vellum-migration-checklist

name	vellum-migration-checklist
description	Validate Vellum Assistant database and workspace migrations. Use when adding, editing, reviewing, or testing migrations, release-note migrations, persisted schemas, workspace file formats, or data backfills.

Vellum Migration Checklist

When A Migration Is Required

Use a migration for shipped interfaces and persisted data:

• DB schema changes, indexes, backfills, or persisted row shape changes.
• Workspace file renames, moves, format changes, or namespace changes.
• Stored config or data that existing installs must keep reading.

Do not delete migration files. Migrations are append-only, even when their logic becomes obsolete.

DB Migrations

For DB migrations:

1. Add a new file under assistant/src/memory/migrations/.
2. Make it idempotent and safe to retry after interruption.
3. Register it in the migration index or registry used by DB init.
4. Update schema modules if the runtime schema changed.
5. Add or update a focused db-*migration*.test.ts test.

Check for ordering drift and never reorder existing migrations.

Workspace Migrations

For workspace migrations:

1. Add a new numbered file under assistant/src/workspace/migrations/.
2. Append it to WORKSPACE_MIGRATIONS in assistant/src/workspace/migrations/registry.ts.
3. Make the migration idempotent.
4. Add or update a focused workspace-migration-*.test.ts test.

Never reuse or reorder existing migration IDs.

Release Notes Migrations

There is currently no release-note surfacing mechanism. The update-bulletin feature (workspace migrations appending to a workspace bulletin file, processed by a background conversation at daemon startup) was removed. Do not add new 0XX-release-notes-* workspace migrations — the historical set is frozen by workspace-release-notes-feature-flag-guard.test.ts. If a release needs user-facing notes, design an explicit on-demand surfacing mechanism first.

Verification

Run the focused migration test first. Add package typecheck when migration exports, schema types, or registry wiring changed:

cd assistant && bun test src/__tests__/workspace-migration-example.test.ts
cd assistant && bun test src/__tests__/db-example-migrations.test.ts
cd assistant && bunx tsc --noEmit

Replace example paths with the actual test files related to the change.