ToolsAPI – Two Months of Development After Laravel 8

Since upgrading from Laravel 8 to Laravel 13 on August 18, 2026, ToolsAPI has undergone extensive development across security, AI, automation, integrations, and administration. The list below is a “short” summary of what has happened since then.

This overview covers development through October 25, 2026.

Platform, Infrastructure and Security

• Upgraded from Laravel 8 to Laravel 13 and modernized PHP dependencies (a real nightmare that was solved in less than 16 hours).
• Raised the minimum PHP requirement to PHP 8.3.
• Updated framework dependencies and PHPUnit compatibility.
• Replaced obsolete Laravel packages and compatibility layers.
• Replaced Laravel Mix with direct Webpack 5 builds.
• Removed vulnerable and outdated frontend dependencies.
• Improved Composer and npm security auditing.
• Added stronger dependency checks before deployment.
• Hardened Laravel bootstrap and provider cache handling.
• Improved automatic cache recovery after deployments.
• Added Blade compilation and syntax validation.
• Improved runtime permission and ownership handling.
• Strengthened Git submodule recovery and synchronization.
• Added safer fallback handling for unavailable Git remotes.
• Improved deployment failure reporting to Slack.
• Added clearer runtime and platform version information.
• Expanded automated regression and integration testing.
• Improved validation of application health after deployment.
• Improved scheduled task monitoring and execution history.
• Added centralized service cadence administration.
• Improved administrator interfaces for scheduled jobs.
• Expanded structured audit logging and operational diagnostics.

Security, Privacy and Access Control

• Introduced Security Advisory Watch for vulnerability monitoring.
• Added scheduled CVE and security advisory searches.
• Added security findings, history, notifications, and RSS support.
• Improved security advisory administration and verification.
• Strengthened API token ownership and scope enforcement.
• Improved session and authentication handling.
• Added stronger protection for internal worker APIs.
• Improved validation of publicly accessible URLs.
• Expanded server-side request protection against unsafe destinations.
• Improved handling of browser and API authentication failures.
• Added safer operational error reporting to #toolsapi.
• Separated operational diagnostics from audit logging.
• Improved protection against credential exposure in diagnostics.
• Added user-controlled retention and deletion of personal data.
• Improved Cloudflare Turnstile credential handling.
• Strengthened verification requirements for sensitive operations.
• Improved handling of inactive and unverified user accounts.
• Expanded public documentation of data processing and subprocessors.

User Accounts, Appearance and Notifications

• Expanded /me as the central personal account workspace.
• Improved account, membership, and payment information.
• Reduced unnecessary loading of unrelated profile data.
• Introduced personal Light, Dark, and Forum Green theme preferences.
• Added customizable account colors and appearance settings.
• Added live previews of appearance changes.
• Introduced reusable personal appearance presets.
• Added administrator-managed global appearance presets.
• Improved automatic text contrast for customized themes.
• Introduced persistent notifications for individual users.
• Added notification read and dismissal states.
• Improved notification history and ordering.
• Expanded the administrator notification inbox.
• Improved account-specific notification access controls.
• Added shared notification infrastructure for multiple services.

AI Infrastructure, Payments and Credits

• Expanded the shared OpenAI integration infrastructure.
• Introduced Deep Research support for selected AI workflows.
• Improved reasoning-model compatibility and response handling.
• Added safer recovery from incomplete OpenAI responses.
• Improved AI model discovery and selection.
• Modernized model handling as older OpenAI models were retired.
• Introduced per-user AI usage and cost tracking.
• Added prepaid AI Credits and balance accounting.
• Introduced centralized AI funding and debit policies.
• Added safer credit reservations for simultaneous requests.
• Improved accounting for administrator-funded AI requests.
• Added a shared Shop wallet and transaction history.
• Introduced provider-independent PaymentFactory infrastructure.
• Added purchase reconciliation and duplicate-payment protection.
• Integrated Ko-fi payments with AI Credit funding.
• Added Ko-fi payment confirmations and purchase visibility.
• Introduced Google Play Billing verification for Android purchases.
• Added recovery and reversal handling for Google Play payments.
• Improved payment diagnostics, auditing, and administrator tools.

Web Search Alerts and Alert Engine

• Expanded Web Search Alerts with scheduled AI-powered searches.
• Developed Alert Engine as shared monitoring infrastructure.
• Added reusable search profiles, execution history, and notifications.
• Improved search-result relevance assessment.
• Added clearer relevance percentages.
• Improved handling of duplicate search results.
• Added automatic recovery for interrupted monitoring jobs.
• Improved protection against overlapping scheduler executions.
• Expanded email and SMS notification support.
• Added test notification actions for search profiles.
• Improved alert frequency and schedule configuration.
• Introduced centralized management of monitoring schedules.
• Improved provider response parsing and incomplete-result recovery.
• Expanded monitoring integration with other ToolsAPI services.

Fact Verify, SocialGPT and Reputation

• Expanded Fact Verify with deeper AI-assisted research.
• Improved source verification and citation handling.
• Added larger output budgets for complex fact-checking.
• Improved research follow-ups and translations.
• Added AJAX progress reporting for fact-checking operations.
• Integrated research mode into existing Fact Verify workflows.
• Improved recovery when AI responses are incomplete.
• Expanded SocialGPT fact-checking capabilities.
• Improved SocialGPT response validation and error handling.
• Developed the Reputation service for web resources.
• Added reputation targets for domains, URLs, posts, and public content.
• Introduced moderated community reputation reports.
• Separated community reports from authoritative reputation decisions.
• Added standalone Reputation APIs and administration.
• Improved ownership and privacy controls for SocialGPT data.
• Expanded Android authentication support for SocialGPT.

Job Search

• Expanded AI-assisted job discovery and relevance matching.
• Improved individual search profiles and ownership controls.
• Added profile-specific priorities, exclusions, and instructions.
• Expanded Swedish job discovery across multiple sources.
• Integrated structured Arbetsförmedlingen JobTech searches.
• Added support for personal and global job-search sources.
• Introduced global preferred-employer lists.
• Added configurable employer registries with filtering rules.
• Improved verification of individual job advertisements.
• Improved detection of expired or removed listings.
• Added automatic revalidation of saved advertisements.
• Improved validation of redirected and canonical job URLs.
• Strengthened protection against misleading or generic search results.
• Improved job-listing deduplication.
• Added AI assistance for refining search profiles.
• Introduced guided analysis of irrelevant job matches.
• Added better suggestions for negative search keywords.
• Improved AI-generated profile instructions and names.
• Added personal CV and cover-letter storage.
• Introduced structured professional experience and qualification records.
• Added Markdown CV editing and document previews.
• Improved PDF and DOCX document extraction.
• Introduced document-aware AI search assistance.
• Developed AI-assisted job application drafts.
• Added follow-up questions for missing application details.
• Added application review and test-email functionality.
• Improved application delivery verification.
• Added safer handling of uploaded application documents.
• Introduced compact job tables with sorting and filtering.
• Added expandable profile-specific result sections.
• Improved search execution reports and history.
• Added clearer administrator inspection of search profiles.
• Expanded live search progress and execution diagnostics.
• Added limited parallel execution of multiple search profiles.
• Improved protection of shared AI budgets during parallel searches.
• Introduced administrator-funded search capacity and credit exceptions.
• Expanded email and SMS notifications for new jobs.
• Added public profile sharing and syndicated results.
• Introduced native Android Job Search authentication and API support.
• Added secure Android handoff to the existing application workspace.
• Improved handling of provider failures and rate limits.

Whisper and Transcription

• Expanded Whisper into a distributed transcription platform.
• Added support for external CPU and GPU workers.
• Introduced authenticated worker job claiming.
• Added worker capabilities, leases, and heartbeats.
• Improved remote worker status and progress reporting.
• Added automatic worker discovery and registration.
• Introduced historical records for inactive workers.
• Improved recovery of interrupted transcription jobs.
• Expanded model selection and runtime diagnostics.
• Added re-transcription using different models.
• Introduced readable transcript revision history.
• Improved speaker diarization using pyannote.
• Added live progress reporting for speaker separation.
• Improved speaker identification and correction.
• Added media playback alongside transcript segments.
• Introduced grouped speaker-turn displays.
• Expanded transcript editing and annotations.
• Improved AI analysis and follow-up questions.
• Added transcription and analysis recovery mechanisms.
• Introduced guest transcription with verification controls.
• Expanded public transcript sharing.
• Added public comments and visitor-specific AI interactions.
• Improved transcript privacy and access restrictions.
• Added original audio and video playback to public shares.
• Improved handling of URL-based media sources.
• Added better upload progress and duplicate-file detection.
• Improved recovery from interrupted media uploads.
• Reduced database session and worker lock contention.
• Improved retry handling for temporary database failures.
• Expanded diagnostic information for failed jobs.
• Improved worker and transcript administration.

Browserbot, Botstudio and Facebook

• Expanded browser automation using Playwright.
• Developed more reliable Browser Social workflows.
• Improved Facebook Page and group identity verification.
• Strengthened protection against posting from incorrect accounts.
• Added automatic scheduled Facebook feed publishing.
• Introduced curated article selection and publishing queues.
• Improved RSS-based article discovery for social publishing.
• Added category-aware feed selection.
• Expanded article preview and publishing history.
• Improved detection of article paywalls.
• Added read-only verification of uncertain Facebook submissions.
• Improved recovery after interrupted publishing attempts.
• Strengthened duplicate-publication protection.
• Added progress reporting for browser operations.
• Improved detection of Facebook comment and reply fields.
• Expanded handling of Facebook notifications and mentions.
• Introduced scheduled notification processing.
• Improved AI replies to direct questions in social discussions.
• Added automated follow-up checks of previous interactions.
• Improved browser diagnostics and failure reporting.

X Bot and Social Automation

• Expanded the public X conversation archive.
• Added threaded conversation trees and navigation.
• Improved recovery of incomplete X conversation histories.
• Strengthened reply-context verification before AI generation.
• Improved detection of mentions within posts.
• Added administrator-controlled forced reply generation.
• Improved handling of manually retried conversations.
• Expanded support for referenced images in quoted posts.
• Improved separation of human questions and AI-generated conversations.
• Strengthened prevention of automated reply loops.
• Improved scheduled X posting diagnostics.

Image Generator and Media

• Expanded OpenAI image generation and editing.
• Added support for multiple reference images.
• Introduced additional output formats and aspect ratios.
• Expanded image archives and publication controls.
• Added private, unlisted, and public image visibility settings.
• Introduced automatic publication preferences.
• Improved image publication management with AJAX.
• Added support for GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst and Flare.
• Expanded image quality and transparency options.
• Improved image generation retry handling.
• Added better prompt history and provenance information.
• Improved visibility of automatically adjusted prompts.
• Introduced concurrent image generation jobs.
• Added notifications for completed image generations.
• Developed Quick Generator for social media cover images.
• Added page-specific image generation and context extraction.
• Introduced image history and reuse for Quick Generator.
• Added global fallback images for social sharing.
• Improved social media metadata and image previews.
• Expanded reusable image generation targets.

Slack and Communication

• Developed an installable Slack AI Bot.
• Added Slack workspace OAuth installation.
• Introduced multi-workspace bot configuration.
• Added support for direct messages and threaded conversations.
• Expanded AI-powered replies and web-search integration.
• Improved Slack event handling and polling fallback.
• Added configurable channel and workspace behavior.
• Introduced faster polling of known conversations.
• Added processing acknowledgements for incoming messages.
• Improved Slack image generation and delivery.
• Added conversational image retries and model selection.
• Expanded Slack error diagnostics and delivery verification.
• Improved log-routing configuration and severity thresholds.
• Added safer handling of Slack installation and authentication failures.

SMS, Email and Spam Protection

• Expanded the central SMS service.
• Improved incoming SMS storage and deduplication.
• Added automatic processing of incoming messages.
• Introduced conversational AI responses to SMS.
• Added manual handling of previously received SMS.
• Improved SMS delivery and queue progress reporting.
• Added account-wide mobile number verification.
• Improved SMS callback and device identification handling.
• Expanded Mail Support Assistant synchronization.
• Improved recovery from temporary mail database locks.
• Introduced clearer retry responses for synchronization failures.
• Expanded SpamAssassin integration and testing.
• Improved SpamAssassin response handling and timeout detection.
• Added personal mail and SpamAssassin configuration pages.

DNS, DNSBL and Infrastructure

• Expanded DNSBL proxy and Tor exit detection.
• Improved verification of real proxy connectivity.
• Introduced more detailed proxy metadata.
• Added safer lifecycle handling of removed proxies.
• Improved synchronization with Tor Project exit information.
• Added structured DNSBL and FraudBL classifications.
• Expanded DNSBL request statistics and diagnostics.
• Improved DNSBL integration with Online Users.
• Added shared DNSBL resolver caching and failover.
• Expanded DNS administration and zone management.
• Added DNSSEC management for BIND zones.
• Improved DNSSEC key and DS record handling.
• Improved DNS zone validation and rollback procedures.
• Expanded Dynamic DNS administration.
• Improved infrastructure and network inventory documentation.
• Expanded certificate administration and monitoring.
• Improved Let’s Encrypt certificate renewal detection.
• Added local reconciliation of renewed certificates.
• Improved certificate ownership and renewal notifications.
• Expanded geographic and network information using MaxMind.

Statuspage and System Monitoring

• Expanded Statuspage with historical service availability.
• Introduced daily uptime history and availability metrics.
• Improved component and incident administration.
• Added automatic status updates from operational errors.
• Improved recovery detection following successful deployments.
• Reduced incorrect or persistent degraded states.
• Improved synchronization between incidents and component status.
• Added clearer administrative status controls.
• Improved dark-mode readability and visual contrast.
• Expanded administrator monitoring and diagnostic views.

Additional Services and Integrations

• Expanded Guestbook into a hosted multi-book platform.
• Added legacy guestbook imports and historical archives.
• Introduced Guestbook APIs and external embedding.
• Added WordPress-oriented Guestbook integration support.
• Developed Votech with public, personal, and administrative workspaces.
• Added Votech polls, projects, communities, and candidate management.
• Expanded Votech identity and participation controls.
• Improved Votech media management.
• Developed Transit Planner with schedule-image analysis.
• Added Skånetrafiken station and route lookup.
• Improved timetable interpretation and travel planning.
• Introduced shorter Transit Planner sharing links.
• Added saved planning preferences and automatic link expiration.
• Developed a public Suggestions and Feedback service.
• Added service-specific feedback categories.
• Introduced GitHub issue lookup and linking for suggestions.
• Improved feedback moderation and administration.
• Expanded Recipes with recipe editing and dietary preferences.
• Added optional AI assistance for recipes.
• Introduced recipe publication controls and To Do integration.
• Started Tools Score for activities, routines, and progress tracking.
• Added configurable allowance tracking in Tools Score.
• Expanded personal and family functionality in Menstrual Tracking.
• Improved Menstrual Tracking history and SMS reminders.
• Improved RSS Watch article management and history cleanup.
• Added magazine-style RSS browsing.
• Expanded StorageAPI and legacy archive management.
• Improved the shared Services directory.
• Introduced searchable services and personalized pinned shortcuts.
• Expanded Android support across several ToolsAPI services.

Latest Fixes – October 19-25, 2026

• Reduced repeated Whisper missing-job error alerts.
• Improved Whisper worker claim locking and retry behavior.
• Added automatic discovery of connected Whisper workers.
• Preserved historical records of inactive Whisper workers.
• Added original recordings to public Whisper transcript shares.
• Fixed public video playback when MIME metadata is missing.
• Added clearer duplicate-upload warnings and existing-job links.
• Improved local Let’s Encrypt certificate renewal reconciliation.
• Fixed SpamAssassin response completion and timeout diagnostics.