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v3.2.1 — Benjamin Franklin portrait banner

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@1bcMax 1bcMax released this 11 Apr 21:44
· 332 commits to main since this release
v3.2.1
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1bcMax Vicky
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Learn about vigilant mode.

Visual upgrade. The startup banner now shows Benjamin Franklin's face next to the FRANKLIN text block, side-by-side.

What it looks like

[10-row Ben Franklin portrait]   ███████╗██████╗  █████╗ ███╗   ██╗...
                                 ██╔════╝██╔══██╗██╔══██╗████╗  ██║...
                                 █████╗  ██████╔╝███████║██╔██╗ ██║...
                                 ██╔══╝  ██╔══██╗██╔══██║██║╚██╗██║...
                                 ██║     ██║  ██║██║  ██║██║ ╚████║...
                                 ╚═╝     ╚═╝  ╚═╝╚═╝  ╚═╝╚═╝  ╚═══╝...
                                 Franklin · The AI agent with a wallet · v3.2.1

In a truecolor terminal the portrait renders in actual grayscale shading (block-character half-cells + 256-color palette). The FRANKLIN text keeps its gold → emerald gradient from v3.1.0.

Source image

Joseph Duplessis' 1785 oil painting of Benjamin Franklin. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons, File:BenFranklinDuplessis.jpg. Same painting the face on the US $100 bill is derived from — so one portrait anchors both "Franklin the person" and "Benjamins / $100" in one visual.

How it's rendered

chafa --size=20x10 --symbols=block --colors=256 ben-franklin.jpg

Output is a 10-row × ~17-column block-character ANSI string. Baked into src/banner.ts as a hex-escaped string array. No runtime dep on chafa — it's only used at build time, and only if we ever want to regenerate the portrait.

Layout rules

  • Terminal ≥ 90 cols → side-by-side portrait + FRANKLIN gradient text. FRANKLIN is vertically centred inside the portrait's 10 rows.
  • Terminal < 90 cols → text-only fallback, identical to the v3.2.0 banner. Nobody gets a wrapped/mangled hero.

Why

Block-letter "FRANKLIN" alone was generic. Every CLI tool has some version of it. Ben's face ties the brand to the person the tool is named after, and to the Benjamins / $100 cultural anchor, in one glance.

  • Docker has a whale.
  • Kubernetes has a helm.
  • Laravel has an "L".
  • Franklin now has Ben's face.

Not changed

  • Every other subsystem — franklin social, agent loop, wallet, tools, sessions — identical to v3.2.0.

npm: @blockrun/franklin@3.2.1 · Full changelog: v3.2.0...v3.2.1

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