FAQ

A command line tool that applies update strategies described in a manifest. The manifest declares what to update, where, and under which conditions; Updatecli reads it and does the work.

It needs no server and no database (the manifest and the files it updates are the only state). The "Introduction" page covers the model in full.

Both, in sequence. Each pipeline pulls a value from somewhere (a registry, a Git repository, an API), checks the conditions you declared, and only then writes that value where it belongs.

Almost never (but there is one exception worth knowing).

A shell target runs your command in both modes. Updatecli cannot know what a script does, so it exports DRY_RUN=true and leaves the decision to the script. A script that ignores DRY_RUN will write during a diff.

Anything that reads from GitHub needs a token, and anything that writes needs one with write access. Updatecli looks in this order:

The "Environment variables" page lists all of them. If you get no access token found, see the "Troubleshooting" page.

Usually because nothing needed changing, which is the expected outcome most of the time. The other common causes are a condition that did not pass, --commit=false or --push=false, or a filter such as --pipeline-ids narrowing the run.

Run again with --debug to see which. The "Nothing happened" section walks through each case.

Most likely it is waiting out a GitHub rate limit rather than hanging. When the limit is reached Updatecli retries, then sleeps until the window resets, logging:

See "Rate limiting".

Docker Hub limits how many manifests you may pull, and an unauthenticated run burns through that allowance quickly. The "Docker Hub rate limit" page explains the limits and how to stay under them.

Yes, but pass --unique-tmp-dir. By default every instance shares $TMPDIR/updatecli, so two runs cloning the same repository will fight over the same directory. The flag gives each run its own.

Under $TMPDIR/updatecli, with bin/ and report/ beneath it. --clean removes the directory at the end of a run.