chemenu/instructions/upgrade-instance.md

type, name, description, manual

type	name	description	manual
types/instruction.md	upgrade-instance	Carry out a stack release upgrade on an instance installed from a release - 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.	true

Upgrade this instance to a new stack release

An instance installed from a release 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.

Every instance takes this path. An instance comes from a release and carries the .wikitool-release.json that release wrote; dist upgrade refuses to run without it. A clone of the origin repository is a development checkout of the stack itself, not an instance, and is updated with git rather than with this file.

One thing this file deliberately does not know. 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.

Contents

• When to run
• Steps
• Decision points
• Scope

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) and not for preparing a further checkout of this one (bootstrap.md).

Steps

1. Take a session id and keep it for every call of the whole upgrade: upgrade-<target version>, set with the line for your shell from session-setup.md § Steps

   • which also says what to do on a harness that starts a fresh shell per command. 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. Then:

   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
   

   On an instance this answers out of the release feed, not out of the local CHANGES.md - that file arrives as a stub with no version entries and dist upgrade never overwrites it, so the command reads the notes off the release the feed publishes instead. Two things follow that are worth knowing before reading the output. It can only ask for the feed's latest release, so while VERSION still names the release being left, the version it answers with is not the one this tree declares - it says so on stderr, and that is the normal shape here rather than a fault. And if the feed cannot be reached, the error names the release page from .wikitool-release.json's release_url; read it there and continue.

3. Ask what is already outstanding, while VERSION is still the old one:

   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. Nothing to fetch by hand. dist upgrade --latest asks the release feed for the latest release, downloads its .tar.gz and .sha256 into a scratch directory, checks the archive against the checksum and removes both again - all inside the calls of steps 5 to 7. Note the version step 2's version notes printed: steps 5 to 7 pass it as --expect, so a release that appeared in the meantime is refused before anything is downloaded, rather than applied unread.

   The offline alternative is the tarball path: with the feed unreachable, or an archive the operator supplies, the operator puts the .tar.gz and its .sha256 side by side, from the release page named in step 2, and you pass the archive as <tarball> where the steps below say --latest --expect <version>. dist upgrade checks the archive against the .sha256 beside it before unpacking, and refuses one that does not match. A tarball must unpack to exactly one top-level directory. The checksum comes from the same host as the archive, so it catches a damaged transfer, not a compromised host - who is trusted to publish releases is the operator's decision, made before this file starts (INSTALL.md § "Version und Updates").

5. Dry-run the swap and read all four counts:

   tools/wikitool dist upgrade --latest --expect <version from step 2> --dry-run
   

   unchanged / new / locally changed / removed from the release. unchanged needs no decision. new needs one only in a single shape: a <name>.template for a page type or collection this instance does not have yet. dist upgrade writes the template and stops there

   • adopting it (copying it to the unsuffixed name) is the instance's own act, and where the stack requires that type the omission is what step 9's docs verify refuses. Step 2's Breaking Change: line says when a release is in that shape; step 9 has the repair. One more shape of new needs no decision at all: a subtype template types/<type>.<value>.md.template beside a type this instance has already adopted. Adopt it (tools/wikitool dist adopt types/<type>.<value>.md.template) and wikitool new scaffolds pages of that subtype from it; leave it lying and they keep the type's ## Template block. Both are valid - subtype-templates.md is how to judge whether the corpus wants it. 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: --take-release <path>, one per file
   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

   The decision is per path, and the two flags compose - which is what a mixed report needs, one file reset and another kept. Preview it before it writes:

   tools/wikitool dist upgrade --latest --expect <version from step 2> --dry-run --take-release <path> [--take-release <path>]
   

   The preview marks every named path as one it would overwrite from the release, and a path that is not actually in the locally-changed list is refused here rather than in the writing run. Nothing else is needed: no copy out of the unpacked tarball by hand, and no commit made only to satisfy the next command's clean-tree precondition. Carry the flags you settled on into step 7.

   Where --keep-local answers for some paths and --take-release for others, both go on the same call. Without --keep-local, a locally changed path that no --take-release names still aborts the run: every one of them has to be answered for, and the abort's own text names the three answers with the command line already filled in.

7. Swap the machinery, with whatever step 6 settled on. Note the commit the instance is on first - step 13 compares against it:

   git rev-parse --short HEAD          # the pre-swap commit; keep it
   tools/wikitool dist upgrade --latest --expect <version from step 2> [--take-release <path>] [--keep-local]
   

   It writes, and commits nothing.

8. Run the preflight, then republish the skills. The release may need other tools or other libraries than the one it replaced, and tools/wikitool refuses to start (exit 42) until the preflight has passed against the new tools/ - an instance upgrading from a release without one has never run it at all. On its exit 42, show the output verbatim and wait (preflight.md):

   tools/preflight.sh
   tools/wikitool instructions sync
   

   From PowerShell 7 on Windows, run the twin instead - same questions, same file:

   pwsh -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools/preflight.ps1
   tools/wikitool instructions sync
   

   instructions sync is needed because the published skill directories are copies: until it runs, the harness is still offering the previous release's skills.

9. Verify the machinery, and fix what the release said would need fixing:

   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.

   A failure naming a page type the stack requires, or the collection that type's base_dir: points at, is the other repairable shape - the new template from step 5 that nobody adopted. The fix is the ordinary adoption every root: kb type already needs, not a data migration: copy the shipped templates to their unsuffixed names, then fill the instance-owned parts (language, template text, any extra fields) the way the authoring-conventions step of setup-instance.md describes for a fresh instance.

   tools/wikitool dist adopt types/<name>.md.template types/<name>.schema.yaml.template kb/<collection>/COLLECTION.md.template
   

   dist adopt copies only what does not exist yet, so a file this instance already adopted and filled is never touched. The .template files stay where they are - they are the source for the next upgrade's comparison. 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.

    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, then record it:

    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:

    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.
• A step fails and the cause is not obvious? Stop rather than improvise, and offer the user a bug report - bug-report.md. It runs even when wikitool does not start, and only when the user agrees.
• 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 installed from a release. Not the origin repo, which has no upgrade path of its own - see the second paragraph. Anything about writing a migration document rather than running one is 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 § "Version und Updates".