v0.5.2 - fixed: llm router async, relay-UI mismatch, intake summarization failure, among others.

Memory relevance thresh. increased.

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -9,6 +9,55 @@ Format based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/) and [Se
 
 ---
 
+## [0.5.2] - 2025-12-12
+
+### Fixed - LLM Router & Async HTTP
+- **Critical**: Replaced synchronous `requests` with async `httpx` in LLM router [cortex/llm/llm_router.py](cortex/llm/llm_router.py)
+  - Event loop blocking was causing timeouts and empty responses
+  - All three providers (MI50, Ollama, OpenAI) now use `await http_client.post()`
+  - Fixes "Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)" JSON parsing errors in intake
+- **Critical**: Fixed missing `backend` parameter in intake summarization [cortex/intake/intake.py:285](cortex/intake/intake.py#L285)
+  - Was defaulting to PRIMARY (MI50) instead of respecting `INTAKE_LLM=SECONDARY`
+  - Now correctly uses configured backend (Ollama on 3090)
+- **Relay**: Fixed session ID case mismatch [core/relay/server.js:87](core/relay/server.js#L87)
+  - UI sends `sessionId` (camelCase) but relay expected `session_id` (snake_case)
+  - Now accepts both variants: `req.body.session_id || req.body.sessionId`
+  - Custom session IDs now properly tracked instead of defaulting to "default"
+
+### Added - Error Handling & Diagnostics
+- Added comprehensive error handling in LLM router for all providers
+  - HTTPError, JSONDecodeError, KeyError, and generic Exception handling
+  - Detailed error messages with exception type and description
+  - Provider-specific error logging (mi50, ollama, openai)
+- Added debug logging in intake summarization
+  - Logs LLM response length and preview
+  - Validates non-empty responses before JSON parsing
+  - Helps diagnose empty or malformed responses
+
+### Added - Session Management
+- Added session persistence endpoints in relay [core/relay/server.js:160-171](core/relay/server.js#L160-L171)
+  - `GET /sessions/:id` - Retrieve session history
+  - `POST /sessions/:id` - Save session history
+  - In-memory storage using Map (ephemeral, resets on container restart)
+  - Fixes UI "Failed to load session" errors
+
+### Changed - Provider Configuration
+- Added `mi50` provider support for llama.cpp server [cortex/llm/llm_router.py:62-81](cortex/llm/llm_router.py#L62-L81)
+  - Uses `/completion` endpoint with `n_predict` parameter
+  - Extracts `content` field from response
+  - Configured for MI50 GPU with DeepSeek model
+- Increased memory retrieval threshold from 0.78 to 0.90 [cortex/.env:20](cortex/.env#L20)
+  - Filters out low-relevance memories (only returns 90%+ similarity)
+  - Reduces noise in context retrieval
+
+### Technical Improvements
+- Unified async HTTP handling across all LLM providers
+- Better separation of concerns between provider implementations
+- Improved error messages for debugging LLM API failures
+- Consistent timeout handling (120 seconds for all providers)
+
+---
+
 ## [0.5.1] - 2025-12-11
 
 ### Fixed - Intake Integration