| name | ota |
| description | manage the Cowork UI update system. use when asked to check UI publish status, switch dev mode (live/bundled/production), or trigger a UI publish. |
Cowork UI Updates
Cowork's renderer UI can be updated independently from the Electron app itself. When code under src/renderer/** is pushed to main, a CI workflow automatically builds the renderer and publishes it as a downloadable bundle. Users' apps pick up new bundles on launch.
This skill helps you answer: "Are users seeing what's in our code?" and manage how your local app loads the renderer.
Key locations
| What | Path |
|---|
| Config file | ~/.anton/.env |
| OTA cache | ~/Library/Application Support/Anton/ui-cache/ |
| Published manifest | https://mindsdb.github.io/antontron-releases/latest.json |
| Publish workflow | .github/workflows/publish-ui.yml (repo: mindsdb/cowork) |
| Releases repo | mindsdb/antontron-releases |
Actions
When the user invokes /ota, determine which action they want. If unclear, default to Status.
1. Status
Default action. Answers: "Is the published UI in sync with what's in main?"
Steps:
- Read
~/.anton/.env and report the current DEV_MODE value. Explain what it means using the friendly names from the dev mode table below.
- Fetch
https://mindsdb.github.io/antontron-releases/latest.json — extract the published version (which includes a git short SHA, e.g. 2.0.4-e94e713).
- Run
git log --oneline -1 origin/main -- src/renderer/ src/shared/ package.json to get the latest commit on main that would trigger a publish.
- Compare the SHA in the published version against the SHA from step 3. Report whether they match.
- If they don't match, check if a publish workflow is currently running:
gh run list --workflow=publish-ui.yml --repo mindsdb/cowork --limit 3 and report its status.
- Check for local uncommitted or unpushed renderer changes:
git diff --stat HEAD -- src/renderer/ and git log --oneline origin/main..HEAD -- src/renderer/. If there are local changes, note that these won't be published until pushed to main.
Present the output as a markdown table with two columns. Use bold for the labels. Example:
## UI Update Status
| | |
|---|---|
| **Dev mode** | Bundled (default) -- app uses the renderer shipped in the .app |
| **Published version** | `2.0.4-e94e713` |
| **Latest on main** | `e94e713` -- "fix sidebar toggle" |
| **In sync?** | Yes |
| **Local changes** | 2 uncommitted files in `src/renderer/` *(won't reach users until pushed to main)* |
If there are CI failures, add a row:
| **Publish CI** | Last 3 runs failed -- run `/ota publish` to retry or investigate |
Rules for the status table:
- Always include Dev mode, Published version, Latest on main, and In sync rows.
- Only include Local changes row if there are actual local changes.
- Only include Publish CI row if runs have failed or are in progress.
- For "In sync?", use "Yes" or "No -- published version is N commits behind main".
- If out of sync, add a brief suggestion after the table: either wait for CI or run
/ota publish.
2. Dev Mode
Switch how the local app loads the renderer. There are three modes:
| Friendly name | DEV_MODE value | What it does |
|---|
| Live | DEV_MODE=live | Loads renderer from Vite dev server at localhost:5173. Use when actively editing renderer code -- gives you hot reload. You must have npm run dev running. |
| Bundled | DEV_MODE=full | Uses the renderer built into the .app package. Ignores any OTA updates. This is the current default when DEV_MODE is not set. |
| Production | DEV_MODE=ota | Uses the OTA update system -- downloads published bundles on launch, just like a real user would see. Use to verify that a publish worked correctly. |
Steps:
- If the user didn't specify a mode, show the current mode (read
~/.anton/.env) and present the three options with their descriptions. Ask which they'd like.
- Read
~/.anton/.env.
- If a
DEV_MODE=... line exists, replace it with the new value. If switching to Bundled and no DEV_MODE line exists, no change is needed (it's the default).
- If no
DEV_MODE line exists, append the new value.
- Write the file back, preserving all other lines.
- Confirm the change and remind the user to restart the app for it to take effect.
- If setting to Live, remind them to run
npm run dev first.
- If setting to Production, also clear the OTA cache (
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Anton/ui-cache/) so the app downloads a fresh bundle on next launch.
3. Publish
Manually trigger a UI publish. This is rarely needed since publishing happens automatically on push to main, but useful when:
- CI didn't trigger for some reason
- You want to force a re-publish of the current version
Steps:
- First, check if there's already a recent successful publish that matches main: run
gh run list --workflow=publish-ui.yml --repo mindsdb/cowork --limit 3 and show the results.
- If the latest run succeeded and matches the current main HEAD, tell the user it's already published -- no action needed.
- Otherwise, trigger the workflow:
gh workflow run publish-ui.yml --repo mindsdb/cowork
- Confirm it was triggered and show how to monitor:
gh run list --workflow=publish-ui.yml --repo mindsdb/cowork --limit 1
- Note that it typically takes 1-2 minutes to complete, and users' apps will pick up the new version on their next launch.
Safety
- Never modify source files (
src/main/ui-updater.ts, etc.) through this skill -- operational management only.
- Always read
~/.anton/.env before writing to avoid clobbering other settings.
- When modifying env vars, preserve all other lines including comments and blank lines.
- The OTA cache (
ui-cache/) only contains downloaded bundles that will be re-fetched -- safe to delete.
