README file for the gist update-all-repos.sh

update-all-repos-readme.md

update-all-repos

Walks every git repo in a directory and brings its base branch up to date — once a day, unattended. Built for a multi-repo (microservices) setup where feature branches go stale overnight.

Companion to the blog post: The 200-Line Bash Script That Rebases My Repos While I Sleep.

What it does

For each */ directory under REPOS_DIR that contains a .git:

• Detached HEAD → skipped (no branch to update).
• On the base branch → git pull --rebase.
• On a feature branch → fast-forwards the local base ref without checking out (git fetch origin base:base). If that's refused because the local base diverged, it falls back to stash → checkout base → rebase → checkout back → unstash.

Plus the unglamorous parts that make it safe to run while you sleep:

• Single-run lock via atomic mkdir — concurrent runs abort instead of clobbering.
• Network wait — polls github.com and backs off before giving up.
• Reversible fallback — restores your branch and stash on any failure.
• Tri-state exit — success / failure / "rebase OK but stash needs manual resolve" (return 2).
• macOS notification on completion, naming any repos that failed or need attention.
• Optional parallelism via PARALLEL=N, with output replayed in original order.

Requirements

• macOS (uses osascript for notifications)
• git, curl
• Bash 3.2+ (ships with macOS; Bash 4+ enables wait -n throttling)

Quick start

chmod +x update-all-repos.sh

# Run against the folder the script lives in:
./update-all-repos.sh

# Or point it elsewhere:
REPOS_DIR=/Users/me/code ./update-all-repos.sh

# Update 4 repos at a time:
PARALLEL=4 REPOS_DIR=/Users/me/code ./update-all-repos.sh

Environment variables

Var	Default	Meaning
REPOS_DIR	script's own directory	Folder whose immediate subdirs are repos
PARALLEL	1	Concurrent repo updates
LOG_DIR	~/.cache/update-all-repos	Where last-run.log / prev-run.log go

Schedule it (launchd)

1. Edit com.me.update-all-repos.plist — replace /Users/me/code with your paths.
2. Install and load:

cp com.me.update-all-repos.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.me.update-all-repos.plist

Unload with launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.me.update-all-repos.plist.

Prefer cron? It works but is deprecated on macOS and won't fire if the laptop was asleep at the trigger minute:

0 8 * * * REPOS_DIR=/Users/me/code /Users/me/code/update-all-repos.sh

Logs

• ~/.cache/update-all-repos/last-run.log — most recent run
• ~/.cache/update-all-repos/prev-run.log — the run before it