Tutorial: Process Report — adopting-updates (check-only), 2026-06-27

Process Report — adopting-updates (check-only), 2026-06-27

date: 2026-06-27 procedure: adopting-updates node: random-ai-prompt outcome: completed (check-only — nothing to adopt) hub_version: 0.9.5 hub_commit: 316ed8a

Process Report — adopting-updates (check-only), 2026-06-27

A full, honest account of running a fairyfox system procedure. The point is to improve the system — so say what was rough even if the run succeeded. Voice: direct, matter-of-fact, no hype. Standard: ../reference/process-reports.md.

Outcome in one line

Unattended scheduled "check for updates" run. Refreshed the read-only hub clone and diffed it against the last-adopted state — hub/standards/ and hub/templates/ are unchanged, so there is nothing to adopt. Reported and stopped (no apply). Separately noticed the project repo is sitting in a half-finished merge with conflicts — flagged for the owner, not touched.

What was done

  1. Refreshed the read-only hub clone at assets/references/fairyfox.io/. --ff-only refused again because upstream dev had been force-pushed (6777a73 → 316ed8a); recovered with git fetch + git reset --hard origin/dev on the mirror only (disposable, git-ignored reference clone — no project history touched).
  2. The last adopt (run 3, 2026-06-26) was from hub 6777a73, which was exactly the clone HEAD before this refresh. Re-fetched 6777a73 (still on the remote) so a precise old→new git diff was possible rather than a blind file compare.
  3. Diffed 6777a73 → 316ed8a:
    • hub/standards/ — no changes.
    • hub/templates/ — no changes.
    • hub/authorizations.yml — no changes (the standing express-auth ledger entry from 2026-06-26 is intact and unaffected).
    • The only churn in the 0.9.4 → 0.9.5 bump is hub-side metadata: hub VERSION, _data/projects.yml, _data/pulse.yml, _docs/random-ai-prompt.md, _projects/random-ai-prompt.md, about.md, a blog post, hub/.last-seen.yml, and the hub's own notes (its notes/sessions, status.md, version). None of that is a standard or template this project adopts — it's the hub reconciling its registry/blog to reflect Random AI Prompt 2.7.25.
  4. Verified the main repo working tree (the clone is git-ignored, so my refresh did not dirty it). It is not clean — see below.

Nothing was applied. No VERSION bump, no commit, no main release.

What went well

  • The last-adopted commit was still on the remote, so the old→new diff was exact — far better than guessing. Confirmed an empty diff on standards/templates with certainty.
  • Clean, fast no-op: one hub version (0.9.4 → 0.9.5) and it was purely hub housekeeping.

What went wrong / friction

  • --ff-only failed on a hub force-push again — same friction the last three reports flagged. The documented refresh command still hits fatal: Not possible to fast-forward, aborting every time hub dev is force-pushed (which is evidently the norm). The git fetch + reset --hard origin/dev on the reference clone only fallback is what actually works; it still deserves to be a first-class step in the runbook, not a parenthetical.
  • The project repo is mid-merge with unresolved conflicts (pre-existing, unrelated to this run). MERGE_HEAD = 3e52812, MERGE_MSG = "Merge feature/online-build into dev (2.7.29): stripped Generate-only online variant". Conflicted (UU/AA) paths: VERSION, engine-v3/gui/src/App.jsx, engine-v3/package.json, notes/status.md, notes/version/2026-06.md, notes/sessions/2026-06/2026-06-27.md; plus an untracked engine-v3/scripts/list-cleanup/out/. Local dev is 6 commits ahead of origin/dev. This is the owner's in-progress work — left completely untouched. An unattended fairyfox check has no business resolving a merge, and hard git-safety rules forbid it.

Suggestions / feedback

  • Promote the force-push refresh fallback to a literal numbered step in cross-project-sync.md / adopting-updates.md. Three consecutive runs have now hit it.
  • A check-only run should sanity-check the node's own working-tree state and surface anything alarming (mid-merge, detached HEAD, conflicts) in its report even though it's out of fairyfox scope — a scheduled run is exactly when a half-finished merge would otherwise go unnoticed.

Environment

Windows + PowerShell (bash sandbox banned in this repo for false-truncation risk). Repo is a fairyfox node whose notes/, CLAUDE.md, VERSION, and assets/references/ live at the repo root, with the engine + SPA under engine-v3/. On branch dev, currently in a conflicted in-progress merge (owner's work, untouched by this run).