Updating

How you update depends on how you installed OpenShrimp.

Binary installs (Linux, macOS Apple Silicon)

If you downloaded the binary, OpenShrimp checks GitHub Releases for new versions every 6 hours and notifies you in Telegram.

When an update is available, you’ll get a message with the new version number, release notes, and two buttons:

• Update now — downloads the new binary, atomically replaces the running one, and restarts the bot
• Skip — dismisses the notification (you won’t be re-notified until an even newer version ships)

No SSH, no manual download — just tap the button.

Manual check

To check immediately instead of waiting for the next scheduled check:

./openshrimp update

This prints the current version, fetches the latest release, and prompts before applying.

Disabling auto-update

To turn off the periodic check, add this to config.yaml:

auto_update: false

You can still update manually with ./openshrimp update.

macOS menu bar app

The .app bundle doesn’t auto-update. To upgrade:

1. Download the latest .dmg from Releases
2. Quit OpenShrimp from the menu bar
3. Drag the new OpenShrimp.app into /Applications, replacing the old one
4. Launch it again

Your config and sessions are stored outside the app bundle (~/Library/Application Support/openshrimp/), so they survive the upgrade.

Source builds

If you built from source, pull the latest code and sync dependencies:

cd /path/to/open-shrimp
git pull
uv sync

Then restart the service (see below).

Restarting

After a manual update, restart the bot to pick up changes:

# From Telegram (works for any install)
/restart

# systemd (Linux)
systemctl --user restart open-shrimp

# launchd (macOS)
launchctl kickstart gui/$(id -u)/com.openshrimp.bot

The /restart command is the quickest way to restart without SSH access.

Versioning

Both the open-shrimp bot and the moonshine-stt speech-to-text binary share a single version number. To check the current version, run ./openshrimp update — the first line of output prints the installed version before checking for newer ones.

Docker sandbox images

If you use Docker sandboxes, updated code may require rebuilding the container image. OpenShrimp builds images lazily — the next time a sandboxed context is used, the image will be rebuilt if the Dockerfile or base image has changed.

To force a rebuild, remove the existing image:

docker rmi openshrimp-claude:your-context-name

Configuration changes

Most configuration changes take effect after a restart. If you’ve changed config.yaml, restart the service to pick up the new settings.