Update Buttercut

Skill: Update ButterCut

Updates ButterCut to the latest version via git pull, then recaps what's new in plain video-editor language. Users of this project are video editors — Claude sometimes edits code on its own and may even leave the repo on a side branch. This skill resets that state cleanly: stash anything dirty, switch to main, pull, restore deps.

ButterCut Pro: first check which edition this is — ruby lib/buttercut/library.rb edition prints core or pro (never gated). If it prints pro, this install updates over an authenticated connection — read @pro-update.md in this skill's directory before starting; it adds a license step before the pull and replaces the pull-failure guidance in step 3. core means open-source ButterCut: nothing extra to do.

Workflow

1. Note the starting point — remember this sha; after the pull you'll diff the changelog against it to see what arrived:

git rev-parse HEAD

2. Stash any local changes (tracked + untracked), tagged so the user can find them later:

git stash push --include-untracked -m "update-buttercut auto-stash $(date +%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S)"

Always run this — it's a no-op if the working tree is clean. libraries/ is gitignored and is not touched by stash, pull, or checkout.

3. Switch to main and pull:

git checkout main
GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT=0 git pull origin main

If the pull (or the daily gate's git fetch origin main) fails: on a Pro install (edition printed pro), follow the failure guidance in @pro-update.md instead of this paragraph. Open-source updates come from the public GitHub repo and need no credentials, so a failure means network trouble or GitHub being unreachable. Tell the user and suggest trying again later — don't retry in a loop.

4. Reinstall dependencies:

bundle install

Also sync the WhisperX install to the repo's pinned versions — updates sometimes move them, and git pull alone never touches the venv:

~/.buttercut/venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt

This is fast and a no-op when the pins haven't changed. If ~/.buttercut/venv doesn't exist, the install predates the standard venv layout — skip this command (that Mac's transcription setup lives wherever .buttercut_env points). If it fails because the network dropped, continue the update but tell the user transcription may misbehave until it's re-run.

5. Tell the user what they got — in their language:

git diff <sha-from-step-1>..HEAD -- CHANGELOG.md

The added changelog lines are already written for users — recap them in a sentence or two, the way release notes read, leading with what they can do now ("ButterCut now handles photos — drop stills into a library and use them in cuts"). Then:

• Mind the edition split. A release section may group changes under ### ButterCut (free) and ### ButterCut Pro. How you recap the Pro lines depends on the edition you found at the top of this skill (ruby lib/buttercut/library.rb edition):
  • On a Pro install (pro), the user has both — recap free and Pro changes together as things they can now do.
  • On a core install (core), the user only received the free changes. Recap those as "you can now…", then add the Pro ones as a light, optional heads-up — not as something they have — e.g. "Also new in ButterCut Pro: multi-track timelines and a live preview panel, more at buttercut.io." Keep it to one sentence, never pushy, and skip it entirely if the diff brought no ### ButterCut Pro lines.
• If the changelog didn't change, say they're up to date with the latest behind-the-scenes improvements — don't enumerate what those were.
• Never mention branches, commits, shas, tests, version files, migrations, or main in the recap.
• Don't quote version numbers unless the pull brought in a new numbered release section in the changelog. Numbered releases only happen when a batch of changes is publicized as one; between releases the version file lags behind main by design, so "still on 0.7.2" is meaningless to the user.
• Don't run the test suite after updating. A wall of test output reads as something being wrong, and "the tests pass" answers a question no video editor asked.
• If anything was stashed in step 2, mention it once in plain terms ("I set aside a few local file edits before updating; they're saved if you ever want them back") — don't try to reapply it automatically.

(In developer mode — .buttercut_mode present — skip the persona rules above and report technically: versions, shas, and running the suite are all fine.)