Hot Upgrade

Pilot can update itself without downtime. The upgrade mechanism depends on how you run Pilot.

Daemon Mode (Zero-Downtime)

When running pilot start with the dashboard, Pilot checks for new versions every 5 minutes in the background.

When an update is available:

The dashboard shows “Update available” notification
Press u to trigger the upgrade
Pilot waits for any running tasks to complete (up to 2 minutes)
Downloads the new binary
Creates a backup of the current binary
Replaces the binary in-place
Uses syscall.Exec to replace the running process — same PID, no reconnection needed

The dashboard and all state (SQLite) persist across the upgrade. From the outside, nothing changes — the process continues with the new version.

This is a true in-process replacement. The operating system swaps the process image atomically. Telegram connections, GitHub polling, and dashboard state all resume instantly.

CLI Upgrade

Outside of daemon mode, use the pilot upgrade command:


# Check for updates
pilot upgrade check
 
# Download and install latest version
pilot upgrade
 
# Skip confirmation prompt
pilot upgrade --yes
 
# Force upgrade even if tasks are running
pilot upgrade --force

After a CLI upgrade, your next pilot command uses the new binary automatically. No restart needed.

Rollback

If an upgrade causes issues, rollback to the previous version:


pilot upgrade rollback

This restores the backup created during the upgrade. Backups are stored alongside the binary with a .backup suffix.

Homebrew Limitation

Homebrew installations cannot use pilot upgrade or hot-upgrade. Homebrew manages the binary location (/opt/homebrew/Cellar/...), and Pilot detects this and blocks self-update to avoid conflicts with Homebrew’s package management.

For Homebrew users:


brew upgrade pilot

To switch to self-managed installation (enables hot-upgrade):


brew uninstall pilot
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alekspetrov/pilot/main/install.sh | bash

How It Works

Method	Binary Location	Upgrade Command	Zero-Downtime	Auto-Check
curl install	`~/.local/bin/pilot`	`pilot upgrade` or press `u`	Yes (daemon mode)	Every 5 min
From source	Custom path	`pilot upgrade` or press `u`	Yes (daemon mode)	Every 5 min
Homebrew	`/opt/homebrew/Cellar/...`	`brew upgrade pilot`	No	No

The version checker fetches the latest release from the GitHub Releases API. It compares semantic versions to determine if an update is available and includes release notes in the dashboard notification.