Command overview
Display the version number, git commit, and build date of the Agent Beacon CLI, or check whether a newer released version is available.Command syntax
beacon by itself in an interactive terminal also tells you when a newer
release is out. When one is available, an orange notice shows the installed and latest
versions, links to the CLI changelog, and prints how to update for the
detected installation: brew update && brew upgrade beacon for Homebrew,
sudo beacon endpoint update --apply for the system package, and the release download
for every other install (tarball, install.sh, go install, the Windows MSI, or a
source build).
The check works like the update notices in Codex and Claude Code: it never makes
beacon wait on the network. The notice comes from a cached answer in
~/.beacon/endpoint/update-check.json. When that answer is more than a day old,
beacon starts a background lookup of the latest GitHub release, which updates the
cache for the next run and writes nothing to the terminal. A failed lookup is also
retried at most once a day. beacon version check looks up the release right away and
refreshes the same cache.
The notice and the background lookup are skipped in pipes, redirects, scripts, other
commands, CI (CI set), and development builds. Set BEACON_UPDATE_CHECK=0 to turn
them off; beacon version check still works.
Example output
Example output
Example output
beacon version check
Check GitHub releases for the latest published Beacon CLI version:Check GitHub releases for the latest published Beacon CLI version
Example output
Example output
Example output
Flags
Upgrade
Usebeacon version check before upgrading to confirm whether a newer release is available:
Use beacon version check before upgrading to confirm whether a newer release is available
Related
Endpoint agent
Install, repair, and inspect the endpoint agent.
Upgrade Beacon
Check for updates and upgrade the Beacon CLI.