diff

claude-routines:diff

Compare local vs cloud. Useful before deploy to see exactly what would change.

Procedure

1. Parse the file's frontmatter and body. Expand {{include}} directives in the body (same as deploy does).
2. Read the file's trigger_id. If absent, abort with: "no trigger_id in frontmatter; use create first".
3. Call RemoteTrigger with action: "get" and trigger_id: <id>.
4. Compare each tracked field. Skip read-only fields entirely.

Tracked fields (compare and report differences)

• name (string equality)
• cron_expression or run_once_at (string equality on whichever is populated)
• enabled (bool equality)
• job_config.ccr.environment_id (string equality)
• job_config.ccr.session_context.model (string equality; treat absent on either side as equal)
• job_config.ccr.session_context.allowed_tools (set comparison; report added/removed individually)
• job_config.ccr.session_context.sources (list of objects; compare by url)
• mcp_connections (list of objects; compare by connector_uuid)
• Prompt body (compare file's expanded body against job_config.ccr.events[0].data.message.content)

Read-only fields to skip

created_at, updated_at, next_run_at, creator, ended_reason, api_token_hint, persist_session, enabled_plugins, extra_marketplaces, outcomes, last_fired_at.

Output format

trig_01ABC...  Norway News Digest

  cron:           "0 7 * * *"  ->  "0 8 * * *"
  allowed_tools:  +Bash  -KillBash
  prompt:         3 lines changed (+42 chars)

  ---  Send a Norway news digest with ONLY NEW stories...
  +++  Send a Norway news digest from the last 24 hours...

3 fields differ.

If everything matches:

trig_01ABC...  Norway News Digest
in sync.

Whitespace handling

Trailing whitespace and trailing newlines are sometimes added or stripped by Anthropic's normalization. Report these as a special note: prompt: trailing whitespace differs (semantically identical). Don't show this as a hard difference.

Note on the model field

The API GET response does NOT echo the model field even when it's set. If your local file has model: claude-opus-4-7 but the cloud response shows no model, treat this as unknown - cannot verify. Don't report it as a diff. (Verified 2026-05-14.)

Bulk diff

For diff all, see the bulk skill.

See also

• dry-run deploy <file> to see the exact body that would be sent on deploy
• deploy <file> to apply the changes after reviewing the diff