githubnext / githubnext/autoloop

Auto-upgrade: daily workflow to propagate upstream changes to installed repos

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Description

## Problem

When autoloop's source workflows change (bug fixes, new features, breaking changes), installed copies in downstream repos become stale. There is no upgrade mechanism — the install is a one-time file copy + compile. This means fixes like #18, #20, #23, #25 don't reach repos like `githubnext/tsessebe` until someone manually re-copies and recompiles.

The tsessebe case demonstrates the cost: 18 duplicate PRs were created because the stale `.lock.yml` didn't include the reset-if-merged fix from PR #25.

## Goal

A smooth, automated upgrade path that:
1. Detects upstream changes daily
2. Creates a PR in the downstream repo with the updated workflows
3. Handles breaking changes gracefully (adapts local customizations)
4. Requires minimal human intervention for non-breaking updates

## Design

### Component 1: `upgrade-check` agentic workflow (lives in autoloop repo, installed into downstream repos)

A new gh-aw agentic workflow that runs daily in the downstream repo:

```yaml
on:
schedule: daily
workflow_dispatch:
```

**What it does each run:**

1. **Detect upstream version**: Fetch the latest autoloop source from `githubnext/autoloop` (using `gh api` or cloning to `/tmp`). Compare the upstream `workflows/autoloop.md` and `workflows/sync-branches.md` against the local `.github/workflows/` copies.

2. **Diff classification**: Classify changes as:
- **Non-breaking**: Documentation, prompt wording, new optional features, bug fixes that don't change the frontmatter schema. These can be applied automatically.
- **Breaking**: Changes to frontmatter keys, step structure, tool configuration, permissions, or safe-output schema. These need agent-assisted adaptation.

3. **Preserve local customizations**: Before applying upstream changes, extract local overrides (e.g., `schedule: every 30m` instead of `every 6h`, custom `network.allowed` entries, modified `safe-outputs` limits). After applying upstream changes, re-apply local overrides.

4. **Recompile**: Run `gh aw compile` to regenerate `.lock.yml` files from the updated `.md` sources.

5. **Validate**: Run `gh aw compile --validate` to ensure the compiled output is valid.

6. **Create PR**: Open a draft PR with the changes titled `[Autoloop] Upgrade workflows to `. The PR body should include:
- Changelog of upstream changes (commit messages since last upgrade)
- Classification (breaking / non-breaking)
- Any local customizations that were preserved
- Any manual action required

### Component 2: `gh aw upgrade` CLI command (lives in gh-aw)

A CLI counterpart for manual/interactive upgrades:

```bash
# Check for available updates
gh aw upgrade --check

# Apply upgrade, auto-fix breaking changes where possible
gh aw upgrade --fix

# Upgrade a specific workflow
gh aw upgrade autoloop --fix
```

**`--fix` behavior:**
- Detects the source repo from the `.lock.yml` header (`Source: githubnext/autoloop`)
- Fetches the latest upstream `.md` source
- Three-way merges: upstream base → upstream new → local, preserving local customizations
- Recompiles
- Reports what changed and what couldn't be auto-fixed

### Component 3: Version tracking

Add a version/provenance block to the installed `.md` files so the upgrade tooling knows what baseline to diff against:

```yaml
# Bottom of the installed .md file, or in a sidecar file
_autoloop:
source: githubnext/autoloop
installed_from: abc1234 # commit SHA at install time
installed_at: 2026-04-04T05:00:00Z
compiler_version: v0.65.6
```

Or a simpler approach: a `.github/workflows/.autoloop-version.json`:

```json
{
"source": "githubnext/autoloop",
"commit": "abc1234def5678",
"installed_at": "2026-04-04T05:00:00Z",
"workflows": ["autoloop", "sync-branches"]
}
```

This gives the upgrade tooling a baseline commit to diff against, so it can show exactly what changed upstream since the last install/upgrade.

## Implementation plan

### Phase 1: Version tracking + `gh aw upgrade` CLI

1. Add version metadata to `gh aw add` — when installing, write `.autoloop-version.json` (or equivalent) recording the source commit.
2. Implement `gh aw upgrade --check` — compares installed commit against upstream HEAD, shows changelog.
3. Implement `gh aw upgrade --fix` — fetches upstream, three-way merges preserving local customizations, recompiles.

### Phase 2: `upgrade-check` agentic workflow

1. Add `workflows/upgrade-check.md` to the autoloop repo.
2. Include it in the install process (add to `install.md`).
3. The workflow uses `gh aw upgrade --fix` internally, then creates a PR with the result.

### Phase 3: Breaking change detection

1. Define a schema for the frontmatter DSL (what fields exist, what values are valid).
2. Classify upstream diffs against this schema to detect breaking vs non-breaking changes.
3. For breaking changes the agent can't auto-fix, create an issue instead of a PR, explaining what needs manual attention.

## Open questions

- Should the upgrade workflow run as a gh-aw agentic workflow itself, or as a plain GitHub Actions workflow? An agentic workflow can reason about breaking changes and adapt, but a plain workflow is simpler and doesn't consume agent compute for routine updates.
- Should local customizations be extracted into a separate config file (e.g., `.autoloop/config.yml`) to make three-way merging cleaner? This would separate "upstream workflow logic" from "local overrides."
- How to handle the case where the user has made significant manual edits to the `.md` source beyond simple config overrides?

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