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gaal sync runs the full reconciliation pipeline once and exits. gaal sync --service keeps the same pipeline running in a loop. Both produce identical state on disk, pick the one that matches how you use the machine.

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One-shot sync (the default)

gaal sync
Runs the full pipeline: audit, plan, apply. Exits when finished. Use this when:
  • You want explicit control over when reconciliation happens.
  • You’re scripting in a Makefile, post-merge hook, or CI job.
  • You’re on a laptop where a background process would just waste battery.

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Continuous service

gaal sync --service --interval 10m
Runs sync, sleeps, runs sync, sleeps. Forever. Catches SIGTERM and Ctrl-C cleanly. --interval accepts any Go duration string: 30s, 5m, 2h. Default is 5m. Use this when:
  • You’re on a long-lived dev workstation and want skills/MCP entries to stay in sync as you edit gaal.yaml.
  • You want a system service that keeps a fleet of machines aligned with a config file pulled from a shared dotfiles repo (paired with a git pull cron).

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Incompatible with --service

FlagWhy
--dry-runA dry-run service loop is meaningless.
--pruneDestructive operations should never be in a continuous loop.

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Running sync as a system service

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systemd (Linux)

# ~/.config/systemd/user/gaal-sync.service
[Unit]
Description=gaal sync loop

[Service]
ExecStart=%h/.local/bin/gaal sync --service --interval 5m
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now gaal-sync.service

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launchd (macOS)

<!-- ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.gaal.sync.plist -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key><string>com.gaal.sync</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/Users/you/.local/bin/gaal</string>
      <string>sync</string>
      <string>--service</string>
      <string>--interval</string>
      <string>5m</string>
    </array>
    <key>KeepAlive</key><true/>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key><true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.gaal.sync.plist

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Periodic via cron

If a long-lived process feels like overkill, fire one-shot syncs from cron: 
*/15 * * * * /home/you/.local/bin/gaal sync >> /tmp/gaal.log 2>&1

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Logging

Pair service mode with a JSON log file for observability: 
gaal sync --service --interval 5m --log-file /var/log/gaal.json
Each cycle writes structured events you can ship into the log pipeline of your choice.

Dry-run

Pruning

gaal sync