# Let an agent handle Acorn upgrades

**URL:** https://discourse.roots.io/t/let-an-agent-handle-acorn-upgrades/30351
**Category:** acorn
**Tags:** acorn
**Created:** 2026-05-24T01:10:13Z
**Posts:** 1

## Post 1 by @ben — 2026-05-24T01:10:14Z

The [Acorn upgrade guide](https://roots.io/acorn/docs/upgrading-acorn/) notes:

> If any packages/dependencies have conflicts while updating, try removing and then re-requiring them after Acorn is bumped to 6.x.

This is something I’ve regularly had to deal with, especially on the Roots site that uses several Laravel packages… the manual back-and-forth wasn’t fun

Agents can surface every conflict up front and resolve them all in one `composer require` call

Here’s a prompt you can drop into your agent of choice from the root of a Bedrock/Radicle site:

> Upgrade this site from Acorn v5 to v6 following [https://roots.io/acorn/docs/upgrading-acorn/](https://roots.io/acorn/docs/upgrading-acorn/). Don’t use the remove/re-require workaround from the guide. Instead:
> 
> 1. If `config/logging.php` exists and the `stderr` channel uses `with`, rename it to `handler_with`.
> 2. If `MAIL_ENCRYPTION` is set in `.env`, rename to `MAIL_SCHEME` and bump `roots/acorn-mail` to `^2.0` if present.
> 3. Run `composer require roots/acorn ^6.0 illuminate/contracts ^13.0 -W --dry-run` first — pinning illuminate/contracts forces composer to print every direct-dep conflict at once instead of stopping at the first.
> 4. For each locked direct dep that’s blocking the upgrade, check whether its current constraint in composer.json already permits a Laravel-13-compatible release (`composer show -a <pkg>` and inspect newer versions’ illuminate requirements). If yes, just add the package to the `composer require` command using its existing constraint — that unlocks it. If the new compatible release requires a major bump, update the constraint.
> 5. Run the combined `composer require` for real, then bump composer.json constraints up to the installed versions and `composer update --lock` (or `composer update <one-pkg>` if security-advisories blocks a stale transitive). Finish with `wp acorn config:clear && wp acorn optimize:clear`.
> 
> Don’t touch `.env` cache/session/redis prefixes — flag them in the summary instead so I can decide.

Claude Code suggested the prompt above. My initial prompt was this simple, and Claude Code ended up doing everything noted in the prompt above on its own:

> We’re on Acorn v5 and need to upgrade to v6 —this is the upgrade guide: [https://roots.io/acorn/docs/upgrading-acorn/](https://roots.io/acorn/docs/upgrading-acorn/)

> **Claude Code was able to bump the affected packages for Laravel v13 support that we use:**
>
> - `codeat3/blade-simple-icons`
> - `blade-ui-kit/blade-icons`
> - `blade-ui-kit/blade-heroicons`
> - `codeat3/blade-line-awesome-icons`
> - `davidhsianturi/blade-bootstrap-icons`
> - `graham-campbell/markdown`
> - `laravel/socialite`

It ended up using a single `composer require` to handle the upgrade, and for sites with a lot of Laravel packages it’s a nice time saver