Starter briefs
Bump one dependency and fix what breaks
Name the dependency and the version, and get an upgrade with whatever it breaks already fixed.
The brief
Copy this text as it is, or change the specifics to match your own case, then file it as a task.
Copy this and file it as a task
One of the libraries this project depends on is out of date and needs updating to a newer version. Update it, run the project's own checks, and fix anything that breaks because of the upgrade. If the new version needs any code changes to keep working the same way, make those changes too.
Why this works
It names one dependency and one version target, so the blast radius is bounded and checkable: the project's own build and tests either pass afterward or they don't. There's no ambiguity about what "done" means.
How it runs
Plan, code, review, merge, verify
- plan
Reads the dependency's own changelog for the version jump and flags anything likely to need a code change.
- code
Bumps the version, runs the project's build and test commands, and fixes whatever the upgrade breaks.
- review
Checks the change did only what the bump required, nothing wider.
- merge
Opens a pull request sized to this one dependency bump.
- verify
Confirms the project's own checks pass clean on the new version.
What you need on hand
- The dependency and the version to move to
- The project's own build and test commands
- A person to review the change the way they would review any other update
Done when
- The dependency is on the requested version
- The project's build and test commands pass
- Nothing that depended on the old version's behavior was left broken
Proof, not a promise
No real task in examples.ts matches this brief's exact shape yet. What's real is the mechanism: an agent runs the project's own build and test commands before and after the bump, so a break the upgrade caused gets fixed in the same change rather than surfacing later.
Keep going
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