April 2026
April 29, 2026
Gradebook enhancements
- Improved Expression Builder editor - The full-screen Expression Builder now uses a Monaco-based editor with syntax highlighting, autocomplete for built-in functions and column slugs, and hover tooltips showing intermediate values for any sub-expression. Per-line result annotations are displayed inline next to each statement (#735)
- Gradebook table select-all/none filters - Column and section filter dropdowns in the gradebook table now include Select all and Select none toolbar buttons for faster multi-select filtering (#735)
Autograding fixes
- Fail loudly when no files match submissionFiles patterns - If no repository files match the configured
submissionFilesglob patterns, the submission is now immediately rejected with a descriptive 400 error listing the unmatched patterns and guiding instructors to checkpawtograder.yml(#739)
April 24, 2026
Grading improvements
- Clear TA messaging when grading feedback is released - When a TA attempts to add or change marks on a released submission review, Pawtograder now shows a clear warning explaining the restriction and directing them to ask an instructor to unrelease the review (#724)
- Group mentor column in instructor assignment table - The instructor submissions table now shows a Group mentor column (with multi-select filter) when the assignment has groups with assigned mentors (#731)
Bug fixes
- Fixed individual score display on group assignments - Student views now correctly show individual scores on group assignments (#729)
April 22, 2026
Grading improvements
- Bulk release/unrelease selected submissions - The instructor assignment submissions table now supports row selection with checkboxes. Use All in view to select all filtered submissions, then click Release or Unrelease to act on only the selected rows (#730)
CI improvements
- Shared npm cache across workflows - GitHub Actions workflows now share npm cache for faster builds (#728)
April 21, 2026
Gradebook fixes
- Fixed gradebook updates for individual grading on group assignments - Gradebook now correctly updates when grades are changed after release for individual grading on group assignments (#725)
April 19, 2026
Discussion improvements
- Fixed discussion browse view - Resolved post list height and nested scroll issues in the discussion browse view (#723)
Gradebook enhancements
- Expression validation and full-screen Expression Builder - Added live validation for gradebook expressions with a full-screen Expression Builder featuring student picker, per-line evaluation, and rendered score previews (#717)
April 18, 2026
Discussion fixes
- Prevented accidental double posts - Fixed issue where users could accidentally create duplicate forum threads (#721)
Performance improvements
- Build time optimization - Improved build performance and reduced build times (#633)
April 17, 2026
CLI features
- Beta CLI interface - Added comprehensive CLI for managing courses, assignments, rubrics, surveys, and repositories with local git operations (#597)
Grading improvements
- Comment edits after review completion - Graders can now edit comments after completing a review, as long as the review hasn’t been released to students (#715)
- Instructor bulk and per-row review due date edits - Instructors can now edit review due dates in bulk or per-row for both self-review and grading assignments (#706)
Bug fixes
- Fixed repository sync for assignment groups - Repository sync now correctly triggers when assignment groups or membership changes (#716)
- Fixed assignments dashboard duplicate rows - Resolved issue causing duplicate rows in the student assignments dashboard (#719)
- Renamed “Import Column” to “Import Columns” - Updated button text for clarity (#718)
April 16, 2026
Gradebook enhancements
- Overhauled “What if” calculations - Redesigned the What-If feature with improved calculation accuracy and a new feature flag for instructors to enable/disable student access (#626)
April 14, 2026
Gradebook features
- Instructor-only columns - Added support for staff-only gradebook columns that are hidden from students until released, with frozen snapshot behavior (#682)
Bug fixes
- Unified grade.yml workflow SHA mismatch error message - Improved error messaging for workflow file mismatches (#713)
- Fixed finalize_submission_early granting free extensions - Resolved issue where early finalization incorrectly granted extensions when late tokens were active (#712)
April 13, 2026
Student management
- Student overview enhancements - Added lecture section, email, and assignment groups to student overview (#707)
April 10, 2026
Infrastructure
- CI/build process migration - Migrated the build process from Coolify to GitHub Actions to reduce test flakiness and improve deployment reliability.
Office hours
- Active queues only for TAs - Office hours dashboard now shows only active queues for TAs, matching student visibility. Inactive queues remain visible in Queue Management, with an empty state and hint when all queues are inactive.
Grading fixes
- Regrade decimal points handling - Fixed regrade score calculations to handle decimal points correctly.
- Tweak notes for group grading - Added tweak notes functionality for per-student adjustments in split-rubric group grading scenarios.
Gradebook fixes
- Free text responses filtered by section - Instructors now only see free text responses from their assigned sections.
- Total score on student dashboard - Student assignments dashboard now shows the total score when graded.
- Export with rendered expressions - Added option to export the gradebook with columns rendered by expression, allowing instructors to export calculated values.
Self-review
- Deadline adjustment on due date extensions - Self-review deadlines now properly adjust when the assignment due date is extended.
Testing and reliability
- Magic links on E2E failure - Test failures now print magic links for easier debugging.
- Improved error filtering - Reduced noise in error logs to focus on actionable issues.
April 7, 2026
Gradebook improvements
- Fixed gradebook column reordering - Resolved issue where Move Left/Right buttons weren’t working correctly for gradebook columns (#668)
- Performance improvements - Added better suspense boundaries to improve loading performance, especially on the gradebook page (#678)
April 6, 2026
Admin features
- Default time zone for admin view - Added a default time zone setting for the admin interface (#677)
April 5, 2026
Bug fixes
- Grade override notes now visible - Fixed issue where grade override notes weren’t displaying in the UI (#670)
- Self-review regrade prevention - Students can no longer request regrades on self-review rubric items (#673)
- Survey analytics fix - Fixed survey analytics not showing for series surveys when comparison view is disabled (#675)
March 2026
March 29, 2026
Group management
- Enhanced group export - Group CSV exports now include student and mentor emails in
Name <email>format. Student exports also use this format for consistency (#666) - Test Assignment GitHub repo fix - Fixed “Test Assignment” GitHub repository functionality for groups-only assignments (#665)
Time zone support
- Configurable time zones - Added comprehensive time zone support across the platform, allowing courses to set their preferred time zone for all date/time displays (#494)
March 28, 2026
Late tokens
- Fixed gifted late token display - Students who receive gifted late tokens now see the correct remaining token count. Previously, students who used all initial tokens but received gifts saw “You have no remaining late tokens” even when they had capacity (#661)
Content rendering
- HTML tag escaping - HTML tags in markdown content are now escaped instead of stripped, preserving the original content intent (#658)
Grading improvements
- Auto-recalculate submission totals - Submission grade totals now automatically recalculate when rubric check scores change (#662)
- Better error messages - Improved student-facing error messages to be more descriptive and actionable (#660)
- Decimal scores in gradebook - Gradebook number inputs now accept decimal scores (#659)
March 27, 2026
Performance and stability
- Memory leak fix - Eliminated blob URL memory leaks in the submission file viewer that could cause browser crashes when viewing multiple large files (#654)
- Group due date fix - Fixed due date adjustment dialog for group assignments to correctly create instructor exceptions with assignment_group_id instead of student_id (#657)
- Gradebook recalculation fix - Fixed version-drift bug in gradebook recalculation pipeline that could cause scores to not converge (#656)
- Special character filename handling - Binary files with Unicode characters (for example, macOS screenshot names with special spaces) now upload successfully thanks to improved filename sanitization (#650)
New features
- Assignment repository analytics - Added analytics for assignment repositories, providing insights into student repository activity (#637)
- Group individual grading - Introduced support for grading individual students within group assignments (#638)
- Survey display improvements - Enhanced survey display and results analysis interface (#652)