"kitty +update-kitty" is not a known entry point

[screendriver]

Describe the bug

I'm using the ssh kitten to login to my remote machines. There I wanted to try out the relatively new transfer files kitten. Unfortunately I get the error message

$ kitten transfer
Error: transfer is not a known subcommand for kitten. Use --help to get a list of valid subcommands.

After checking for the installed kitten version on the remote host I saw that this version is pretty outdated (on my local machine I have 0.30.1):

$ kitten --version
kitten 0.29.2 created by Kovid Goyal

So I want to update it. According to the docs I should be able to do that with a simple kitty +update-kitty. Unfortunately this does not work. I'm getting following error message:

$ kitty +update-kitty
kitty needs to be installed

Downloading kitty from: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/releases/download/v0.30.1/kitty-0.30.1-arm64.txz

  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
100 17.5M  100 17.5M    0     0  4425k      0  0:00:04  0:00:04 --:--:-- 5000k
update-kitty is not a known entry point. Choices are: icat, list-fonts, hold, complete, runpy, launch, open, kitten, edit-config, shebang, edit

The only solution that worked was to completely remove the directory /home/me/.local/share/kitty-ssh-kitten/ and re-login to the remote machine.

Two questions two this:

1. Why is kitty +update-kitty not kown?
2. Wouldn't it possible that kitty does this kind of update automatically on the remote machine when I login with the ssh kitten and it sees by itself that the local version is outdated?

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. ssh into a remote machine: kitten ssh my@machine
2. check the kitten version on the remote host: kitten --version. On my remote machine is shows kitten 0.29.2 created by Kovid Goyal which is pretty old and I want to update it
3. try to update kitty on the remote host: kitty +update-kitty
4. update-kitty is not a known entry point. Choices are: icat, list-fonts, hold, complete, runpy, launch, open, kitten, edit-config, shebang, edit

Screenshots

Environment details

kitty 0.30.1 (6a3529b7c2) created by Kovid Goyal
Darwin MacBook-Pro.fritz.box 23.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 23.0.0: Fri Sep 15 14:41:34 PDT 2023; root:xnu-10002.1.13~1/RELEASE_ARM64_T8103 arm64
ProductName:        macOS ProductVersion:       14.0 BuildVersion:      23A344
Frozen: True
Paths:
  kitty: /Applications/kitty.app/Contents/MacOS/kitty
  base dir: /Applications/kitty.app/Contents/Resources/kitty
  extensions dir: /Applications/kitty.app/Contents/Resources/Python/lib/kitty-extensions
  system shell: /bin/zsh
Loaded config files:
  /Users/me/.config/kitty/kitty.conf

Config options different from defaults:
allow_remote_control          yes
bold_font                     JetBrainsMono Nerd Font Bold
bold_italic_font              JetBrainsMono Nerd Font Bold Italic
confirm_os_window_close       1
copy_on_select                clipboard
cursor_text_color             None
enable_audio_bell             False
font_family                   JetBrainsMono Nerd Font Regular
font_size                     13.0
italic_font                   JetBrainsMono Nerd Font Italic
listen_on                     unix:$TMPDIR/kitty
macos_show_window_title_in    window
macos_titlebar_color          1
modify_font:
    cell_height 120%
mouse_hide_wait               -1.0
scrollback_pager_history_size 10485760
shell_integration             frozenset({'no-cursor'})
tab_activity_symbol           *
tab_bar_style                 powerline
tab_powerline_style           round
update_check_interval         0.0
Added shortcuts:
    cmd+left →  send_text all \x1bOH
    cmd+right →  send_text all \x1bOF
    ctrl+cmd+enter →  launch --cwd=current
    ctrl+cmd+m →  toggle_maximized
    ctrl+h →  kitten pass_keys.py neighboring_window left   ctrl+h
    ctrl+j →  kitten pass_keys.py neighboring_window bottom ctrl+j
    ctrl+k →  kitten pass_keys.py neighboring_window top    ctrl+k
    ctrl+l →  kitten pass_keys.py neighboring_window right  ctrl+l
    kitty_mod+m →  toggle_layout stack
    opt+left →  send_text all \x1B\x62
    opt+right →  send_text all \x1B\x66
    shift+down →  move_window down
    shift+left →  move_window left
    shift+right →  move_window right
    shift+up →  move_window up
Changed shortcuts:
    kitty_mod+` →  change_font_size all +2.0
    kitty_mod+c →  previous_window
    kitty_mod+p > h →  kitten hints --type hash --program @
    kitty_mod+p > n →  kitten hints --type linenum nvim +{line} {path}
Colors:
    active_tab_background         #f8f8f2   
    active_tab_foreground         #282a36   
    background                    #282a36   
    color0                        #21222c   
    color1                        #ff5555   
    color10                       #69ff94   
    color11                       #ffffa5   
    color12                       #d6acff   
    color13                       #ff92df   
    color14                       #a4ffff   
    color2                        #50fa7b   
    color3                        #f1fa8c   
    color4                        #bd93f9   
    color5                        #ff79c6   
    color6                        #8be9fd   
    color7                        #f8f8f2   
    color8                        #6272a4   
    color9                        #ff6e6e   
    cursor                        #f8f8f2   
    foreground                    #f8f8f2   
    inactive_tab_background       #6272a4   
    inactive_tab_foreground       #282a36   
    mark1_background              #ff5555   
    mark1_foreground              #282a36   
    selection_background          #44475a   
    selection_foreground          #ffffff   
    url_color                     #8be9fd   

Important environment variables seen by the kitty process:
    PATH                                /opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:/var/folders/85/8rb_y49j5911bg5qzd7tkddw0000gp/T/fnm_multishell_19222_1612159369334/bin:/opt/homebrew/bin:/opt/homebrew/sbin:/opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/MacGPG2/bin:/Applications/kitty.app/Contents/MacOS
    LANG                                en_US.UTF-8
    SHELL                               /bin/zsh
    USER                                me

Additional context

[kovidgoyal]

The docs are outdated. You need

kitten update-self

and no I dont want to do automatic updates, am not a fan of those. If and when you have an issue or want to try new functionality, its just a simple command to update it.

[screendriver]

kitten update-self

Gives me: Error: This is not a standalone kitten executable. You must update all of kitty instead.

[kovidgoyal]

Yes because you have kitty installed from before. Delete/uninstall it and you will be fine. You dont need all of kitty anymore since almost all kittens have now been ported to the kitten binary.

[screendriver]

Unfortunately not:

$ where kitty
kitty not found
$ where kitten
kitten not found
$ exit

Then I login again:

$ kitten ssh my@machine
$ where kitty 
/home/me/.local/share/kitty-ssh-kitten/kitty/bin/kitty
$ where kitten
/home/me/.local/share/kitty-ssh-kitten/kitty/bin/kitten
$ kitten update-self
kitten needs to be installed

Downloading kitten from: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/releases/latest/download/kitten-linux-amd64

  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
100 14.1M  100 14.1M    0     0  23.2M      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 23.2M
Error: This is not a standalone kitten executable. You must update all of kitty instead.

[kovidgoyal]

That's probably a spurious error, what does

kitten --version say after updating?

[screendriver]

kitten --version say after updating?

kitten 0.30.1 created by Kovid Goyal

[kovidgoyal]

Yeah that means it updated. I'll fix the spurious error message.

[screendriver]

Ah! 💡 That makes sense. So yeah an info message with a proper exit code in this situation would be nice 👍