---
name: hd-staying-current
description: How a Hydrogen Desktop workspace stays current — its Adom tooling (CLIs, skills, apps) updates registry-native via `adom-wiki pkg update` + the `adom/hook` prompt hook, plus the code-server reload banner — and how an Adom employee ships a skill / CLI / app to every workspace. Use when asked "how do I get the latest skills or tooling", "how do updates work here", "what's the reload banner", "how do I distribute a tool to all Adom users", or about the retired workspace-updater daemon (history). Trigger words: staying current, how do updates work, latest skills, get updates, auto update, keep tooling current, distribute a skill, publish to all users, reload banner, adom-wiki pkg update, workspace updater, adom-workspace-updater.
---

# How this workspace stays up to date

## TL;DR (anyone)
You don't do anything. Your workspace's Adom tooling is **registry-native**: everything is an
`adom-wiki` package (CLIs, skills, apps), and the **auto-update hook** (`adom/hook`, installed by
`adom/core`) runs `adom-wiki pkg update` in the background (throttled ~30 min, on your prompts, for
both Claude Code and Codex) and re-resolves `adom/core` so newly added tools arrive automatically.
- Force a check now: `adom-wiki pkg update`
- See what's installed / behind: `adom-wiki pkg list` / `adom-wiki pkg outdated`

Skills are **bundled into the HD bootstraps** — `adom/hd-bootstrap` ships the platform-generic
hd-* skills, `adom/hd-windows-bootstrap` ships the WSL2-specific ones (Kyle's `adom/hd-mac-bootstrap`
ships the mac ones), each deployed flat into `~/.claude/skills/`. (There is no separate skills
package; the short-lived `adom/hd-skillpack` was deleted 2026-07-16.) Org member apps (e.g. the
employee build of adom-google) arrive via your org's **`org-bootstrap`** meta-package. All are just
dependencies — kept current like everything.

## The reload banner
code-server self-updates on disk but only takes effect after a restart. Hydrogen Desktop detects
that natively and shows **"code-server has an update — click to reload"** at the top of the editor
(only after setup is complete, never mid-cascade). Clicking restarts code-server + reloads the
editor. Extensions never banner — VS Code's own auto-update activates them.

## "How do I ship a tool/skill/app to every Adom workspace?" (Adom employees)
Publish it as an `adom-wiki` package, then add it as a **dependency** of the right bootstrap:
- every container: `adom/core` · every HD workspace: `adom/hd-bootstrap` ·
  org members only: your org's `org-bootstrap` · HD skills: add the skill to
  `skills/public-facing/` in the hydrogen-desktop repo (`shared/` for platform-generic, `wsl2/` for
  Windows-only) and republish the matching bootstrap (`adom/hd-bootstrap` or
  `adom/hd-windows-bootstrap`).
The hook's re-resolve delivers it fleet-wide within ~30 minutes of users prompting.

## The retired daemon (history)
`adom-workspace-updater` (a systemd timer converging a wiki manifest) previously delivered
tooling in-place. It was retired 2026-07-16 in favor of the registry updater; legacy distros are
migrated off it automatically by its final self-update. If you still see it:
`systemctl status adom-workspace-updater.timer` should be disabled/absent on a migrated workspace.