Updates

Installed with npm, pnpm or bun, SkillPouch updates itself: it asks the npm registry for the latest version and installs it with the same package manager you used.

When it looks

Where	How often it asks the registry
The dashboard (skillpouch)	Every time it opens. It opens at once and updates behind it, then offers to restart.
The background sync	Hourly. It installs the new version and starts over with it.
Commands at a terminal (skillpouch sync, …)	At most every 6 hours, so commands stay quick. It updates first, then runs your command with the new version.

Commands run from a script or a pipe, skillpouch status --json, skillpouch logout, skillpouch unlink and the daemon commands never update. Pre-releases are never installed. A version that failed to install is tried again a day later; until then the dashboard says it’s out and shows the command to install it by hand.

What’s never updated

• Builds from source (cargo build): only copies installed by a package manager update themselves.
• One-off runs with npx, pnpm dlx or bunx.

Windows

Windows won’t replace a program while it runs. The background sync doesn’t update itself there; the dashboard and commands stop the background sync, install the new version and start it again. If SkillPouch is still in use elsewhere, it says so: quit it and run the install command it shows, for example npm i -g skillpouch.

Turning updates off

In config.toml:

auto_update = false

or for one shell or service, with any non-empty value:

export SKILLPOUCH_NO_UPDATE=1

Then update by hand with the command you installed it with:

npm i -g skillpouch

Permission errors

If the package manager needs administrator rights to install globally (npm with a system-wide prefix, for example), the update fails and SkillPouch prints the package manager’s error and the command to run by hand. Installing Node with a version manager, or setting an npm prefix in your home folder, avoids this.