Updating

Update the Watchflare agent to the latest version on Linux and macOS.

sudo watchflare-agent update

brew upgrade watchflare-agent
brew services restart watchflare-agent

Linux

The agent has a built-in self-update command. It checks the latest release via the GitHub API, downloads the binary from get.watchflare.io, verifies the SHA-256 checksum, and hands off to a privileged systemd service to replace the binary and restart.

sudo watchflare-agent update

bash

Watchflare Agent v0.33.0

Checking for updates...
Update available: v0.33.0 → v0.34.0

Downloading v0.34.0...
✓ Updated to v0.34.0
✓ Service restarted

To check whether an update is available without installing it:

sudo watchflare-agent update --check

Note

The agent configuration (agent.conf, ca.pem) and data directory are never touched during an update — only the binary is replaced.

macOS

On macOS, updates are managed through Homebrew:

brew upgrade watchflare-agent
brew services restart watchflare-agent

Automatic updates (Linux)

The Linux agent supports automatic updates via a systemd path unit. When an update is triggered from the Hub dashboard (host detail page → Update agent), the Hub sends a command to the agent on the next heartbeat. The agent downloads and installs the update automatically, then restarts the service — no manual intervention needed.

The Hub dashboard shows the current agent version on each host detail page and highlights hosts running outdated versions.

Check the installed version

watchflare-agent version

Output:

Watchflare Agent v0.33.1

The current version is also visible on the host detail page in the Hub dashboard.

Version compatibility

The agent and Hub are independently versioned. Minor version differences (e.g. Hub v0.34 with agent v0.33) are generally compatible. When a newer Hub version introduces a new metric or RPC, older agents simply do not send that data — they continue to work.

Keep agents reasonably up to date to benefit from bug fixes and new collectors.