Upgrade, back up, and uninstall

Upgrade

How you update Bridge depends on how you run it:

• With npx review-bridge and no global installation: no separate update step is needed. npx retrieves the latest release from npm.
• With a global installation: run npm i -g review-bridge@latest. npx review-bridge uses that installed copy, so you need to update it yourself.

If a new version needs database migrations, its first command backs up the database and prints the backup location before applying them. Active runs prevent the backup. If the database contains migrations unknown to this version, such as after using a newer release, Bridge lists them, refuses to open it, and changes nothing.

Update each project's .review-bridge/ setup with upgrade:

cd your-project
npx review-bridge upgrade          # Back up and update this project's setup

upgrade stops the old service, backs up data, migrates it, checks integrity, removes old files, restarts the service, and checks its health. Bridge handles the sequence; you can rerun it after an interruption.

• Older layouts are migrated once: settings move to the top level of .review-bridge/; runtime state (review-queue/, reviews/, archive/) moves to projects/<project_id>/ under data home; call logs, plans, and cards move to the log directory. File names are preserved and contents checked with SHA-256. Logs past retention are removed. Old result copies stored directly in results/ stay where they are.
• Unrecognized files, such as OS temporary files or files you created, are left untouched and do not block an upgrade. If a migration destination contains a file with the same name but different content, migration is refused and the file is listed.
• Your role choices in bridge.json are preserved.
• Use --rollback to restore the previous upgrade's backup.
• Backups go to backups/installer under data home, or the location given by --backup-root <folder>.
• For scripts, --plan-out <file> writes a plan without interactive confirmation. --plan <file> --approve <sha> applies it; <sha> is the SHA-256 printed by --plan-out.

Backup

See Backup. npx review-bridge backup copies the database for all projects and refuses while a run is active.

Uninstall

npx review-bridge uninstall --target .   # Remove the project's setup, with a backup
npm uninstall -g review-bridge           # Remove Bridge itself if installed globally

• uninstall removes only content created by Bridge: .review-bridge/ (including result copies, which are backed up), and tasks starting with review-bridge: and inputs starting with review-bridge- in .vscode/tasks.json. That file is deleted only if nothing else remains.
• Agent entry points (~/.claude/commands/review-bridge.md, ~/.agents/skills/review-bridge/SKILL.md) and user tasks are shared across projects. They are removed only when you uninstall the last configured project. Files you edited are preserved.
• --plan-out, --plan, --approve, --backup-root, and --json work as they do for upgrade.

Platforms

Native execution is verified on Windows x64. Apple Silicon macOS is selectable but unverified. Linux blocks native model execution.

The database uses PostgreSQL 18. Moving to a different PostgreSQL major version requires a dump and restore, which this release doesn't handle.

Windows

When Codex runs commands through Windows PowerShell, it loads your $PROFILE. If PowerShell uses a non-UTF-8 code page, such as the default on Chinese Windows, Codex may read the output as UTF-8 and display garbled text.

Run notepad $PROFILE in PowerShell and add the following setting. Create the file first if it does not exist:

[Console]::OutputEncoding = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8

You can also use PowerShell 7 (pwsh), which outputs UTF-8 by default. npx review-bridge doctor reports whether PowerShell is using UTF-8 without changing your profile.