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stack: Upgrade-Pfad bekommt eine eigene manual-Instruktion, INSTALL.md verweist darauf (#108)
Files changed:
- CHANGES.md
- INSTALL.md
- VERSION
- instructions/session-setup.md
- instructions/upgrade-instance.md
- tools/CONTRACT.md
- tools/chemenu/commands/dist_cmd.py
- tools/chemenu/tests/test_dist_upgrade.py
2026-09-16 14:04:16 +02:00

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---
type: types/instruction.md
name: upgrade-instance
description: Carry out a stack release upgrade on an instance built from a tarball - read this release's notes, swap the machinery with dist upgrade, work the migration chain, verify, publish, and restart the session at the point where the new control plane starts to matter.
manual: true
---
# Upgrade this instance to a new stack release
An instance built from a `dist export` tarball takes stack updates by copying a newer release
over its machinery. This is the order in which that happens, what each step decides, and where
the two known rough edges are. It ends with the instance on the new `VERSION`, its content
version recorded, every check green, and the change published.
**This is the tarball path.** An instance that is a *clone* of the origin repo, sharing git
history, takes updates by three-way merge (`tools/wikitool upstream merge`) and follows
[private-instance.md](private-instance.md) instead. `git remote -v` answers which one this is:
a clone carries an `upstream` remote pointing at the origin.
**Two things this file deliberately does not know.** First, the copy you are reading shipped
with the release this instance is *leaving*, not the one it is going to - so nothing specific to
a particular jump is written here. That belongs to the release notes (step 2) and to the
migration documents that arrive inside the tarball. Second, two steps below work around gaps in
the tooling rather than describing its intended shape; each says so, and says what makes it
unnecessary.
<!-- wikitool:toc -->
## Contents
- [When to run](#when-to-run)
- [Steps](#steps)
- [Decision points](#decision-points)
- [Scope](#scope)
<!-- /wikitool:toc -->
## When to run
- `tools/wikitool version check` reports `state: update` or `state: migration`, and the operator
wants the new release installed.
- An operator asks for the stack, the tooling or "the wiki software" to be brought up to date.
- An interrupted upgrade is being resumed. Do not restart from step 1: `migrate status` and
`dist upgrade --dry-run` both report the true state, and the step that matches what they say
is where this run continues.
Not for setting up a new instance ([setup-instance.md](setup-instance.md)), not for preparing a
fresh clone ([bootstrap.md](bootstrap.md)), and not for the clone-with-upstream path above.
## Steps
1. **Take a session id and pass it on every call for the whole upgrade** - the form and the
reason are in [session-setup.md](session-setup.md). An upgrade is one of the longest runs
this stack has, and the iteration budget only sees it as one run if every call carries the
same id:
```bash
WIKITOOL_SESSION_ID=upgrade-<target-version> tools/wikitool version check
```
2. **Read this release's notes before touching anything.** Two lines decide the rest of the run:
**Breaking Change:** says what stops working and what this instance must do about it, and
**Migration:** says whether the corpus has to be rewritten (`none required` when it does not).
`tools/wikitool version notes` is the command for that - **and on a distributed instance it
cannot answer**. It reads the local `CHANGES.md`, which an instance receives as a stub with no
version entries and which `dist upgrade` never overwrites, so the answer is an `ERROR` today
and at every future release. Read the release page instead: `.wikitool-release.json` carries
`release_url` for the human page and `update_url` for the JSON feed. This paragraph stops
being necessary the day `version notes` falls back to that feed.
3. **Ask what is already outstanding, while `VERSION` is still the old one:**
```bash
tools/wikitool migrate status
```
Anything in the outstanding chain is finished **before** the swap - `dist upgrade` refuses
otherwise, and a chain that was already owed is not this release's business. The procedure is
step 12's, run against the migration documents this instance already has. An `offered` upgrade
listed separately blocks nothing and is decided later, in step 12.
4. **Fetch the tarball and verify it.** `dist upgrade` downloads nothing; the file has to be
there already. Take the `.tar.gz` and its `.sha256` from the release page found in step 2 and
check them before unpacking. A tarball must unpack to exactly one top-level directory.
5. **Dry-run the swap and read all four counts:**
```bash
tools/wikitool dist upgrade <tarball> --dry-run
```
`unchanged` / `new` / `locally changed` / `removed from the release`. The first two need no
decision. `locally changed` is step 6. `removed` matters only if `--prune` is wanted, which is
optional and never required.
6. **Only if a file is reported as locally changed: decide whose file it is, then reconcile it.**
The classification is against the sha256 the *installed* release recorded, so "locally
changed" means the working tree differs from what this instance was given - deliberately or
by a stray editor save.
| Whose file | What to do |
|---|---|
| The instance's own | Cannot appear here, which is worth knowing so a report that looks like it is read again rather than acted on: a file the instance owns either ships only as `<name>.template` (`kb/CONVENTIONS.md`, each `COLLECTION.md`, `USER.md`/`SOUL.md`/`ENVIRONMENT.md`) and is never classified at all, or is seeded once and then kept out of the write set (`.wikitool-kb.json`, `CHANGES.md`) |
| Machinery (a `CONTRACT.md`, anything under `tools/`, `types/`, `instructions/`, `AGENTS.md`, and every `<name>.template` beside an owned file) | It should not have local changes at all. Take the release's version, per the recipe below |
| Machinery this instance changed **on purpose** | `--keep-local` keeps every listed file untouched - but the new stamp records the release digest anyway, so the same file is reported again at every future upgrade. That is the right answer only for a difference the instance intends to carry indefinitely |
Taking the release's version has no flag today, so it is three moves - and the middle one
exists only because the repair dirties the tree that the next command requires clean:
```bash
tar -xzf <tarball> -C <scratch-dir>
cp <scratch-dir>/<top-level-dir>/<path> <path>
tools/wikitool publish --message "stack: revert local drift on <path>" --no-push
tools/wikitool dist upgrade <tarball> --dry-run # now 0 locally changed
```
**The commit goes through `publish`, not `git commit`** - AGENTS.md invariant 5 has no
exception for "it is only a precondition", and `--no-push` is what keeps this from being a
push nobody asked for. This whole recipe disappears the day `dist upgrade` grows a
counterpart to `--keep-local` that writes the release's version instead of aborting.
7. **Swap the machinery.** Note the commit the instance is on first - step 13 compares against
it:
```bash
git rev-parse --short HEAD # the pre-swap commit; keep it
tools/wikitool dist upgrade <tarball>
```
It writes, and commits nothing.
8. **Republish the skills.** `tools/wikitool instructions sync` - the published skill directories
are copies, so until this runs the harness is still offering the previous release's skills.
9. **Verify the machinery, and fix what the release said would need fixing:**
```bash
tools/wikitool doctor
tools/wikitool docs verify
tools/wikitool instructions verify
tools/wikitool lint
```
A `docs verify` failure naming a missing or stale table of contents is repaired with
`tools/wikitool docs toc --apply`, never by hand - a release that widened the set of files
carrying a region will produce exactly that on files this instance adopted before the
widening. Any other failure is read against step 2's **Breaking Change:** line: if the release
predicted it, the notes also say what fixes it; if it did not, stop and report it rather than
improvising.
10. **Publish the machinery swap.** A release swap is far above the Mass-Update Gate's threshold,
so expect exit 42. That is not an error and not yours to clear: reproduce the file breakdown
it prints for the operator, stop, and publish with the token it named once they have
approved it. See [gates.md](gates.md).
Publishing here, before the content migrations, is deliberate. The intermediate state -
new machinery, content still at the old shape - is a state the stack names rather than
avoids (`.wikitool-kb.json` records it), and it keeps a 200-file swap out of the same commit
as a content rewrite.
11. **Restart the agent session.** Everything the previous steps replaced - `AGENTS.md`, the
contracts, the type-specs, the skills - is still in the running session's context in its
*old* form. A migration document written against a rule that arrived in this release will
otherwise be carried out against the rule it replaced, and nothing checks that.
The new session resumes at step 12. `tools/wikitool migrate status` is the resume point:
it is stateful, so it says what is left without being told what already happened.
12. **Work the migration chain.** `tools/wikitool migrate status` lists what is outstanding, in
the order it has to run - a jump across several releases lists several. For each one, run
the named document under `instructions/migrations/` following
[migrate-corpus.md](migrate-corpus.md), then record it:
```bash
tools/wikitool migrate done <version>
```
An `offered` migration is a separate decision, not part of the chain: it changes a file this
instance owns, blocks nothing, and recording it does not move `kb_version`. Take it or
decline it deliberately; both are correct answers.
**Whatever the migration changes, capture the before.** Where a document asks that some
command's output "read the same as before", that is only checkable if the before was written
down - redirect it to a file first and `diff` afterwards, rather than reading two long
outputs from memory. Reading either one through `head` or `tail` is how a difference in the
middle survives the check.
13. **Verify the content, then publish.** Only after the chain has run, and against the commit
noted in step 7:
```bash
tools/wikitool migrate verify --from <pre-swap commit>
tools/wikitool lint
```
`migrate verify` is the only check that sees a page which lost a citation, a wikilink or a
generated-region marker in the rewrite - `lint` reports a corpus that is internally
consistent, which a corpus that quietly lost something still is. Then publish, the same way
as in step 10.
## Decision points
- **`version check` reports `state: migration` (a compatibility boundary)?** That is a statement
about the machinery being a drop-in replacement, not about the corpus. A boundary crossing with
an empty migration chain is normal and means the hand-work is elsewhere - which is precisely
what step 2's **Breaking Change:** line names.
- **`dist upgrade` refuses because the tree is not clean?** Commit or stash what is there first,
and look at what it is: work in progress is committed through `publish`, an editor's stray
reformatting of machinery is step 6's case.
- **A required migration cannot be completed now?** Stop after step 10 and leave it. The
intermediate state is legitimate and `migrate status` resumes it; what is not legitimate is
recording a migration with `migrate done` that was not carried out - the version then describes
a shape the corpus is not in.
- **`doctor` reports `kb-version` behind `VERSION` after everything is done?** Correct when the
release's chain was empty or carried only `offered` entries: an offer changes a file the
instance owns, not the shape of its content, so the content version stays where it was.
## Scope
For an instance that receives releases as tarballs. Not the origin repo, which has no upgrade
path of its own, and not a clone with shared history - see the second paragraph. Anything about
*writing* a migration document rather than running one is
[migrate-corpus.md](migrate-corpus.md) § "Writing the migration document".
What a human decides before any of this starts - which release, whether to take it at all, where
the tarball comes from - is [INSTALL.md](../INSTALL.md) § "Version und Updates".