diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c8c4049..601e729 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
-# cAIc v0.17.26
+![cAIc banner](static/readme-banner.png)
+
+# cAIc v0.18.0
 
 Consumer AI hardware is a wasteland of incompatibility. NVIDIA speaks CUDA, AMD speaks ROCm. Your RTX 5070 Ti lives in one machine with 16 GB VRAM; your RX 6600 XT lives in another with 12 GB. Alone, neither can run a 14B model at usable speed. Together, they could — if the software stack didn't treat heterogeneous hardware as a bug instead of a feature.
 
@@ -24,6 +26,31 @@ At v1.0, this ships with a Docker compose stack and setup wizard that detect CPU
 
 Developer wiki: [docs/wiki/Home.md](docs/wiki/Home.md)
 
+## What's New in v0.18.0
+
+### Wiki — Installation Guide, Screenshots Gallery, Full Documentation
+- **New Installation & Configuration page** — bare-metal walkthrough, cluster setup, config reference, security checklist, 12 troubleshooting topics. Everything a new user needs to get cAIc running.
+- **Screenshots gallery** — clickable image gallery on the wiki Screenshots page
+- **Wiki fully populated** — 5 pages linked from Home, renders at root URL
+- **B5 added to backlog** — auto-download of default GGUF model on first start
+
+### UX Polish — Waterfall Layout, Barcode Stripes, Confidence Badges
+- **Waterfall display** — newest messages at top via `prepend()`, scroll to top
+- **Barcode alternating pairs** — each Q&A wrapped in `.msg-pair` with alternating tint + left border accent
+- **Confidence % badge** (`1/ppl * 100`) replaces raw perplexity, color-coded green/orange/red
+- **Cumulative token counter (TOK)** in topbar center, persisted in `localStorage`
+- **TOK reformatted** to `# / %` — `#` is all-time tokens, `%` is last response's context-window percentage, color-coded
+- **Dot-matrix sprocket strips** on left/right edges of `.main` (24px strips, punch-hole pattern)
+- **Paper grain background** on chat container
+- **Timestamps on user messages** (`HH:MM`), later upgraded to `MON dd, YYYY HH:MM:SS.ss` centisecond precision
+- **Shift+Enter** triggers web search
+- **Typing indicator greys out** on abort
+- **Token count badge** on search responses using client-side `tokenCount`
+- **Removed status dots** from input area (no functional purpose)
+- **Removed thumbs** from toolbar, restored only on non-search AI responses
+
+### Version bumped to v0.18.0
+
 ## What's New in v0.17.26
 
 ### Dynamic Model Swap — `request_model_swap()`, `select_node()` async (Roadmap N Task 14)
diff --git a/config.py b/config.py
index e8bd32f..f1df47d 100644
--- a/config.py
+++ b/config.py
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ import logging
 
 log = logging.getLogger("caic")
 
-VERSION = "v0.17.26"
+VERSION = "v0.18.0"
 OLLAMA_BASE = os.environ.get("OLLAMA_BASE", "http://localhost:11434")
 LLAMA_SERVER_BASE = os.environ.get("LLAMA_SERVER_BASE", "http://192.168.50.108:8081")
 SEARXNG_BASE = "http://localhost:8888"