Patchday

FAQ

How many repositories can I track?

It depends on your plan. Early Access (where new accounts start) and Starter both track up to 5 repositories, Pro tracks 25, and Unlimited has no cap. See Plans & limits for the full breakdown.

Early adopters lock in a lower price permanently.

What is a Patchday Briefing?

A briefing is a scheduled AI-generated upgrade guide for the repositories you track. Instead of an alert per release, Patchday compares the version you're running against the latest and tells you what breaks, how to migrate, and how risky the jump is. The guides land together on the Briefings page and arrive as a single digest email.

You can schedule briefings weekly or monthly from the Notifications page. See Patchday Briefings for details.

Which sources does Patchday support?

Patchday tracks GitHub Releases only. It monitors the releases that maintainers publish through GitHub's release UI, not plain git tags, commits, or pull requests.

Tracking container images from Docker Hub and GitHub Container Registry is planned next.

How often are releases checked?

Patchday polls tracked repositories every 15 minutes, so a new release shows up in Patchday within about a quarter of an hour of being published. When a new release is detected, it's processed right away: the AI summary is generated and any configured notifications are sent.

When you first add a repository, its existing releases are fetched in the background. This usually finishes quickly, but can take longer when GitHub is rate-limiting requests.

Can I use my own ntfy server?

Yes. In Notifications, there's an optional Server URL field. Enter the address of your self-hosted ntfy instance (e.g., https://ntfy.example.com) and Patchday sends all notifications there instead of the public ntfy.sh server.

Leave the field empty to use the default.

What data does Patchday store?

  • Your account information (name, email, hashed password)
  • The list of repositories you track, and which release you've marked as the one you're running
  • Release metadata fetched from GitHub (tag names, release notes, publish dates)
  • AI-generated summaries and upgrade guides for release notes
  • Your notification and briefing preferences (ntfy topic, server URL, toggle states, briefing schedule)
  • Your thumbs-up/down ratings on briefing guides

Patchday does not store your GitHub password or any GitHub access tokens. It reads public repository data through the GitHub API. No OAuth permissions or GitHub App installations required.

Do I need a GitHub account?

No. Patchday tracks public GitHub repositories without any GitHub authentication. You sign up with an email and password on Patchday directly.

What happens if I stop tracking a repository?

The repository and its releases remain in the system for other users. Only your personal tracking link is removed. It disappears from your sidebar, dashboard, and feed, and you stop receiving notifications.

You can re-add the repository at any time. All previously fetched releases will still be there.

Is there a mobile app?

Not yet. Patchday is a web app that works on mobile browsers. Push notifications are delivered through the ntfy app, available on Android and iOS.

What does "Pre-release" mean?

A pre-release is a version the maintainers marked as not ready for production, like alphas, betas, or release candidates. Patchday shows these with an amber badge.

You control whether to see pre-releases on your dashboard and feed (via the "Show pre-releases" toggle) and whether to receive notifications for them (via the "Include pre-releases" toggle in notification settings). These are separate controls.

How are AI summaries generated?

When a new release is detected, Patchday feeds the full release notes to an AI model. The model produces:

  • A bullet-point summary highlighting breaking changes, new features, and important fixes (shown on dashboard cards)
  • A one-line summary capturing the single most important change (shown in the feed)

Summaries are generated once per release and shared across all users. Breaking changes and user-facing features are prioritized over internal details.