modelstudioai / modelstudioai/cli

Allow opting out of auto-update and of the automatic `bl skill init` after updates

Open
#200 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
333
Forks
28
Avg merge
1d 9h
Merged PRs (30d)
33

Description

bl currently self-updates silently and then unconditionally re-runs bl skill init, with no persistent way to opt out of either step.

What happens

  1. Any command (e.g. a scheduled bl usage token-plan) triggers shouldAutoUpdate() when the installed version is a major behind, or more than 3 minors behind (packages/runtime/src/utils/update-checker.ts). It then runs npm install -g bailian-cli@latest in the middle of the user's command.
  2. On success, syncAgentSkillsAfterUpdate() runs bl skill init, which symlinks every bailian-* skill into every detected agent directory (~/.claude/skills, ~/.codex/skills, ~/.config/opencode/skills, ~/.pi/agent/skills, ~/.agents/skills, …). bl update does the same via updateAgentSkill() (packages/commands/src/commands/update.ts).
  3. The only gate is ctx.settings.quiet, which comes from the per-invocation --quiet flag and is not a config.json key (packages/core/src/config/loader.ts), so it cannot be made persistent. bl skill init itself has no flags to limit targets.

Why this is a problem

Users who manage their agent skill directories elsewhere (dotfiles, a config-as-code repo) have their removals silently reverted on the next update. In my case 10 skills I had removed came back into five agent homes because a cron-style quota probe happened to run after 1.24.0 was published (telemetry: skill init at 2026-09-11T13:48:04Z, cliVersion 1.24.0, immediately after an in-flight 1.20.0 usage token-plan).

Request

Two independent, persistent switches (config.json key and/or env var), e.g.:

  • BAILIAN_AUTO_UPDATE=0 / "auto_update": false — never run npm install -g implicitly; only print the "update available" notice.
  • BAILIAN_SKILL_SYNC=0 / "skill_sync": false — never run bl skill init implicitly after an update (both the auto path and bl update).

Optionally, bl skill init --agent <list> so the sync can be scoped even when enabled.

Environment: bl 1.24.0, npm global install, macOS 26.6, node v26.8.2.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with packages/runtime/src/utils/update-checker.ts and packages/core/src/config/loader.ts to trace automatic updates and persistent settings, then inspect packages/commands/src/commands/update.ts and the bl skill init entry point. Verify the two switches independently prevent implicit npm updates and skill synchronization while preserving the update notice and explicit skill initialization behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
nodejs, typescript
Domain
cli, developer-experience, tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
63/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.