CLI App Updates

`ed app updates`

Prints the update checks Edith has already made, newest first.

ed app updates [--limit <n>] [--json]

Name	Type / values	Default	What it does
`--limit <n>`	integer greater than zero	`20`	Show at most this many checks.
`--json`	flag	off	Emit JSON on stdout.

--json shape, a top-level array with one object per check:

[
  {
    "date": "2026-08-08T14:18:40Z",
    "detail": null,
    "kind": "manual",
    "outcome": "upToDate",
    "version": null
  },
  {
    "date": "2026-08-06T21:37:42Z",
    "detail": null,
    "kind": "automatic",
    "outcome": "updateFound",
    "version": "0.0.28"
  }
]

kind is automatic for a background check, which is both the scheduled ones and every ed app check-updates, because the app answers that request with Sparkle's background check. manual is the app's own Check for Updates button and nothing ed can produce. outcome is upToDate, updateFound or failed. version is filled in only on updateFound, detail only on failed, and both are present as null otherwise so the shape does not change between runs.

Examples:

ed app updates
ed app updates --limit 5
ed app updates --json

$ ed app updates --limit 5
WHEN                  KIND       OUTCOME      WHAT
2026-08-08T14:18:40Z  manual     upToDate     Up to date
2026-08-08T08:39:36Z  manual     upToDate     Up to date
2026-08-08T04:51:46Z  automatic  upToDate     Up to date
2026-08-07T13:42:03Z  automatic  upToDate     Up to date
2026-08-06T21:37:42Z  automatic  updateFound  Found 0.0.28

The WHAT column is a sentence built from the record: Up to date, Found <version>, or the failure detail. A found update with no version reads Update found, and a failure with no detail reads Check failed.

This is a file, ~/Library/Application Support/Edith/update-checks.json, so it needs nothing running. The app keeps the newest 200 checks and drops the rest, and ed sorts by date descending before applying --limit. With no checks recorded, it writes no update checks recorded yet to stderr, leaves stdout empty and exits 0; with --json it prints [] instead.

--limit 0 and --limit=-1 exit 2 with --limit must be greater than zero. Written as --limit -1, ArgumentParser reads the -1 as another option and exits 2 for a missing value instead, which is the same code by a different route.