Environment variables

Variable	Effect
WARD_NO_UPDATE_CHECK	Any non-empty value turns the update check off, including the ward finding in doctor.
CI	Any non-empty value turns off the automatic update check. doctor still checks.
XDG_CACHE_HOME	Base directory for the update-check cache. Defaults to ~/.cache.

Update check

After an interactive command finishes, Ward may print one line to stderr when a newer release exists:

ward: v0.4.0 is available (you have v0.3.1). Update: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RicardoRB/ward-ai/main/install.sh | sh

On Windows the line shows irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RicardoRB/ward-ai/main/install.ps1 | iex instead. Ward never updates itself.

The check runs at most once every 24 hours. Its result is stored in $XDG_CACHE_HOME/ward/update-check (by default ~/.cache/ward/update-check), never in the project. The check is skipped when:

• the command is ward hook (agent integrations),
• --format is json or sarif,
• --help or --version is used,
• input or output is not an interactive terminal,
• CI or WARD_NO_UPDATE_CHECK is set,
• the running version is a development build.

The lookup gives up after two seconds. When it fails or you are offline, nothing is printed and the exit code is unchanged; --verbose shows why. Proxies are honored only through the JVM’s https.proxyHost and https.proxyPort settings.