more accurate picture of user activity and owned resources.

Resource counts ignore soft-deleted content where appropriate, recent activity reflects more than just profile edits, and management views have clearer semantics around current content versus deleted content.

Restore and destructive operations were also separated more carefully according to staff responsibility.

---

Small fixes that mattered

Several resource mappers were still missing the new visibility field after the visibility work landed.

Those paths were cleaned up so Forms and moderation views now use the same visibility normalization as the rest of the platform.

We also finished removing the remaining legacy access names from application code before migrating the database itself.

---

Why this update matters

Most of this work is invisible when Forgeworks is working correctly.

That is kind of the point.

The platform now has clearer boundaries between who can see something, where something appears, and who is allowed to manage it.

Those boundaries should make the next features much easier to build without having to keep patching assumptions from older systems.