“Never merge on a Friday.”
If you’ve been around software long enough, you’ve heard it.
And honestly… it’s good advice.
But today, I just ignored it.
Not recklessly — this is a pet project, after all — but still knowingly. And that merge turned into something bigger than expected: a new version of SubCat, now evolving from a simple CI watcher into a full dashboard experience.
Let me show you what changed 👇
🐱 What is SubCat?
SubCat is a desktop app that helps you monitor your CI pipelines and flaky tests without constantly refreshing GitHub.
It started simple: watch workflows, get notified, stay sane.
But over time, I realized something:
I didn’t just want notifications, I also wanted visibility.
🧭 From watcher to dashboard
The biggest change in v1.1.1 is the introduction of a Dashboard.
Instead of jumping between views, you now land on a central screen that gives you:
- Run statistics
- Recent activity
- Quick actions
It’s a small shift in UX, but a big shift in mindset: SubCat is no longer just reactive, it’s informational.
🧪 Going deeper into PRs
Working with pull requests got a lot more powerful.
I introduced a 3-level drill-down navigation:
My PRs → PR Checks → Workflow Runs
This makes it much easier to go from a high-level overview to the exact failing job without losing context.
On top of that:
- You can now see PR review status alongside CI checks
- You can rerun only failed jobs instead of the whole workflow
- You can even cancel running workflows directly from the app
Less clicking. Less waiting. More control.
📊 Flaky tests, but make it actionable
Flaky tests are one of the main reasons I built SubCat. So I doubled down on that.
You can now generate a Flakiness Report:
- Exported as Markdown
- Includes pass/fail counts
- Lists failed test names per attempt
It’s simple, but incredibly useful for debugging patterns and sharing with your team.
📌 More control, less friction
A few features that made the day-to-day experience smoother:
- Pin workflows to the sidebar and track their latest status
- Set a repeat count when watching a run
- Pending reruns are resumed automatically when reopening the app
- New Notification Center with unread badges and history
These are the kinds of features you don’t notice individually, but together they make the app feel much more “alive”.
🐧 Linux support (finally)
This was a big one. SubCat now runs on Linux.
And since not all environments have a keychain available, token storage now falls back to:
~/.config
It’s not glamorous work, but it matters.
🎨 Polishing the experience
This release also includes a bunch of UX improvements:
- Sections renamed to My PRs, Runs, and Workflows
- Status text humanized (in_progress → Running, etc.)
- Cleaner UI (less visual noise on secondary actions)
- + Watch Run simplified to + Watch
- New loading animations (yes, there’s a cat 🐱)
- Keyboard shortcut (⌘N) to quickly open the watch form
⚠️ About that Friday merge
Everything went well.
But while waiting for CI to pass, I was reminded why the rule exists: a bug on Friday evening is just… different.
Still, this time it worked out.
📦 Try it out
SubCat v1.1.1 is now available for free:
👉 https://subcat.todaywedream.com/
🛠️ What’s next?
This release was about depth and visibility.
The next step? Probably insights.
Because once you can see everything clearly…
you start wanting the system to tell you what matters.
If you’re building tools in public, working with CI daily, or fighting flaky tests, I’d love your feedback.
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