Machine Parity Check

Quick cross-machine runtime state comparison between laptop and Mac mini.

When to Use

• "Are my machines in sync?" — run parity-check.sh
• After pushing agent-config changes (verify the dual-push landed)
• After upgrading pi, claude, codex, openclaw, or node on one machine
• After pi install or pi uninstall on either machine
• When debugging behavior differences between machines

How to Run

# Human-readable output (default)
~/.agent-config/scripts/parity-check.sh

# JSON output for agent consumption
~/.agent-config/scripts/parity-check.sh --json

What It Checks

Category	Checks
Agent infra	pi version, pi packages, agent-config HEAD/branch, pi-messenger version/branch/source, openclaw version
Core tools	node, claude, codex versions
Homebrew	All 20 Brewfile packages installed on both machines

Understanding the Output

Verdict	Meaning	Action
PASS	Both machines have the same value	None needed
DRIFT	Values differ between machines	Update the behind machine
DRIFT (expected)	Values differ but this is intentional (e.g., pi_packages)	Informational only
MISSING (local/remote)	Tool/package not installed on one side	Install on the missing side

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	All PASS or DRIFT (expected) — machines are in sync
1	Unexpected DRIFT or MISSING detected
2	SSH connectivity failure or timeout
3	Missing dependency (jq for --json)

JSON Output for Agents

# Parse with jq
~/.agent-config/scripts/parity-check.sh --json | jq '.[] | select(.verdict != "PASS")'

Each entry has: check, local, remote, verdict.

Common DRIFT Fixes

Check	Fix
pi_version	ssh mini-ts "pi upgrade" or npm update -g @mariozechner/pi-coding-agent
claude_version	ssh mini-ts "claude update"
codex_version	ssh mini-ts "npm update -g @openai/codex"
openclaw_version	Rebuild and deploy openclaw on the behind machine
agent_config_head	Push should auto-sync via dual-push; if stuck, ssh mini-ts "cd ~/.agent-config && git pull"
brew:* MISSING	ssh mini-ts "brew install <package>"

Boundary with agent-config-parity

Two parity tools exist — each with a different scope:

Tool	Scope	Use When
parity-check.sh (this)	Runtime state — tool versions, git state, Homebrew	"Are my machines running the same stuff?"
agent-config-parity	Config surface — symlinks, paths, managed surfaces	"Are my config files wired correctly?"

Known Limitations

• pi list format dependency: If pi changes its output format, the pi-messenger path extraction may break. The script falls back to MISSING (not crash).
• openclaw pre-release suffixes: Compared as raw strings. 2026.3.9 vs 2026.3.9-beta.1 correctly shows DRIFT.
• pi_packages intentional drift: Packages differ by design (laptop has more). Shown as DRIFT (expected), doesn't affect exit code.