PatchCairn

A careful workflow for computer maintenance

Keep your computer moving.

Use your AI assistant to understand what needs attention, review the choices, and coordinate supported work you approve.

Read Your First Run Explore the workflows

Developed by Michael

Codex is the primary workflow. Claude Code and OpenCode require capability checks.

Unbranded graphite laptop with orange edge lighting, an illustrative product visual
Security updatesRead the workflowStorage cleanupRead the workflowDiagnosis & repairRead the workflowBackup & recoveryRead the workflow

Your first run

Start in your assistant

Open the source folder in a capable local assistant, then use this request.

Use these commands in your assistant’s conversation, not as operating-system shell commands.

Follow the guide step by step

Choose the job that fits

Each job begins with agreed scope and an explanation of the next useful step.

Security updates

Review agreed software metadata, official releases, security concerns, and compatibility before choosing specific updates.

Read the workflow

Storage cleanup

Measure selected folders and review exact candidates. Matching bytes do not establish that a file can be removed.

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Diagnosis & repair

Investigate what failed, compare possible causes, and explain confidence and uncertainty before a repair decision.

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Backup & recovery

Agree exact contents, exclusions, destination, verification, and restoration limits for selected files.

Read the workflow

How a session works

Assessment, approval, an attempted action, and a verified result are separate steps.

An assessment can end after findings without making changes. Ask for the findings, remaining uncertainty, and the next useful choice.

  1. Choose a job. Start with the menu and select the kind of help you need.
  2. Agree scope. Select exact information or folders, exclusions, and privacy limits, then authorize assessment.
  3. Investigate. Gather bounded evidence and relevant official information.
  4. Explain findings. Understand meaning, confidence, unknowns, and the next useful check.
  5. Review a concrete plan. See targets, benefits, drawbacks, costs, recovery limits, and verification. Two independent reviews examine a change plan.
  6. Approve supported work. Choose the clearly identified actions you authorize in ordinary language.
  7. Verify and finish. Check actual results, explain remaining concerns, and choose what evidence and recovery material to retain.

Follow your first run step by step

Choose control and timing separately

Guided assessment now is a useful starting point. Settings do not expand earlier approval.

How work proceeds

Guided
Review explanations at selected checkpoints. More opportunities to decide, with more pauses for your attention.
Automatic within an approved policy
Continue unchanged routine work within exact authorized boundaries. This needs clear limits and stop conditions.

When work begins

Now
Begin agreed work while you are available. An interruption or restart may need a separate decision.
Scheduled
Propose a later time. Actual schedule creation requires supported host capabilities and your authorization.

Commands you can use in chat

Use ordinary language or the PatchCairn: prefix. The assistant handles technical records; you do not need to edit JSON or transcribe identifiers.

Understand your choices

Open the menu and review the next useful step.

PatchCairn: start
Open the menu without creating a session or collecting host information.
PatchCairn: help
Understand the workflow and available commands.
PatchCairn: status
See completed work, active work, holds, and the next step.
PatchCairn: options
Review meaning, benefits, drawbacks, cost, reversibility, and a recommendation.
PatchCairn: cost
Request supported estimates and explicit unknowns.

Set your boundaries

Keep scope and checkpoints under your control.

PatchCairn: settings
Review scope, checkpoints, control, and timing without widening old approval.

Manage the session

Pause, continue, finish, or examine a pending item.

PatchCairn: pause
Prevent new actions and bring active work to a safe checkpoint.
PatchCairn: resume
Reconcile actual outcomes and freshness before continuing. Text alone cannot clear a hold.
PatchCairn: stop
End the session while preserving records and unresolved work. A late receipt does not reopen it.
PatchCairn: resolve
Inspect a pending item and explain the evidence or choice it needs, without a blind retry.

Read the command and session reference

Understand the boundaries

The workflow coordinates supported tools. It is not an antivirus, an operating-system sandbox, or a guarantee that every issue is found.

Private records stay local

Selected scope excludes browser data, passwords, saved chats, credentials, and unrelated projects from cleanup and broad discovery. Private records remain under owned work/ paths. This website has no computer access or maintenance controls.

Security and privacy

Recovery before permanent loss

Same-volume quarantine frees no disk space. Integrated purge requires exact verified original backup and restoration coverage, plus a separate permanent-loss decision. Unbacked quarantine can be reviewed for restoration.

Recovery and cleanup

Selected backup and update routes

The content-backup route is bounded to 16 MiB per file, 48 MiB selected content, and a 64 MiB archive. A ZIP is not encrypted or system rollback. Current update handoffs accept exact reviewed local MSI, PKG, or DEB artifacts; package-manager updates and OS/application repair routes remain held.

Current integration scope

What to do after an interruption, failed check, or unknown result

Documentation

Start with the walkthrough. Open any guide for grouped navigation to the full documentation library.