Routines: Migration & Compatibility

This page is for users who used the earlier pipelines API or CLI before the Routines feature was finalized. TL;DR: nothing breaks. The user-facing label changed from “Pipeline” to “Routine”, but every backend identifier — table, package, route paths, journal types, WS event types, command-line aliases — stays the same. Existing scripts, agents, and saved pipelines keep working.

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What changed

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User-facing label: Pipeline → Routine

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What stays the same (backwards-compatible)

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What’s new beyond the rename

Beyond the rename itself, the same release shipped the following net-new capabilities:

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Triggers

• Cron schedules — recurring auto-fire on cron expression. New tables: pipeline_schedules (v80). New CLI: crewship routine schedules ....
• Webhooks — token-addressed event triggers with optional HMAC signing, per-token rate limiting. New tables: pipeline_webhooks (v82), pipeline_run_idempotency (v81). New CLI: crewship routine webhooks ....

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Versioning

• Immutable history + rollback — every save creates a new pipeline_versions row (v79). crewship routine versions <slug>, crewship routine rollback <slug> --to N.

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Step types

• 6 step types instead of MVP’s 2: agent_run, call_pipeline, http, code, wait, transform. See Step types reference.
• DAG with needs[] — independent steps execute in parallel.
• Conditional if — any step can carry a template-rendered boolean to skip itself.

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HITL

• Waitpoints — DB-backed approval primitive (v79). wait step of kind: approval parks the run goroutine on a token; approve via CLI (crewship routine waitpoints approve <token>), UI inbox, or API.

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UX

• /routines page — dedicated full-management surface as a clone of /orchestration. Three-column layout with filter sidebar, 4 main tabs, and a 7-tab detail panel.
• + New routine dialog — JSON DSL editor with 3 starter templates and Test & Save flow.
• Live waterfall — Runs sub-tab subscribes to step-level WebSocket events.

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Tooling

• crewship routine validate file.json — offline DSL parse + validate, exit 0/1 for CI gates.
• crewship routine watch <slug> — live event stream, ANSI-coloured by default, --json for jq pipelines.
• crewship routine logs <run_id> --slug X — one-shot post-mortem dump for a specific run.
• crewship routine doctor <slug> — preflight ✓/⚠/✗ checklist that catches blind alleys (missing crew provisioning, agent slug typo, missing credential, contradictory validation gate, cost cap too tight) before run. CI-friendly via -f json + non-zero exit on any FAIL.
• crewship routine bench <slug> — N-runs variance characterisation: pass-rate + cost mean/p95/max + duration p50/p95/max + fail-reason breakdown. Headline verdict (PRODUCTION_READY/FLAKY/UNRELIABLE/BROKEN).
• crewship routine records <slug> — list runs from the indexed pipeline_runs projection (v83). Filterable by status, much faster than runs for large run history.
• crewship eval scenarios / eval compare / eval baseline — cross-tier consistency suite for routines whose slug starts with eval-. Save baselines locally, diff in CI on every PR. See eval CLI.
• --tier-override flag on routine run (and on bench, eval scenarios, eval compare, eval baseline) — force every agent_run step onto a specific tier without DSL changes. Step-level model_override still wins.
• JSON Schema at schemas/routine.v1.json — IDE autocomplete + inline validation when authoring DSL files.

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Security

• HMAC save_token — /test_run returns a signed token bound to (workspace, definition_hash, user_id, ts). /save verifies the token instead of trusting last_test_run_at body claims. Closes the test-gate spoofing surface flagged in the original review.
• CheckRedirect on HTTP step — egress allowlist re-validated on every 3xx hop, blocking SSRF via redirect chains.
• JOIN on workspace_id in agent slug resolution — eliminates cross-workspace agent execution surface.

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Migration paths

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”I’m using the CLI”

Nothing to change. pipeline is a cobra alias on the top-level command, so crewship pipeline X works for every subcommand — including the new ones (schedules / webhooks / waitpoints / validate / watch / logs / records / doctor / bench). crewship pipeline list and crewship routine list are identical. Recommended: switch your scripts to routine for forward-consistency, but nothing forces it.

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”I’m using the API”

Nothing to change. All /api/v1/.../pipelines/* route paths are unchanged. The new endpoints (/api/v1/workspaces/{ws}/pipelines/save for UI authoring + /api/v1/workspaces/{ws}/pipeline-schedules, /api/v1/workspaces/{ws}/pipeline-webhooks etc.) are additive. The /test_run response now includes a save_token field (omitempty); legacy clients that ignore unknown fields see no change.

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”My agents author pipelines via the sidecar”

Nothing to change. The sidecar localhost:9119/pipelines/* paths are unchanged. The agent system prompt now says [AVAILABLE ROUTINES] instead of [AVAILABLE PIPELINES], but agents read the bracket label as a section header, not a method name — they still POST to /pipelines/save and /pipelines/{slug}/run.

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”I have a saved bundle export from before the rename”

Bundles are forward-compatible. The export format (crewship-pipeline-bundle/v1) is unchanged. Re-import works: crewship routine import bundle.json. The bundle filename format changed (pipeline-<slug>-bundle.json → routine-<slug>-bundle.json) but the filename has no semantic meaning — only the JSON shape inside matters.

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Database migrations

Five migrations land in this release: All migrations apply automatically on first boot of a server with the new binary. Backup integrity is preserved — crewship backup create includes the new tables. Rollback path: restore.go for v78 returns nil (data-bearing tables can’t be partial-rolled-back); for downstream rollback use the archive snapshot from before the upgrade.

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Tier override behavior change

Routines whose steps declare complexity: "fast" (or any other tier) now actually pin the agent’s CLI to the resolved model (claude --model claude-haiku-4-5-20251001). Previously the override was silently dropped and the agent’s default model ran every step. Before (silent drop): a routine with complexity: "fast" on Tomas (default model: Sonnet) ran on Sonnet at ~$0.06/run. After (override honored): same routine runs on Haiku at ~$0.003/run. ~20× cheaper, ~3× faster. Cost dashboards may show a step-down in pipeline-attributed LLM cost after this release. That’s the expected behaviour finally landing — not a metering glitch.

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CodeRabbit-flagged fixes carried forward

The original PR review flagged 23 inline issues. The vast majority were addressed in the original 7715ee7 sweep; the remaining items shipped with this release. See the CHANGELOG for the full list. Highlights for security/stability-conscious users:

• DAG completion bookkeeping — failed steps no longer mark completed=true (would have let downstream branches advance with empty inputs)
• Waitpoint lost-wakeup race — listener pre-registration eliminates the timing window
• Webhook rate-limiter — counter increment now atomic under mutex
• Idempotency stale-row — sweep failure no longer leaks dead run_ids through subsequent reads
• SSRF via redirect — already covered above
• Cross-workspace agent execution — already covered above
• Template validation breadth — bad templates in HTTP/Wait/Code/Transform/If fields now reject at save instead of crashing at runtime

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Things still deferred (not in this release)