When upstream changes a file you’ve installed, --update re-fetches and applies a decision matrix that respects your local edits (and, for personal-share, your customisations).

The basic command 

# Via the slash command
/update-memory-file github-pr-title-issue-link

# Via the curl one-liner equivalent
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/riboseinc/claude-memory-files/main/tools/install.sh \
  | bash -s -- --update github-pr-title-issue-link

The installer reads the manifest entry for the slug, fetches the upstream file, compares hashes, computes the semver bump category, and decides what to do.

The decision matrix

Local edited? Bump Action

no

any

Silent overwrite. Manifest history appended with an update event.

yes

any

Abort with a clear message. --force overrides.

forked: true (personal-share)

any

No-op. --upstream overrides.

n/a (hashes differ, versions match)

none

Abort as anomalous. --force overrides.

"Local edited" means the on-disk file’s body hash differs from the manifest-recorded installed-hash. The installer computes both at update time, frontmatter-stripped, body-only.

Worked examples

Clean local, upstream version bumped (minor) → silent overwrite. Nothing to do; the installer just applies the update and reports.

$ ./tools/install.sh --update github-pr-title-issue-link
Fetching https://raw.githubusercontent.com/riboseinc/claude-memory-files/main/instructions/github-pr-title-issue-link.md
  Installed: 1.0.0 (sha256:abc123def456...)
  Upstream:  1.1.0 (sha256:def789012345...) [minor bump]
  Local edited: no
  Overwrote /Users/you/.claude/instructions/github-pr-title-issue-link.md

✓ Updated github-pr-title-issue-link → 1.1.0 (was 1.0.0, minor bump)

Local edited → abort. The installer refuses to overwrite your edits.

$ ./tools/install.sh --update github-pr-title-issue-link
  Installed: 1.0.0 (sha256:abc123def456...)
  Upstream:  1.1.0 (sha256:def789012345...) [minor bump]
  Local edited: yes

✗ github-pr-title-issue-link: update aborted — local copy has been hand-edited since install.
  Pass --force to overwrite local edits, or merge by hand.

To proceed anyway:

./tools/install.sh --update --force github-pr-title-issue-link

personal-share (forked) → no-op. See Customise a personal-share template for the rationale and the --upstream escape hatch.

Settings-fragment updates

For settings-fragment entries, --update does something special: it subtracts the old manifest-recorded fragment first, then merges the new upstream fragment. This handles three cases cleanly:

  • New entries in upstream → added.

  • Removed entries in upstream → cleanly removed (not orphaned).

  • Hand-curated entries you added separately → preserved (they’re not in the manifest, so subtraction doesn’t touch them).

A backup of ~/.claude/settings.json is created before each settings-fragment update at settings.json.bak.<timestamp>.

Manifest history

Every --update invocation appends to the slug’s history array in ~/.claude/.memory-files-manifest.json. You can audit when each file was installed and updated:

jq '.files["github-pr-title-issue-link"].history' ~/.claude/.memory-files-manifest.json

Output:

[
  {"event": "install", "ref": "abc123def...", "at": "2026-05-15T10:30:00Z"},
  {"event": "update",  "ref": "def789012...", "at": "2026-05-19T14:22:00Z"}
]

Bulk update

Not implemented in v1. Approximate by listing installed entries and updating each:

jq -r '.files | keys[]' ~/.claude/.memory-files-manifest.json | while read slug; do
  ./tools/install.sh --update "$slug"
done

A /update-all-memory-files slash command may land in v1.1.

See also