A Homebrew package is months behind upstream (Linux)

Source: Troubleshooting reference

Symptom: a formula installs at a version far older than upstream stable, and re-running bootstrap never moves it. Seen with glab, which stuck at 1.89.0 while upstream was 1.109.0 — old enough that glab skills install --global failed with Unknown command "skills", so install/skills-sync.sh reported fail glab / missing declared skill: glab on every run.

Root cause: install/linux-packages.sh sets HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1 (so an implicit refresh can’t revert the in-place formula patches) and, until now, never ran an explicit brew update. The homebrew-core clone therefore froze at whatever date it was first cloned, and HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_FROM_API=1 forces every lookup through that frozen clone. One machine sat 4.5 months stale with 193 of 336 installed formulae behind upstream.

Confirm:

git -C "$(brew --repo homebrew/core)" log -1 --format=%ci   # tap's age
brew info <formula> | head -1                               # frozen version

Fix: rerun install/linux-packages.sh — it now discards the formula patches, runs brew update, and re-applies each patch against the fresh formula. This refreshes definitions only; DF_BREW_UPGRADE still governs whether installed kegs move, so a plain run leaves working binaries alone.

Upgrade a single package without touching the tap:

env -u HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_FROM_API -u HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE brew upgrade <formula>

Expect patch anchors to rot across a long refresh — see the patch-anchor gotcha in .claude/rules/homebrew.md.

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