Version Drift

Version Drift

One command. Your entire stack. Are you current?

You run things. Lots of things. Docker on a VPS. Node.js on a web server. Home Assistant on a Pi. Postgres in a container. Python on your laptop. They each update on their own schedule, and you check them... sometimes. Usually after something breaks.

Version Drift fixes that. It SSHes into your servers, queries your APIs, runs local commands, and compares what's actually installed against what's latest available. One config file. One command. One answer.

$ python3 drift.py check

Version Drift Report — 2026-03-16 08:30 UTC

Host             Check          Installed    Latest       Status
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
web-1            node           20.11.0      22.14.0      🔴 MAJOR
web-1            redis          7.2.4        7.4.2        ⚠️  DRIFT
nas              docker         27.5.1       28.0.1       ⚠️  DRIFT
home-assistant   core           2026.2.5     2026.3.3     ⚠️  DRIFT
this-machine     python         3.13.1       3.13.1       ✅ CURRENT
this-machine     openclaw       2026.3.13    2026.3.13    ✅ CURRENT

Summary: 2/6 current · 3 drifting · 1 major

How is this different?

• Dependency scanners (npm audit, pip-audit) check your code. This checks your servers.
• Release trackers tell you GitHub has a new release. This tells you your server is behind.
• Uptime monitors tell you if something is running. This tells you if it's current.

Version Drift is the only tool that bridges the gap between "a new version exists" and "my infrastructure is running it."

How it works

1. You write a config.yaml listing your hosts and what to check
2. For each check, you tell it:
   • How to get the installed version (a shell command, or an API endpoint)
   • Where to find the latest version (GitHub, npm, PyPI, Docker Hub, or any HTTP endpoint)
3. Run python3 drift.py check and get a report

That's it. No agents to install on every server. No dashboards. No SaaS. Just a script and a config file.

Setup

pip install pyyaml          # optional — falls back to JSON config
cp config.example.yaml config.yaml
# Edit config.yaml with your hosts and checks
python3 drift.py check

What you can check

Anything you can get a version number from. The installed version comes from a shell command (local or SSH) or an API response. The latest version comes from one of these sources:

Three ways to check installed versions:

Example configs

The config.example.yaml includes four ready-to-adapt templates:

1. Homelab stack — Docker, nginx, Postgres, Home Assistant, Python, Node
2. Production/DevOps — web servers, Redis, PM2, API gateways
3. Docker-heavy — Traefik, Grafana, Postgres containers
4. Python/Data Science — PyTorch, CUDA, pip packages on GPU boxes

Delete the ones you don't need, uncomment the ones you do, fill in your details.

Commands

python3 drift.py check                      # table output
python3 drift.py check --json               # for crons and pipelines
python3 drift.py check --markdown           # for Discord, Slack, or docs
python3 drift.py check --changes            # include release notes for drifting items
python3 drift.py check --only web-1         # check one host only
python3 drift.py check --config /alt/path   # use a different config
python3 drift.py discover --compose docker-compose.yml  # generate image digest checks

Docker / OCI image drift

For container stacks, prefer digest checks when you care about rebuilds under the same tag:

- name: "traefik-image"
  installed: "docker inspect traefik --format '{{range .RepoDigests}}{{println .}}{{end}}' | head -1 | sed 's/.*@//'"
  latest:
    source: "oci"
    image: "traefik"
    tag: "v3.4"
    return: "digest"

Run python3 drift.py discover --compose docker-compose.yml to generate starter checks for a Compose file.

For Docker Hub version tags, source: docker now prefers the highest stable semver-like tag instead of blindly trusting the most recently pushed tag. Add tag_regex when you want to stay on a major line:

latest:
  source: "docker"
  repo: "library/postgres"
  tag_regex: "^17\\."

Version comparison is semver/calver-aware enough for common forms like v1.2.3, 2026.5.7, and 1.2.3-rc.1; stable releases sort above prereleases with the same numbers.

State tracking

Version Drift saves results between runs. On repeat checks, you'll see how long something has been drifting:

web-1    node    20.11.0    22.14.0    🔴 MAJOR (since 12 days ago)

Changelogs

Add --changes to see what actually changed between your version and latest:

$ python3 drift.py check --changes

Host             Check          Installed    Latest       Status
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
web-1            node           20.11.0      22.14.0      🔴 MAJOR DRIFT
                                ↳ 20.11.0 → 22.14.0 (major version bump 20 → 22)
                                  22.14.0 — Notable changes: V8 13.5, require(esm) stable
                                  22.13.0 — Node.js 22.13.0 LTS 'Jod'
                                  21.7.0 — WebSocket client, import.meta.dirname
                                  ... and 12 more releases
this-machine     python         3.13.1       3.13.1       ✅ CURRENT

For GitHub-hosted projects, Version Drift fetches actual release notes between your installed version and latest. For npm and PyPI packages, it traces back to the GitHub repo automatically.

This makes extra API calls, so it's opt-in. Set GITHUB_TOKEN to avoid rate limits when checking many items.

Automate it

Run on a cron, pipe the markdown output to Discord or Slack, and never be surprised by stale versions again:

# Weekly drift report to Discord via OpenClaw cron
python3 drift.py check --markdown

Environment variables

Secrets go in env vars, not config files:

headers:
  Authorization: "Bearer ${HA_TOKEN}"    # expanded at runtime

Set GITHUB_TOKEN to avoid GitHub API rate limits (60 req/hr unauthenticated → 5,000 with token).

Security

Version Drift needs to talk to your servers — that's the whole point. Here's what it does and why:

• Shell commands — Runs version-check commands locally via sh -c (e.g., docker --version). Commands come from your config file, not from external sources.
• SSH — Connects to hosts listed in your config to run version-check commands remotely. Uses your existing SSH keys and config. Host key checking defaults to accept-new (trust on first use, reject if the key changes). Override per-host with strict_host_key: "yes" for stricter checking or "no" for legacy behavior.
• HTTP requests — Fetches version info from APIs (GitHub, npm, PyPI, Docker Hub, your services). SSL verification is on by default; set verify_ssl: false per-host only if you use self-signed certs.
• Environment variables — Expands ${VAR} references in your config so you can keep secrets out of the config file.

No data leaves your machine except the version-check requests you configure. No telemetry, no analytics, no phone-home.

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• PyYAML (optional — can use config.json instead)
• SSH access to remote hosts (for SSH checks)
• That's it. No external services. No accounts. No agents to install.