Files
omarchycn/docs/migrations.md
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David Heinemeier HanssonandClaude Opus 5 03902f2460 Never notify about pending migrations during an update
The retired omarchy-update-user-notify.path stays loaded in sessions that
started before the update removing it, and pacman writes the migrations
directory mid-transaction, so it fired a critical toast for migrations that
omarchy-migrate was about to apply a step later. Migration 1785095882 stops
that watcher, but migrations run after pacman, so it lands 11 seconds too
late to prevent the toast it exists to retire.

Check the lock omarchy-update holds for its whole pipeline instead of
trusting that no trigger exists. That covers the stale watcher and anything
added later: during an update every pending migration is by definition
already being applied. The check repeats after waiting for the notification
server, which is long enough for an update to start underneath it.

Only this user's runtime directory is read, never the /tmp path the updater
falls back to without XDG_RUNTIME_DIR. A shared lock file belongs to whoever
created it first, so honouring it would let one user silence another user's
notification; a redundant toast is the better failure.

The sleep inhibitor now starts with the lock descriptor closed. It outlives
the step that starts it, so an update killed before restore_update_inhibitors
left it holding the flock indefinitely. That already blocked later updates,
and now that the notifier reads the same lock it would have silenced
migration notices at every login.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-27 09:41:03 -07:00

4.1 KiB

Omarchy migrations

Omarchy migrations are one-time repair scripts for existing installs. They are used when a package update needs to change state that pacman cannot safely own by itself.

Migration model

Migrations live in:

migrations/*.sh

They run as the current Omarchy user through omarchy-migrate, normally during omarchy update. A migration may touch user/session state (~/.config, ~/.local, user systemd, browser/editor prefs, DBus/session state), and may also perform machine-wide repairs when needed.

Completion state is per-user:

~/.local/state/omarchy/migrations/<migration filename>

That means every user gets a chance to run every migration. Migrations run as the user; privileged operations should invoke the appropriate helper or privilege prompt themselves. Migrations must be idempotent: if one user already applied a machine-wide repair, the same migration running for another user should detect that and no-op.

When migrations run

During omarchy update

omarchy update is the normal update path. It runs package updates, then:

omarchy-migrate
omarchy-hook post-update

omarchy-migrate waits for any active pacman transaction to finish, then runs all pending migrations for the current user in the visible update terminal.

At login

Every graphical login starts omarchy-migrate-notify.service after graphical-session.target. The notifier checks:

omarchy-migrate --pending

It stays silent while omarchy update holds its lock, since that update applies the pending migrations itself.

If that user has pending migrations, it shows a notification that opens a terminal for:

omarchy-migrate

The notifier never runs migrations silently in the background.

This is what covers users who did not run the update themselves: someone who bypassed the pacman guard with sudo env OMARCHY_ALLOW_DIRECT_PACMAN=1 pacman -Syu, and any second user on the machine, whose migration markers are per-user and therefore still missing after another user updated.

Login is the only trigger on purpose. Watching the packaged migration directory also fires during a normal omarchy update, which prompts for migrations that omarchy-migrate is about to run in the visible update terminal.

Manually

Users can safely run:

omarchy-migrate

at any time. Already-completed migrations are skipped.

Inspecting pending migrations

Use:

omarchy-migrate --pending

Exit behavior:

  • 0 — one or more migrations are pending
  • non-zero — no migrations are pending

Output is one pending migration per line:

1781158082.sh

Creating a migration

Use the helper:

omarchy-dev-add-migration --no-edit

This creates:

migrations/<unix timestamp>.sh

New migration format:

  • File permissions must be 0644 (-rw-r--r--). Migration runners execute them with bash -euo pipefail, not through executable bits.
  • No shebang line.
  • Start with an echo describing what the migration does.
  • Use $OMARCHY_PATH to reference the Omarchy directory.
  • Be idempotent. Check existing state before changing it.
  • Use helper commands such as omarchy-cmd-present, omarchy-cmd-missing, omarchy-pkg-add, omarchy-pkg-drop, omarchy-pkg-present, and omarchy-pkg-missing when appropriate.

Example:

echo "Relink Neovim theme to Omarchy current state"

theme_link="$HOME/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/theme.lua"
current_relative_target="../../../../.local/state/omarchy/current/theme/neovim.lua"

[[ -L $theme_link ]] || exit 0
ln -sfn "$current_relative_target" "$theme_link"

Testing migrations

Run a migration against a temporary home when possible:

HOME=$(mktemp -d) bash -euo pipefail migrations/<timestamp>.sh

To rerun a migration locally, remove its marker and run the migrator:

rm ~/.local/state/omarchy/migrations/<migration>.sh
omarchy-migrate

Omarchy 4.0 is upgraded through bin/omarchy-upgrade-to-quattro, not through the normal migration runner. Do not add compatibility migrations for old installer layouts; put pre-4 package-layout transition work in the upgrade command instead.