Keeping Boot Up to Date

Boot consists of two parts: the boot.sh or boot.exe executable and the core libraries. The executable is a minimal shell whose purpose is to bootstrap the Maven client which then loads the core libraries from a Maven repository. The executable should be very stable and should not need to be updated (and if an advisory to that effect were to be made, it would be eerily similar to the Boot installation instructions).

Which Version Do I Have?

To see which version of boot you're running:

$ boot -V

#http://boot-clj.com
#Wed Aug 10 23:06:24 EDT 2016
BOOT_CLOJURE_NAME=org.clojure/clojure
BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION=1.8.0
BOOT_VERSION=2.6.0

The output of this command will tell you which version of the core libraries boot is currently using, and which version of Clojure.

Updating Boot

You can have boot fetch and use the latest release version of the core libraries:

$ boot -u

#http://boot-clj.com
#Wed Aug 10 23:06:24 EDT 2016
BOOT_CLOJURE_NAME=org.clojure/clojure
BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION=1.8.0
BOOT_VERSION=2.6.0

or you can go with the latest (unstable) snapshot version:

$ boot -U

#http://boot-clj.com
#Wed Aug 10 23:06:24 EDT 2016
BOOT_CLOJURE_NAME=org.clojure/clojure
BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION=1.8.0
BOOT_VERSION=2.7.0-SNAPSHOT

Set Default Boot Version

You can use environment variables to control which version of core libraries and/or Clojure boot uses:

$ BOOT_VERSION=2.6.0 BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION=1.8.0 boot my-task other-task

or you can edit your $BOOT_HOME/boot.properties file ($BOOT_HOME is ~/.boot by default).

Pin Project to Specific Boot Version

You can also specify which version of the core libraries and Clojure boot will use when you build a specific project by creating a boot.properties file in the project directory. To pin the project to the current versions:

$ boot -V > boot.properties