Updates and release channels

The Workroom app updates itself. This page explains how updates reach you, how to choose between stable and pre-release builds, and how the separate Nightly app and the workroom command-line tool are updated.

How the app updates

Workroom checks for updates in the background and tells you when one is ready. The app is signed and notarized by Apple, and it is updated with Sparkle.

• Workroom ▸ Check for Updates… checks right now. It is also in Settings ▸ About as Check for Updates….
• Settings ▸ About ▸ Automatically check for updates turns the background checks on or off.
• When an update is waiting, an Update button appears in the title bar. Click it to open the update prompt, then confirm the install there. While it downloads, the button reads Updating….

Settings ▸ About also has View release notes, which opens the releases page on GitHub. See also Release notes.

Checks after launchNightly

Automatic update checks start after the first window appears. Check for Updates… still checks immediately when you choose it.

Updating keeps your terminalsNightly

Next to the Update button, a short note scrolls past: Safe to update: workroom terminals and run commands keep running. The Quick Terminal stops. Terminals and run commands in your workrooms keep their sessions across the update, whatever you chose for quitting with dev servers running. The Quick Terminal has no session to keep.

Release channels

The Workroom app follows one of two channels. Choose it in Settings ▸ About ▸ Release channel:

• Stable is the default. You get finished releases only.
• Pre-release adds betas and release candidates. You get whichever is newer, a pre-release or a stable release.

The choice applies to the next update check. Workroom does not run a check when you change it. The Nightly app does not show the setting, because its channel is fixed.

Nightly

Nightly is not a channel you switch to. It is a separate app, Workroom Nightly, built every day from the latest work on the master branch. It has its own name and its own violet icon, and it runs alongside your regular Workroom. A Nightly build can have features that are not in a stable release yet. The docs mark them with a Nightly badge.

To get it, download workroom-macos-app_nightly.dmg from the releases page on GitHub, on the pre-release tagged nightly. Its title is the current Nightly version. Workroom Nightly updates itself from its own feed, so it only ever moves to a newer Nightly build.

Nightly builds are numbered like 2.2.0-nightly.1234, where the last number counts commits, so a later build always has a higher number.

The Nightly command-line tool

Nightly also has its own command-line tool, workroom-nightly. It installs next to workroom and does not replace it. It updates itself within Nightly.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joelmoss/workroom/master/install.sh | WORKROOM_CHANNEL=nightly sh

Update the command-line tool

The workroom command-line tool has its own workroom update:

workroom update                # install the latest build on your channel
workroom update --check        # only report whether an update is available
workroom update --channel pre  # switch to the pre channel and install its latest build

--channel accepts stable or pre and remembers your choice for later runs. Switching to a lower channel installs that channel's current build, even when that is an older version. It tells you when it does. Downloads are checked against the release's checksums.txt before the old binary is replaced. See workroom update.

workroom update --channel nightly is refused. Install workroom-nightly as above instead.

A workroom that is bundled inside the macOS app is managed by the app. Use Check for Updates… there. A build made from source cannot update itself. To put the command on your PATH from the app, choose Workroom ▸ Install ‘workroom’ Command in PATH….