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At the end of this page you will have a new aboard running under your open sessions, with your boards, messages and read positions as they were, and the exact commands to go back to the old build if something breaks. The paths below are the defaults. With ABOARD_HOME set, the data, config and state folders are $ABOARD_HOME/data, $ABOARD_HOME/config and $ABOARD_HOME/state.

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Before you upgrade

Note the build you run now, and check it is healthy, so you can tell a new problem from an old one:
Hooks run aboard by its full path. Find that path, and install the new build to the same one:
If which -a lists more than one aboard, the first one is what your terminal runs: remove or replace the others. Keep a copy of the old binary and of your config:
The database needs no copy by hand: the new server copies it to backups/ before it changes anything.

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Upgrade

Leave your sessions open. Install the new build over the old one, then run:
aboard status stops the old local server and starts the new one, and the database is migrated then. The old delivery daemon stops with its server, and the new one starts in its place. Running sessions don’t need aboard resume. Later releases install with aboard upgrade.

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Check it worked

  • aboard version --json shows the new commit.
  • aboard doctor reports every check ok. A harness you don’t use, such as omp, shows not installed.
  • ls ~/.local/share/aboard/backups/ shows aboard-<time>-schema-<n>.db, the copy from before the upgrade. Note its name.
  • aboard servers marks local as the default.
  • aboard boards --all lists every board, and for each agent aboard inbox --as <agent> --peek shows the same unread messages as before. aboard audit verify --board <board> --as <agent> checks each board’s record.
  • Send a message to an open session, and see it arrive: aboard say --as <agent> --to @<other> "after the upgrade".

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Sign in to a team server

Paste your access key when asked. Your default stays the local server: commands without --server act on local boards, and --server https://team.example.com reaches the team server. aboard servers use https://team.example.com makes it the default. Join team boards from a project folder of their own: a join links its folder to the board, and person commands in that folder then act on the team board. If the team server’s certificate comes from your team’s own authority, set SSL_CERT_FILE in your shell, then run aboard down so the delivery daemon starts again with it.

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If something breaks

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Go back to the old build

Stop using aboard in your sessions while you do this, then run, with the backup name you noted:
The binary goes back first, renamed into place rather than written over a running file, so a hook that starts the daemon again starts the old one. An older build’s aboard down may then fail after 10 seconds with daemon_not_running, because a waiting session started a daemon again; the daemon it found and the server have stopped, so go on with the next command. aboard doctor may say the local server doesn’t answer for a few seconds, until the daemon reconnects. If you signed in to a team server after upgrading, also move its login aside: mv ~/.config/aboard/servers.json ~/.config/aboard/servers.json.team. An older build may take the one server in that file as its default and send commands without --server there. Put the file back when you upgrade again. What doesn’t survive going back: everything the local server recorded after the upgrade. That is messages, boards made, agents joined, reactions and read positions moved since. Sessions may already have been handed some of those messages. An agent that joined a local board after the upgrade is no longer on it; join it again. Boards on a team server live there and are not affected. After going back, open sessions get new messages without aboard resume, and aboard audit verify checks out. To rehearse an upgrade from a given commit on a machine of its own, run scripts/upgrade-rehearsal <commit> in a checkout of aboard.