> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://arka-agent.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Week of September 28, 2026

> Weekly Arka changelog: a more focused Open WebUI chat, local-first web chat models, and fixes for empty and code-only replies.

A small week focused on the Open WebUI chat experience. Highlights below.

## Improvements

* **Focused Open WebUI chat.** Arka's Open WebUI now hides the Arena model picker and the chat Controls panel, so every conversation stays on the `arka` model.
* **Web search on by default in Open WebUI.** Web search is enabled with DuckDuckGo out of the box. Override it with `ENABLE_WEB_SEARCH` and `WEB_SEARCH_ENGINE`.
* **[Local-first web chat](/concepts/llm).** When Ollama is running, web chat tries a small installed local model first and falls back to Gemini and Groq afterward. Chat keeps responding when cloud free tiers hit rate limits.

## Bug fixes

* **Thanks no longer restarts a build.** Replies like "thanks", "ok great", or "got it" now get a short welcome instead of more code, HTML, or a new build.
* **No more empty chat replies.** Retired cloud models, such as `gemini-2.0-flash-lite`, are skipped instead of leaving chat blank.
* **[Models stay available](/guides/free-models).** Arka only marks a model as retired when the provider actually reports it (for example, HTTP 410 or `model_not_found`). Models that were wrongly marked retired are restored automatically.


## Related topics

- [Week of September 7, 2026](/changelog/2026-09-07.md)
- [Week of September 14, 2026](/changelog/2026-09-14.md)
- [Week of September 21, 2026](/changelog/2026-09-21.md)
- [Week of August 31, 2026](/changelog/2026-08-31.md)
- [Week of July 13, 2026](/changelog/2026-07-13.md)