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Open Net Worth Docs

Upgrading

Updating never touches your book’s folder except to bring its database up to the new version, and it always takes a backup first. How you update depends on how you installed it.

Update for your install

Desktop app

It updates itself. A new version downloads in the background; when it’s ready, the menu shows Restart to Update to Open Net Worth X — choose it, or let it install the next time you quit. To check right away: Open Net Worth → Check for Updates… on a Mac, Help → Check for Updates… on Windows and Linux. Details in Desktop app § Updates.

You can also re-run the installer from Installing Open Net Worth — it upgrades in place and never touches your book.

Server installed with the one-line installer (onw)

  1. Stop the app (press Ctrl+C where onw start is running, or onw autostart stop if it runs as a boot service).

  2. Run:

    Terminal window
    onw upgrade

    This is the same as uv tool upgrade open-net-worth. Re-running the install script works too.

  3. Start it again: onw start (or onw autostart install).

  4. Check: onw version prints the new version.

Docker

The docker-compose.yml you downloaded is pinned to the version it came with, so docker compose pull on its own does not move you to a newer release. Either:

  • Download the new compose file (recommended — it always matches its release):

    Terminal window
    curl -fsSLO https://github.com/open-net-worth-ai/open-net-worth-releases/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
    docker compose pull
    docker compose up -d

  • Or name the version you want, keeping your current file:

    Terminal window
    ONW_VERSION=x.y.z docker compose up -d

    Put ONW_VERSION=x.y.z in the .env file next to docker-compose.yml to make it stick.

Your data is in the open-net-worth-data volume and survives both. Keep AUTH_PASSWORD set (in .env or on the command line) as you did the first time. Check the new version with curl http://localhost:8080/api/health.

From a source checkout

Stop the running app first, then:

Terminal window
git pull
make setup
make start

make setup refreshes the Python and frontend dependencies, rebuilds the web app and updates the database. (Running onw upgrade in a checkout tells you to do exactly this.)

What the app does when the database needs to change

Most updates need no database change. When one does, the app handles it the first time it starts, before it shows you anything:

  1. It backs up your database (on the standard SQLite setup) to backups/db/pre-migrate-<date>.db inside your data folder, and checks that the backup opens. If the backup can’t be verified, nothing changes.
  2. It applies the change.
  3. If the change fails partway, it puts the backup back, so you’re left with the database you started with, never a half-updated one.
  4. If anything went wrong, the app refuses to start rather than run on data it can’t vouch for. The message says what failed and, if the automatic restore also couldn’t finish, names the backup file to restore by hand.

The five most recent of these backups are kept; older ones are deleted automatically.

If the app won’t start after an update, read the error first — it almost always says what to do. See Backend won’t start.

Going back to an older version

You can’t. Once a newer version has updated your database, an older version refuses to open it (“it was migrated by NEWER code than this build”) and leaves it untouched. To truly go back, you would restore a backup taken before the update — see Backup and restore. In practice, the fix for a problem in a new version is the next update.

Using PostgreSQL instead of SQLite

The automatic pre-update backup only exists for SQLite. On PostgreSQL, the app refuses to apply a database change until you confirm you’ve taken your own backup:

  1. Back up the database yourself (for example pg_dump).
  2. Start the new version with ONW_MIGRATE_ASSUME_BACKUP=1 set.

Before a big update

The automatic backup covers the database change itself. Before a large version jump it’s still worth taking your own backup — Settings → Data → Back up now — so you have a restore point you chose.