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David Crawshaw's nightly cron prompt rebases local patches onto upstream

David Crawshaw's nightly cron prompt rebases local patches onto upstream

David Crawshaw's prompt, quoted by Simon Willison, points a nightly cron job at four steps: fetch upstream changes, rebase all local changes on top, check the software works as intended, and replace the running version. It is a prompt, not a tool — an example of aiming a coding agent at routine maintenance so a patched fork tracks upstream without a hand-run rebase.

Source: simonwillison.net ↗

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Set up a nightly cron job that executes the prompt: fetch upstream changes and rebase all local changes on top of upstream.

David Crawshaw

Why this matters

  • → Automates fork maintenance without manual rebases.
  • → Frees developers from tedious sync workflows.
  • → Keeps patched forks tracking upstream in production.
Fork sync automation