Trust the exact artifact, not the headline.

Current maturity: v2.0.0-rc.1 is a public release candidate, not a production-stable or one-click-installer claim. It ships as signed portable ZIPs. The ten-person cold-test gate and native-x64 hardware run remain open.

Official download boundary

Use only the x64 or ARM64 ZIP attached to the exact official v2.0.0-rc.1 release. No MSI is offered for this RC. A source archive, fork, copied executable, or build from another commit is a different artifact.

Signing and checksum verification

The release ships SHA256SUMS, and the programmer.exe inside each ZIP is Authenticode-signed. Verify both layers:

Get-FileHash .\programmer-wander-v2.0.0-rc.1-windows-x64.zip -Algorithm SHA256

Expand-Archive .\programmer-wander-v2.0.0-rc.1-windows-x64.zip .\programmer-v2-rc
Get-AuthenticodeSignature .\programmer-v2-rc\programmer.exe |
  Select-Object Status, StatusMessage, SignerCertificate

Get-FileHash .\programmer-v2-rc\programmer.exe -Algorithm SHA256

Require a valid Windows signature from Joseph Wander and inspect the timestamp certificate. Compare the ZIP SHA-256 with the same release's SHA256SUMS. A checksum catches a mismatch against that list; Authenticode is the separate publisher-provenance check.

Release versus source

The public server release and the repository's current main branch can differ. A fix visible in source is not present in your installed binary until a new release contains it. Record the release tag when reporting a problem.

RC identity: the accepted v2.0.0-rc.1 binaries report MCP server name programmer, version 2.0.0-rc.1, and exactly 49 unique tools. The retired v0.2.0-alpha assets have a different contract and must not be substituted.

Runtime and permission boundary

• Programmer exposes powerful local file, shell, process, data, system, and network tools to an MCP host.
• It does not grant the host new operating-system permissions. The account running the host defines the real access boundary.
• Consequential commands still require your review and the host's permission controls.
• The plugin repository's guard hooks are opt-in templates. They are inert until reviewed, rendered, installed, trusted, and tested in a supported hook route.

Evidence

Inspect the server source, the plugin-kit source, the exact release notes, and the Apache-2.0 license. Source availability does not replace artifact verification.