[zolotarev]

Friction

• after the dpcli submodule was moved by hand to a commit with the current VERSION, dpcli update said "up to date" and left .claude/ (agents, process description, hooks) stale — a project would never get the new hook or rules;
• since v21 logs and results are per check name, but task new|set accepted two checks with the same name, which then overwrite each other (reviewer nit on Reviewing work in the main copy: missing copy in brief, scope skipped, stale logs #12).

Change

• update: when the version is current, init --check; stale → init + commit; still stale after init (hand edits) → one line pointing to init --check instead of claiming a re-render on every run.
• task new|set: duplicate check names are rejected with the fix (--drop-check).

Split out of #13 as asked. Tests: test_update (lost rendered file comes back and is committed), test_main_copy_review (duplicates).

[github-actions]

VERDICT: rework

• Real friction, version bumped, CHANGELOG present, English, anonymized, no budget change. The duplicate-check validation (task.py:154) is correct (runs after --drop-check, so --drop-check X --check X still replaces) and tested.
• update.py (current-version branch): if init fails (h is None) nothing is reported and it falls through to "up to date". The stale .claude is hidden again, which is the bug this PR fixes. Return a line like the target branch does: "init failed — fix and run init".
• render_and_commit drops init's stderr. The old message included short(r.stderr.strip(), 200), and the new "init failed" line has no cause. Keep the reason: return it with the failure, or have the caller print it.
• Untested paths: "stays stale after init (edited by hand?)" and the init failure on a current version. The PR body claims the hand-edit behaviour, so add a test for it (e.g. a hand-edited generated file that init can't reconcile, or a stubbed failing init) and one for the failure line.
• Nit: the init --check subprocess now runs on every update at the current version, and the "stays stale" line repeats on every run, including --auto. Acceptable if it stays once-a-day, but say so in the code or CHANGELOG. The CHANGELOG wording "instead of re-rendering on every run" is inexact: init still re-runs each time.

[github-actions]

VERDICT: accept

• Solves two observed frictions (submodule moved by hand → stale .claude/; duplicate check names overwriting per-name logs since v21). Both come from use and the Reviewing work in the main copy: missing copy in brief, scope skipped, stale logs #12 review nit.
• Correct: render_and_commit is a clean extraction of the old inline code, and the stale-after-init case reports once instead of looping. validate_checks rejects duplicates with the fix in the message.
• Tested: the three update cases (restored file committed, hand edit reported, init failure with cause) plus the duplicate-name case. I could not run them locally (sandbox), so I rely on CI being green.
• Process: VERSION 23 and a CHANGELOG line are present, with no prompt, template or budget growth. English throughout and nothing project-specific.
• Nit: with --auto, a hand-edited stale .claude/ prints "stays stale" once per day, not silently. That is probably fine as a nudge, but it is noise if the edit is intentional.
• Nit: every non---auto update at the current version now spawns init --check. It is cheap, but it is a new subprocess on the common path.