Fleet Management

Fleet Management

Maintain cognitive architecture consistency across all heir projects from Master Alex.

The Challenge

Master Alex evolves continuously — new skills, refined instructions, fixed defects. Heir projects run stale brains unless actively synchronized. Manual updates across 50+ projects is error-prone and tedious.

Fleet Operations Model

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Master Alex (.github/)                                         │
│    ↓ sync-architecture.cjs                                      │
│  Extension Brain (platforms/vscode-extension/.github/)          │
│    ↓ upgrade-brain.ps1                                          │
│  Fleet (C:\Development\*\.github/)                              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Tools

Workflow

Phase 1: Prepare Master

Before fleet upgrade, ensure Master Alex is healthy:

# 1. Run brain QA
node .github/muscles/brain-qa.cjs

# 2. Verify zero failures
# Check: "0 failing" in queue depth

# 3. Sync to extension brain
node .github/muscles/sync-architecture.cjs

# 4. Sync to heir template
node scripts/sync-to-heir.cjs

Phase 2: Audit Fleet

Discover what needs updating:

# Audit all projects in C:\Development
.\scripts\upgrade-brain.ps1 -Mode Audit

# Audit specific projects
.\scripts\upgrade-brain.ps1 -Mode Audit -Include "health,pbi"

Output shows:

• Project count and brain formats
• Custom CI needing manual curation
• Workflows and memory to preserve
• Total files affected

Phase 3: Upgrade Fleet

Two-phase approach — mechanical batch + semantic curation:

# Dry-run first (always!)
.\scripts\upgrade-brain.ps1 -Mode Upgrade -DryRun

# Execute upgrade
.\scripts\upgrade-brain.ps1 -Mode Upgrade

# Or full pipeline: Audit → Upgrade → Verify
.\scripts\upgrade-brain.ps1 -Mode Full

The script:

1. Renames .github/ → .github-backup-YYYYMMDD/ (atomic, instant rollback available)
2. Installs fresh brain from extension source
3. Restores non-brain content (workflows, episodic memories, domain knowledge)
4. Saves old copilot-instructions.md as .backup.md for identity curation

Phase 4: Verify

Confirm deployments succeeded:

.\scripts\upgrade-brain.ps1 -Mode Verify

Checks:

• .alex-brain-version stamp matches expected
• All brain subdirectories present with correct file counts
• copilot-instructions.md is v8 format
• hooks.json registry exists

Phase 5: Curate

Projects with custom CI need manual curation:

# Scan backups for custom content
node .github/muscles/curate-upgrade.cjs --mode Scan

# Review each project's backup
# Merge project-specific content back into fresh CI
# Delete backup when satisfied

Exclusions

Some projects are excluded by default:

Override with -Include or modify -Exclude parameter.

Rollback

If something goes wrong:

# Rollback specific project
.\scripts\upgrade-brain.ps1 -Mode Rollback -Include "projectname"

# Manual rollback (any time before backup deletion)
Remove-Item "C:\Development\project\.github" -Recurse
Rename-Item "C:\Development\project\.github-backup-YYYYMMDD" ".github"

Scheduled Maintenance

Add to Autopilot for weekly fleet health checks:

{
  "id": "fleet-health",
  "name": "Fleet Health Check",
  "description": "Audit fleet brain versions and drift",
  "schedule": "0 8 * * 1",
  "mode": "direct",
  "script": "scripts/upgrade-brain.ps1",
  "args": "-Mode Audit"
}

Version Stamps

Each upgraded project gets .github/.alex-brain-version:

8.0.1

Check fleet versions:

Get-ChildItem C:\Development -Directory | 
  ForEach-Object { 
    $v = Join-Path $_.FullName ".github\.alex-brain-version"
    if (Test-Path $v) { 
      "$($_.Name): $(Get-Content $v)" 
    }
  }

Drift Detection

Detect when heir projects have diverged from master:

# Compare heir brain to source
$source = "C:\Development\AlexMaster\platforms\vscode-extension\.github"
$heir = "C:\Development\health\.github"

# Count differences in skills
$sourceSkills = (Get-ChildItem "$source\skills" -Directory).Count
$heirSkills = (Get-ChildItem "$heir\skills" -Directory).Count
Write-Host "Skills: $heirSkills (heir) vs $sourceSkills (source)"

Best Practices

1. Always dry-run first — .\scripts\upgrade-brain.ps1 -Mode Upgrade -DryRun
2. Audit before upgrade — Know what you're changing
3. Verify after upgrade — Confirm success before deleting backups
4. Keep backups until satisfied — .github-backup-* is your rollback path
5. Curate custom CI — Don't lose project-specific identity
6. Commit after curation — Track the upgrade in git history

Common Issues