Both render sites (setup's gbrain step and gstack-config gbrain-refresh)
ran `rm -rf` on the LIVE render dir BEFORE invoking gen:skill-docs:user.
Installed skills symlink into that dir (relink prefers it), so one
transient render failure — bun error, disk full, broken template — left
every brain-aware skill's SKILL.md symlink dangling: the whole skill set
vanished from Claude Code until a successful re-render.
Both sites now render into "$RENDER_DIR.tmp.$$" and swap it in only on
SUCCESS via a shared-contract _swap_in_render helper (mv old away, mv tmp
in, drop old — links into the live path stay valid because the path never
changes). The failure branch removes only the tmp dir and says so: the
previous render, and every link into it, stays fully intact. The
deliberate wipe on the gbrain-GONE path (stale render shadowing canonical
files) is unchanged.
Pinned in test/user-render-out-dir-install.test.ts: static shape (render
targets the TMP dir, never the live dir), _swap_in_render driven
behaviorally from BOTH files, and an end-to-end failure-branch fixture
proving a pre-existing render plus an installed symlink survive a failed
render.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
On a global-git install with gbrain, ./setup and 'gstack-config
gbrain-refresh' ran gen:skill-docs:user IN PLACE inside the install
checkout, rewriting ~16 TRACKED SKILL.md files. The checkout stayed
permanently dirty, every /gstack-upgrade 'git stash' saved a redundant
snapshot of generated content, and the growing stash list invited a 'git
stash pop' that would lay stale instruction markdown from an older gstack
over the current version — a quiet wrong-rules failure mode.
Fix, wired through machinery that already existed (gen-skill-docs
--out-dir + the symlink install layer): brain-aware SKILL.md now renders
into the untracked ~/.gstack/render/claude, and both Claude installers
serve the render when present — setup's link_claude_skill_dirs prefers
$GSTACK_HOME/render/claude/<skill>/SKILL.md, and bin/gstack-relink does
the same so a later config change can't silently flip skills back to the
blockless canonical source. setup wipes and rebuilds the render each run,
repoints installed skills after a successful render, and removes a stale
render (re-linking canonical) when gbrain is gone. gbrain-refresh renders
to the out-dir and repoints via relink; its 'this dirties the install's
git tree' caveat is retired because it no longer does.
A one-time upgrade migration (gstack-upgrade/migrations/v1.67.0.0.sh, F12)
restores the legacy dirt: unstaged modifications to SKILL.md / sections/
*.md files in the install checkout are git-checkout'd back to canonical;
anything outside that footprint (user edits, untracked files, staged work)
is left alone and reported. Idempotent, non-fatal, symlinked installs
skipped.
Tests: render-preference behavior for both installers, static pins that
every executable :user invocation carries --out-dir and the caveat text is
gone, migration fixture (restore/leave/idempotent/no-op matrix), and the
existing out-dir render test now asserts 'git status --porcelain' gains
zero new entries across a full :user render.
Fixes#2569
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
