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Review a PR locally and update the normal installation

Use Git, not manual ZIP copying. Keep three things distinct: this source repository, the per-user config, and the managed GitLab-workspace root. Switching the source ref does not apply or undo configuration migrations.

Review without disturbing the original checkout

From your existing ReasonFirst clone, inspect it first:

git status --short

Keep any pending work. The following example uses PR 12, whose reviewed head is recorded explicitly. For another PR, replace both the PR number and expected SHA using its review record. The parenthesized block works in Bash/zsh and contains no interactive comments:

(
set -eu
PR=12
EXPECTED="53cd68d5f63674362fc96b371a03baaa45da671c"
REVIEW_DIR="../reasonFirst-pr${PR}-review"
test ! -e "$REVIEW_DIR"
test ! -L "$REVIEW_DIR"
git fetch --no-tags https://github.com/phoenixjyb/reasonFirst.git "refs/pull/${PR}/head"
ACTUAL="$(git rev-parse FETCH_HEAD)"
if [ "$ACTUAL" != "$EXPECTED" ]; then
  printf 'PR head changed. Expected %s; got %s\n' "$EXPECTED" "$ACTUAL"
  exit 1
fi
git worktree add --detach "$REVIEW_DIR" "$EXPECTED"
)

The fetch updates shared Git objects/FETCH_HEAD; the new worktree has its own files/index. It does not switch or reset the original worktree. Do not run competing fetches against shared FETCH_HEAD during this short sequence. Stop and inspect an existing review directory, not overwrite it.

Then, for this example:

cd ../reasonFirst-pr12-review
uv sync --python 3.12
uv run actual-coder-migrate-https --help
uv run python -m unittest discover -s tests -v
uv run python scripts/check_repo_secrets.py --history

Tests use synthetic local fixtures. Do not copy your real managed-workspace directory to rehearse a migration: its absolute metadata and Git links can still point to the original installation.

With GitHub CLI installed, gh pr checkout 12 --repo phoenixjyb/reasonFirst is an alternative inside a clean/disposable checkout. It changes that checkout's branch; do not treat it as the same operation as adding a separate worktree. For code changes while detached, create a development branch before committing. Pushing to a PR branch updates the PR and invalidates any earlier head-specific test claim.

Return to a normal source installation after merge

These steps update source/dependencies, not GitLab URLs or credentials. In the original long-lived clone, save pending source edits, stop processes importing this checkout, and inspect the current branch and origin. Do not use reset --hard, force checkout, cleanup, or reclone to resolve uncertainty.

git status --short
git remote -v
git fetch origin
git switch main
git pull --ff-only origin main
uv sync --python 3.12
uv run actual-coder --help
uv run actual-coder-migrate-https --help

origin must be the intended source repository. If main is checked out in another worktree or has diverged, stop and inspect; do not force the operation. uv sync alone updates this checkout's environment, not a separate global tool environment.

If you use the global user installation, reinstall from this stable checkout:

bash scripts/install_user.sh
actual-coder config
actual-coder-migrate-https --help

On Windows, use scripts/install_user.ps1 instead. The installers are editable and can replace command entry points; verify their source path and preserve the existing user .env. Never copy .env.example over a working config during an upgrade. Restart the existing MCP/tunnel launcher separately, checking service/environment overrides; restarting a shell does not restart a service.

Keep the review checkout until you know no global installation or service points at it. Preserve any review commits before removing it with normal git worktree remove; a clean working tree alone does not prove unpublished commits are expendable. There is no need to remove it just to finish a migration.

Copy/paste troubleshooting

If interactive zsh reports a parse error near do, use the comment-free code blocks above. Do not paste prose or Markdown links such as [URL](URL) into shell arguments. Use the code block's copy button and plain URLs. Do not paste an angle-bracket placeholder unquoted as a shell command. Run commands one at a time and inspect errors rather than chaining destructive recovery steps.

References: Git worktree, GitHub CLI PR checkout, uv tool environments.