taskless rules create: spec version upgrade loop with init

[thecodedrift]

Summary

taskless rules create rejects version: "2026-03-02" in taskless.json, requiring 2026-03-03 or later and suggesting taskless init to fix it. However, taskless init only reinstalls skills/commands — it does not update the taskless.json config file, creating an unresolvable loop.

Environment

• CLI version: 0.0.7 (pnpm dlx @taskless/cli@latest)
• Config spec version: 2026-03-02 (in .taskless/taskless.json)
• Required spec version: 2026-03-03
• Platform: Linux (WSL2)

Reproduction Steps

1. Have an existing Taskless project initialized with spec version 2026-03-02
2. Run taskless rules create:

   echo '{"prompt": "detect console.log"}' | pnpm dlx @taskless/cli@latest rules create --json

3. Observe error: Spec version 2026-03-02 is too old for rule generation. Update to 2026-03-03 or later by re-running 'taskless init'
4. Run the suggested fix: pnpm dlx @taskless/cli@latest init
5. Output shows skills reinstalled, but .taskless/taskless.json still shows "version": "2026-03-02"
6. Re-running rules create fails with the same error — infinite loop

Current .taskless/taskless.json

{
  "version": "2026-03-02",
  "astGrepVersion": "0.38.0",
  "orgId": 32312867,
  "repositoryUrl": "https://github.com/taskless/taskless"
}

Root Cause

The init command's scope is limited to skills/commands installation (.claude/skills/, .claude/commands/). It does not touch .taskless/taskless.json. The error message's remediation ("re-run taskless init") is incorrect because init cannot fix the problem.

Possible Resolutions

1. init should also migrate taskless.json — When taskless init detects an outdated spec version, it should bump the version field (and apply any schema migrations). This makes the error message's suggestion actually work.

2. Add a dedicated taskless migrate or taskless upgrade command — Separate skill installation from config migration. Update the error message to reference this command instead.

3. Fix the error message — If init is intentionally not supposed to touch config, the error message should provide the correct remediation.

4. Scaffold updates via PR — For managed repos, Taskless could open a PR to update the config scaffold when breaking spec changes are introduced (similar to Dependabot/Renovate), preventing users from hitting this issue.

Workaround

Manually editing .taskless/taskless.json to set "version": "2026-03-03" may unblock rule creation, but it's unclear if there are other schema changes between versions that need to be applied.

[thecodedrift]

Resolved in main as we were changing the scaffold system