Beta Channel — Thrum

Thrum Beta Channel

Every Thrum release goes through a soak window as -rc.N (release candidate) before being promoted to stable. Beta users help catch regressions before they hit releases/latest. This guide covers how to opt in, what to expect, and how to report what you find.

Current pre-release: v0.10.3-rc.6 (tagged 2026-05-12, in soak). Highlights: codex plugin first-class, post-launch tmux silence watchdog, first-launch trust-gate detection, self-echo nudge fix. rc.6 closes the CLI half of the cross-worktree-misidentification fix from rc.5. The CLI now prefers cwd-anchored identity over THRUM_* env vars; env vars are fallback hints used only when cwd has no thrum worktree. Stale env from a parent shell can no longer override the worktree the user is actually in. Full notes: What's New and the CHANGELOG [Unreleased] section. To install: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonletto/thrum/main/scripts/install.sh | VERSION=v0.10.3-rc.6 sh.

What this is

When a new version is ready for soak, the coordinator cuts a release/vX.Y.Z branch and tags vX.Y.Z-rc.1. GoReleaser publishes that tag as a GitHub prerelease — separate from the stable releases page. RCs sit in soak for at least 48 hours, get exercised in 3+ real projects, and only graduate to stable once zero P0/P1 bugs are open against them.

You can opt into running these RCs at any time. Doing so gives you the release a few days early in exchange for being on the leading edge.

What to expect

RCs may have known issues. The whole point of soak is to surface problems; don't be surprised if you hit one.
Daemon migrations may need additional re-soak. A bugfix that touches daemon, sync, identity, migration, or storage projection paths re-starts a full 48h soak window. Less risky areas (CLI, hooks, docs) re-soak for 24h.
Report what you find. The faster a bug is filed, the faster the next rc.N rolls.
Stable users are unaffected. If you don't opt into the beta channel, nothing changes for you.

How to install an RC

The curl install path supports a VERSION= env var for opting into a specific tag, including prereleases. Place VERSION= on the sh side of the pipe, not the curl side — otherwise the variable is set on the curl process and the script never sees it (it falls back to latest):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonletto/thrum/main/scripts/install.sh | VERSION=vX.Y.Z-rc.N sh

To find the current RC tag, browse the GitHub releases page and look for entries marked Pre-release. The RC pattern is vX.Y.Z-rc.N (e.g. v0.11.0-rc.2).

After installing, restart the daemon so it picks up the new binary:

thrum daemon restart
thrum version

How to upgrade between RCs

When a new rc.N drops (e.g. rc.1 → rc.2 because a bugfix landed), re-run the same command with the new VERSION:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonletto/thrum/main/scripts/install.sh | VERSION=vX.Y.Z-rc.N sh
thrum daemon restart

You don't need to uninstall the previous RC first — the install script overwrites the binary in place.

How to roll back to stable

Before opting into the beta channel for the first time, take a backup of your .thrum/ state directory in case you need to revert:

cp -r .thrum .thrum.pre-rc-$(date +%F)

To roll back, install the previous stable version (use vX.Y.Z without the -rc.N suffix) and restart the daemon:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonletto/thrum/main/scripts/install.sh | VERSION=v0.10.2 sh
thrum daemon restart

If you've created data on an RC and want to revert, restoring .thrum/ from your pre-RC backup is the safe path (see Data safety below).

Data safety

Rollback across a migration is not guaranteed. We test downgrade as part of every release's test cycle on a best-effort basis, but if you've created data on an RC and want to revert, restoring from your pre-RC backup is the safe path.

# Restore from backup (created before opting into beta)
mv .thrum .thrum.rc-discarded
cp -r .thrum.pre-rc-2026-05-01 .thrum
thrum daemon restart

If a specific RC's downgrade test failed during pre-release, the failure mode will be called out in that release's notes. Always read the release notes for the RC you're installing.

Reporting bugs

File RC bugs at the GitHub issue tracker with the rc-feedback label preset:

https://github.com/leonletto/thrum/issues/new?labels=rc-feedback

Include:

RC version — output of thrum --version
Daemon version — output of thrum daemon status --json | jq -r .version
Operating system — uname -a or equivalent
Reproduction steps — minimum sequence of commands that triggers the bug. If the bug is intermittent, note how often you've seen it
What you expected vs. what happened

The rc-feedback label is what the coordinator filters on when triaging during soak — labelled issues block promotion at P0/P1; unlabelled bug reports may not be seen until after stable ships.

Leaving the beta channel

When you're done testing, install the latest stable and restart the daemon. You're done — no further configuration needed:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/leonletto/thrum/main/scripts/install.sh | sh
thrum daemon restart
thrum version

Stable releases come without a -rc.N suffix. Once you're back on stable, you'll only receive non-prerelease updates until you opt back in with a specific VERSION=.

Note for Homebrew users

The beta channel is curl-only. The Homebrew tap doesn't carry prereleases — homebrew_casks.skip_upload: auto in .goreleaser.yaml keeps RCs off the tap so brew upgrade thrum only ever moves you between stable releases.

If you usually install via brew install leonletto/tap/thrum and want to test an RC, run the curl command above; the install script writes to ~/.local/bin/thrum, which takes precedence over the Homebrew binary on most PATH setups. To return to the Homebrew-managed binary, remove the local copy and run brew upgrade thrum.