Fully Unattended Updates

[marvin1099]

It would be incredibly useful if there were a way to run Topgrade in a fully unattended mode.

Currently, setting:

assume_yes = true  

in the configuration file will handle most confirmation prompts by automatically responding with "yes." However, the process still stops to request a password for updates requiring admin access.

This presents a challenge, particularly for non-technical users. My goal is to integrate Topgrade into a simple GUI updater. In this application:

1. Updates can be delayed automatically if fullscreen applications are open.
2. If ignored for too long, the updater would eventually push itself into view to ensure the system gets updated.

This approach is designed to maintain an up-to-date system with minimal user interaction. However, the current behavior—requiring a password—creates a significant roadblock for non-technical users, as they often have no idea how to handle such prompts.

Running Topgrade directly with sudo is not a practical solution, as highlighted in Discussion #825.

If there’s a way to address this issue—whether it’s through existing configuration options, new features, or external integrations—I’d greatly appreciate any suggestions. For example, securely pre-caching sudo credentials without manual intervention could help.

Adding functionality for a fully unattended mode in Topgrade would greatly enhance its usability for non-technical users and make it an even more powerful tool for keeping systems updated effortlessly.

Thank you for your time and consideration!

[SteveLauC]

Hi, thanks for the detailed feature request.

Topgrade is just a wrapper of CLI tools, it does not control what these CLI tools will do, from this perspective, it is more like an "interactive" app, it won't watch these CLI tools so users generally should keep an eye on them.

I do not object to this unattended updates mode, and it will be a sweat feature once implemented. However, it is not something on my TODO list, sorry about this. 😪

[marvin1099]

So there is no way to do it and its not planned.
Very sad. Mabye mark it as possible future feature.
I'm still hoping for a way to do this.

[SteveLauC]

So there is no way to do it

Considering implementing this needs Topgrade to keep an eye on what the underlying CLI tools will do, yeah, it is hard to implement. And, even though we implement it, the CLI tools can change the behavior Topgrade relies on at any time and make Topgrade broken, so maintaining it won't be easy 😪

and its not planned.

I do not plan to implement it myself, at least in the near future. If someone else has a feasible proposal for this, I do not object to reviewing and merging the patch.

Very sad.

I am sorry.

Mabye mark it as possible future feature.

Yeah, I am open to proposals. I won't tag this "not planned"

[marvin1099]

So i do have a idea.
Can topgrade run only non sudo commands by chance,
or skip commands that are attempted to run with sudo?
Because to run tograde unattended i just create a user with nopassword sudo.
Then i run tograde on that user.
This will update the system just fine.
But then the user tools, to update, won't actually update on the main user.
Like updating flatpaks and stuff like that.
Flatpaks can be user spesific.
So i would like to run topgrade on the main user without sudo / root (only run user tools).
Is that a thing that can be done or not really?