🛑 Stop Tahoe Update

A community-led effort to delay, suppress, and safely block unwanted macOS upgrades (e.g. Sequoia → Tahoe).

Safe • Transparent • Community-driven
Everything here is reversible and off by default.

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⚙️ Why This Project Exists

Apple allows deferring major macOS upgrades (like Sequoia → Tahoe) for up to 90 days using MDM or configuration profiles.
Beyond that, users are on their own — exposed to constant upgrade prompts, badge counts, and surprise downloads.

Stop Tahoe Update exists to change that responsibly.
We’re building a community-maintained source of truth for users who want to stay on stable macOS versions without unsafe hacks.

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🎯 Project Goals

✅ Immediate Goals

• Provide .mobileconfig profiles for 30 / 60 / 90-day deferrals
• Include safe install / uninstall / status scripts
• Establish a safety-first governance model
• Build and maintain a living documentation hub

🧠 Community Research Goals

• 🚫 Prevent “Install Tonight” or “Install Now” prompts
• 🔕 Suppress Settings app badge counts for new macOS upgrades
• 🛡️ Detect & optionally remove unwanted Install macOS*.app downloads
• 🌐 Explore early network-detection of upgrade payloads (opt-in)
• 🧩 Track new Apple deferral keys & declarative MDM behavior

All experimental features are dry-run by default.
No background services, no silent system modifications.

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🗂️ Repository Structure

stop-tahoe-update/
├─ profiles/                 # 30, 60, 90-day deferral .mobileconfig files
├─ scripts/                  # Safe install/uninstall/status scripts
├─ plugins/                  # Optional "shield" experiments
│  ├─ installer-watcher/     # Detect & alert on rogue installers
│  └─ update-signal-monitor/ # Early-warning system log monitor
├─ docs/                     # Goals, RFCs, research, compatibility
└─ .github/                  # Governance, CI, review workflows

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🔬 Active Experiments

Plugin	Type	Description	Default
Installer Watcher	LaunchAgent	Detects /Applications/Install macOS*.app and offers to move it to Trash	Dry-run
Update Signal Monitor	LaunchAgent	Monitors unified logs & prefs for upgrade preparation signals	Dry-run

Both run in user space, never require sudo, and write audit logs under ~/Library/Logs.

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🧭 Roadmap

Phase	Description	Status
Phase 1	30/60/90-day deferrals + safety scripts	✅ Done
Phase 2	Fallback shields (Installer Watcher, Signal Monitor)	🚧 In progress
Phase 3	Badge & prompt suppression research	🔍 Community testing
Phase 4	Declarative + network-layer experiments	🧪 Future

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🧩 Vision & Philosophy

• Transparency over magic: Every line of code is inspectable and reversible
• Safety first: No background daemons, no automatic actions
• Community-led: Every installable artifact is review-gated
• Apple-aligned: Start with supported deferral keys, innovate cautiously beyond them

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🧑‍💻 Contributing

We welcome:

• 🧱 Developers – build and test optional shields
• 🔍 Researchers – document macOS update behavior
• 🧪 Testers – verify reproducibility across versions
• 🧭 Reviewers – audit scripts and profiles for safety

📄 See CONTRIBUTING.md and docs/GOALS.md.

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🧰 Quick Start

1. Clone or download the repo

git clone https://github.com/travisvn/stop-tahoe-update.git
cd stop-tahoe-update

2. Apply a 90-day deferral profile

./scripts/install-profile.sh profiles/deferral-90days.mobileconfig

3. Verify status

./scripts/status.sh

4. Remove later if needed

./scripts/uninstall-profile.sh

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🔍 What the deferral profiles actually do

They use Apple’s official com.apple.applicationaccess keys:

<key>forceDelayedMajorSoftwareUpdates</key><true/>
<key>enforcedSoftwareUpdateMajorOSDeferredInstallDelay</key><integer>90</integer>

These settings hide major upgrades from Software Update for up to 90 days. After that, the OS may begin prompting again.

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⚖️ Safety & Governance

• 🧾 Signed releases only — no curl | sh install methods
• 🧱 CodeOwners required for profiles/, scripts/, and plugins/
• 🧪 CI validation: XML linting, ShellCheck, SHA-256 hash checks
• 🛡️ No root operations unless clearly documented & user-initiated
• 🔒 Security disclosure policy: see SECURITY.md

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🗺️ Beyond Tahoe

While this repo focuses on Sequoia → Tahoe, the long-term goal is a more general toolkit: StayOnMac — empowering macOS users to choose when (or if) they upgrade.

Future versions may include:

• Broader version targeting (Sonoma, Ventura, etc.)
• GUI wrappers for non-technical users
• Integration with open MDM tools

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💬 Community & Support

• 💭 GitHub Discussions: share findings, theories, and test results
• 🧩 observations tag: submit verified upgrade triggers or logs
• 🧠 RFCs: propose new shields via docs/rfcs/

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🧾 License

MIT License — simple, permissive, and open. All contributions must remain verifiable, reversible, and user-controlled.