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Quern

Update Channels

Quern ships on two channels. stable is the default and tracks tagged releases. beta is opt-in, and gets the same content earlier — usually days to a couple of weeks ahead — so problems are found before they reach everyone.

If you never think about channels, you are on stable, and that is the right place to be.

Which channel am I on?

Section titled “Which channel am I on?”
Terminal window
quern set-channel

With no argument it prints the current channel and the branch it tracks, plus the valid names:

Current update channel: stable (tracks origin/release/stable)
Valid channels: stable, beta

You can also just ask Claude — “what’s my Quern channel?” — since the channel and update status come back with ensure_server in the normal course of a session.

Switching to beta

Section titled “Switching to beta”
Terminal window
quern set-channel beta
quern update

Both steps are needed. set-channel writes your preference to ~/.quern/config.json and nothing else: it does not switch branches, download anything, or change the running server. The next quern update is what actually moves you.

What that update does depends on how you installed Quern:

  • Installed with the install script (tarball): the updater compares the newest prerelease against the newest stable release and takes whichever is actually newer, so you are never served older content than a stable user. Between beta cycles that usually means you are on the same build as stable — which is the point, not a fault. Until 0.18.1 it simply took the newest prerelease, which after a few stable releases meant beta users were offered a downgrade.

  • Installed as a git clone: your checkout has to be on the branch your channel tracks — release/beta for beta. Any other branch, including main, is treated the same way: quern update tells you how far ahead the release branch is, prints the exact git checkout to run, and applies nothing.

    Terminal window
    git checkout release/beta
    quern update

    It will not move your workspace for you, by design — silently switching branches under someone’s uncommitted work is not a trade Quern makes.

Switching back

Section titled “Switching back”
Terminal window
quern set-channel stable
quern update

Mid beta cycle the newest stable can be older than the beta build you are running, and that move is allowed — it is the one time an update deliberately goes backwards. Any other backwards move is refused, because the only thing that produces one is the channel resolving the wrong release, and a silent downgrade is how you end up on a stale build without noticing.

On a tarball install that is all of it. On a git clone you also have to move the checkout back, because set-channel changes your preference and nothing else — a clone left sitting on release/beta will keep being told it is on the wrong branch rather than being returned to stable:

Terminal window
quern set-channel stable
git checkout release/stable
quern update

Stable is always a safe target: stable releases are cut from content that has already been through beta, so going back does not mean losing fixes you were relying on.

What to expect on beta

Section titled “What to expect on beta”

Beta is where a release is checked against real projects before it is tagged. In practice that means you see fixes sooner and you are the one who finds anything that was missed. If you use Quern daily on work you care about, stable is the better default. If you would rather catch a regression early — and are willing to report it — beta is genuinely useful, and switching back takes two commands.

The daily update notice respects your channel, so on beta it tells you about beta releases rather than nagging you toward stable.

You do not have to wait for it. quern check-updates asks now, and the Quern app has Check for Updates for the same thing — worth knowing on beta, where releases land closer together than the once-a-day check. Both keep working even if you turn the automatic check off.

Running an update refreshes that answer itself, so the notice does not go on offering a version you have already installed. It asks rather than assuming: the run knows what it pulled, but not whether the channel moved again while it was working, and a checkout sitting behind its release branch has a real update outstanding after a run that did nothing. If the refresh cannot reach the network the previous answer is left alone and the next automatic check is not suppressed — an update that could not confirm anything should not buy a day of silence.