Deploy Pipeline

How code gets from source to a running bridge.

Quick reference

# Full deploy (build + stage + restart)
abtars update

# Restart without rebuild
abtars restart

# Cold restart (starts supervisor if dead)
abtars restart --cold

What abtars update does

1. Build — npm run build (TypeScript → dist/)
2. Stage — copies built artifacts + persona + CLIs + skills to ~/.abtars/
3. Doctor — runs abtars doctor --fix (permissions, stale locks, missing dirs)
4. Restart — signals the bridge to restart (warm or cold)

What gets deployed

Source	Target	Contents
dist/	~/.abtars/current/	Compiled JS
persona/core/	~/.abtars/core/	SOUL, TOOLS, profiles (never overwrites newer)
persona/prompts/	~/.abtars/prompts/	Prompt templates
persona/skills/	~/.abtars/skills/core/	Core skills
persona/agents/	~/.abtars/agents/	Sub-agent rules
persona/tasks/	~/.abtars/tasks/	Task descriptions
src/cli/abtars-*.ts	~/.local/bin/abtars-*	CLI tools
scripts/watchdog.sh	~/.abtars/watchdog.sh	External watchdog

All copies use safe_cp — never overwrites a file that's newer in production.

Restart modes

Mode	How	When to use
Warm	Writes restartRequested to bridge.lock → heartbeat reads → process.exit(0) → supervisor respawns	Normal deploys
Cold	Same as warm if bridge alive. If dead: starts supervisor directly.	After crashes, first boot

Deploy to remote (Molty)

# From WSL — full deploy to Mac mini
cd ~/abmind && git pull --ff-only origin dev && npm run build
cd ~/abtars && git fetch origin dev && git checkout <commit>
node esbuild.config.js && abtars update --from-local

Use git checkout <commit> (moves HEAD) — the release version is derived from git rev-parse --short HEAD.

Doctor on every boot

The watchdog runs doctor.sh --fix before every bridge spawn:

watchdog.sh → doctor.sh --fix → node current/main.js

Doctor auto-fixes: permissions, missing dirs, stale locks, unloaded supervisor. If it can't fix something, it warns but doesn't block startup.

Platform enablement

.env is the single source of truth for which components start:

TELEGRAM_ENABLED=true
DISCORD_ENABLED=true
IRC_ENABLED=false
ENABLE_DASHBOARD=true
ENABLE_AGENT_API=true

No CLI flags needed for normal operation. Watchdog service files should pass NO args to the bridge.

Rollback

abtars rollback    # Restores previous release from ~/.abtars/previous/