Auto-Migrating Claude Code with a Throwaway launchd Job — a Script That Deletes Itself When Its Work Is Done

Short summary

A detailed walkthrough of a self-deleting launchd job that automatically migrates Claude Code's default model from a deprecated model to Opus on a specific date. The script uses a date guard for idempotency, jq for atomic settings.json modification, osascript for notifications, and launchctl unload to deregister itself after completion. The pattern is reusable for any one-time scheduled macOS maintenance task.

• •Throwaway launchd job pattern: runs once, then deregisters itself
• •Script migrates Claude Code model setting from deprecated model to Opus
• •Includes date guards, atomic file writes, and macOS notifications

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