BaseProject Update Skill

When to Activate

Activate this skill when:

• Updating an existing BaseProject installation to latest
• Syncing skills or AgentUsage docs with upstream
• User says "update baseproject", "sync baseproject", or invokes /baseproject-update
• Refreshing project templates after upstream changes

Prerequisites

• Project already has BaseProject installed (.claude/skills/ and/or AgentUsage/ exist)
• Git repository is clean (commit or stash changes first)

Update Workflow

Execute these steps in order:

Step 1: Verify Current State

# Confirm BaseProject is installed
ls .claude/skills/ AgentUsage/ AGENT.md 2>/dev/null

# Ensure git is clean
git status --porcelain

If git is dirty, warn the user and ask them to commit or stash first.

Step 2: Clone Latest BaseProject

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AutumnsGrove/BaseProject.git /tmp/bp-update

Step 3: Create Backup

BACKUP_DIR=".baseproject-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)"
mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR"
cp -r .claude/skills/ "$BACKUP_DIR/skills-backup/" 2>/dev/null
cp -r AgentUsage/ "$BACKUP_DIR/AgentUsage-backup/" 2>/dev/null
cp AGENT.md "$BACKUP_DIR/AGENT.md.backup" 2>/dev/null

Step 4: Sync Skills

Compare .claude/skills/ with /tmp/bp-update/.claude/skills/:

• Add new skill directories that don't exist locally
• Update existing skills where upstream content has changed
• Preserve unchanged skills (skip if identical)
• Report: added, updated, unchanged counts

Step 5: Sync AgentUsage Docs

Compare AgentUsage/ with /tmp/bp-update/AgentUsage/:

• Add new files/directories from upstream
• Update existing files where upstream content has changed
• Preserve custom files that only exist locally (user additions)
• Preserve unchanged files (skip if identical)
• Report: added, updated, unchanged, custom-preserved counts

Step 6: Merge .gitignore

# Add any new entries from upstream that aren't already present
# Never remove existing entries

Step 7: Update AGENT.md

Intelligently merge AGENT.md:

• Preserve all project-specific content (purpose, tech stack, architecture, custom sections)
• Update BaseProject template sections (skills list, workflow references, tool instructions)
• Add any new template sections from upstream
• Use content analysis to distinguish template boilerplate from custom project content

Step 8: Cleanup

rm -rf /tmp/bp-update

Step 9: Commit

git add .claude/skills/ AgentUsage/ .gitignore AGENT.md
git commit -m "chore: sync BaseProject skills, docs, and agent config"

Step 10: Display Summary

Show:

• Skills: added/updated/unchanged with full list of available skills
• AgentUsage: added/updated/unchanged/custom-preserved
• .gitignore: entries added (if any)
• AGENT.md: sections updated (if any)
• Backup location

What Gets Updated

Target	Action
.claude/skills/	Sync all skills from upstream
AgentUsage/	Sync docs, preserve custom files
.gitignore	Merge new entries
AGENT.md	Merge template sections, preserve custom content

What Is NOT Touched

• README.md - Your project README
• TODOS.md - Your task tracking reference (points to GitHub Issues)
• secrets.json / secrets_template.json - Your secrets
• pyproject.toml / package.json / go.mod - Language configs
• src/ / tests/ - Your source code
• Git hooks - Not installed or modified
• House agents - Not installed or modified

Troubleshooting

Clone fails

# If GitHub is unreachable, try with a local copy:
# cp -r /path/to/local/BaseProject /tmp/bp-update

Merge conflicts in AGENT.md

If AGENT.md structure is too different to merge cleanly:

1. Keep the user's version
2. Append new sections at the end with a marker comment
3. Let the user reorganize manually

Backup recovery

# Restore from backup if something went wrong
cp -r .baseproject-backup-*/skills-backup/ .claude/skills/
cp -r .baseproject-backup-*/AgentUsage-backup/ AgentUsage/
cp .baseproject-backup-*/AGENT.md.backup AGENT.md