🔄 asc-updater — the update management utility

📌 Description

A separate utility (a separate asc-updater binary) for installing and updating the daemon. It is deliberately split out of the daemon: it can update and restart the daemon itself without depending on it, and it keeps working even if the daemon is broken. It manages automatic updates — they can be enabled, configured or turned off entirely.

🎯 Scenarios

• 📥 Initial installation: install.sh installs asc-updater, which downloads and installs the daemon.
• ⚙️ Interactive installation: at install time the utility shows the default settings and asks the user — install with them or change:

⚙️  ASC installation settings (defaults):

  Language:                en
  Auto-updates:            enabled
  Update channel:          stable
  Check schedule:          daily 04:00
  Install directory:       /usr/local/bin

Install with the default settings? [Y/n/change]

• 🤫 Silent installation: install.sh --silent (or asc-updater install --silent) — one command without a single question: all defaults, dependencies installed automatically. For CI, scripts and AI agents; everything can be configured after installation.
• 🔄 Auto-updates: checking for new releases on a schedule, updating with respect to the daemon's active tasks.
• 🚫 Disabling: asc-updater auto disable — updates become manual-only.
• 🆘 Rollback: asc-updater rollback — return to the previous version if something goes wrong.
• 🤖 Platform automation: status --json reports version state as JSON and update --json streams machine-readable progress without localized text mixed into stdout.

🏗️ Technical design

CLI

asc-updater install [--silent|--interactive]    # install the daemon (interactive by default; --silent — no questions, all defaults)
asc-updater update [--force] [--json]           # update now; --json streams NDJSON progress
asc-updater auto enable|disable|status          # manage auto-updates
asc-updater channel stable|beta                 # the update channel
asc-updater rollback                            # roll back to the previous version
asc-updater status [--json]                     # versions: installed / available

An alias from the daemon: asc autoupdate enable|disable proxies to asc-updater auto ....

Behavior

• Root check: the installer (install.sh and asc-updater install) first checks it runs as root/sudo — otherwise it stops with a clear message (Please run as root: sudo …). Without root it is impossible to install dependencies, create the systemd unit and the /asc directory.
• Schedule: a systemd timer (independent of the daemon's health); the check time is configurable.
• Coordination with the daemon: before updating, the utility asks the daemon about active tasks (installation, backup) — if there are any, the update is postponed; --force skips the wait.
• Security: releases are downloaded from GitHub Releases; signature/checksum verification is mandatory; the previous binary is kept for rollback.
• Version policy: installed and available versions are parsed as SemVer after an optional leading v is removed. The binary is replaced only when the available version is strictly newer; equal, older and invalid versions never trigger an update.
• Configuration: the [updater] section in /etc/asc/config.toml (enabled, channel, schedule); the settings chosen at install time are saved there too.
• Updating the utility itself: the daemon can update asc-updater (mutual updating — neither component is an unkillable single point of failure).

Machine-readable output

asc-updater status --json writes one JSON object. updateAvailable is true only for a valid, strictly newer SemVer release. A missing/invalid installed version or a failed release lookup is an error with a non-zero exit status, so automation cannot mistake a failed check for an up-to-date daemon.

{"updaterVersion":"0.17.0","installedVersion":"0.16.0","availableVersion":"v0.17.0","channel":"stable","updateAvailable":true}

asc-updater update --json writes one JSON object per line (NDJSON) and flushes each event immediately. Human/localized output is suppressed in this mode. Event fields are type, stage, optional percent, optional version, and a safe message. Stable stage codes are checking, downloading, verifying_checksum, backing_up, replacing, restarting, completed, and error.

{"type":"progress","stage":"checking","percent":0,"message":"Checking available daemon version"}
{"type":"progress","stage":"downloading","percent":15,"version":"v0.17.0","message":"Downloading release archive"}
{"type":"complete","stage":"completed","percent":100,"version":"v0.17.0","message":"Daemon update completed"}

Failures write an event with type: "error" and stage: "error", then exit with a non-zero status. percent and version are omitted from error events.

🔗 Related tasks

DMN-001, DMN-014, DMN-064 in ROADMAP.md.