PR Review: fix: allow mempalace init to default to the current directory

Executive Summary

Affected Areas: mempalace/cli.py (parser + main entrypoint), tests/test_cli.py (new), README.md, mempalace/onboarding.py

Business Impact: Users no longer need to type mempalace init . when already inside their project directory — removes a common friction point.

Flow Changes: main() split into build_parser() + main(argv=None). When argv=None, argparse reads from sys.argv[1:] — identical to previous behavior. No callers break.

Ratings

PR Health

• Has clear description
• References ticket/issue (Init in documentation has no dir, but is required #210)
• Appropriate size (37 additions, 6 deletions)
• Has relevant tests (2 parser tests)

Medium Priority Issues

(Should fix, not blocking)

🎨 #1: Init prints raw "." instead of resolved path

Location: mempalace/cli.py:46 (main branch line) | Confidence: ✅ HIGH

When the user runs mempalace init without arguments, the console prints Scanning for entities in: . which is less informative than the resolved absolute path. The downstream detect_rooms_local() already resolves via Path(project_dir).expanduser().resolve(), but the print in cmd_init uses the raw value.

- print(f"\n  Scanning for entities in: {args.dir}")
+ resolved = str(Path(args.dir).expanduser().resolve())
+ print(f"\n  Scanning for entities in: {resolved}")

Low Priority Issues

(Nice to have)

🎨 #2: Docstring examples still show only the explicit-directory form

Location: mempalace/cli.py:17-27 (Examples block) | Confidence: ⚠️ MED

The top-of-file docstring Examples: section shows mempalace init ~/projects/my_app but doesn't demonstrate the new no-argument form. Adding mempalace init as an example would help discoverability.

 Examples:
+    mempalace init                        # init current directory
     mempalace init ~/projects/my_app

🔗 #3: Test file bypasses project test harness

Location: tests/test_cli.py | Confidence: ⚠️ MED

The PR validation command runs pytest --noconftest tests/test_cli.py, but the file itself doesn't declare anything incompatible with conftest.py. When run via pytest normally (which is the project convention per pyproject.toml), the _reset_mcp_cache autouse fixture from conftest.py will fire unnecessarily. This is harmless but worth noting — the tests work fine either way.

No code change needed — just awareness.

Flow Impact Analysis

BEFORE:  mempalace init <dir>  →  argparse requires positional  →  cmd_init(args)
AFTER:   mempalace init [dir]  →  argparse optional, default="."  →  cmd_init(args)
                                                                       ↓
                                                              scan_for_detection(args.dir)  ← "." is valid
                                                              Path(args.dir).expanduser().resolve()  ← resolves to cwd
                                                              detect_rooms_local(project_dir=args.dir)  ← also resolves internally

All downstream consumers resolve the path via Path().expanduser().resolve(), so the "." default is safe throughout the call chain.

Created by Octocode MCP https://octocode.ai 🔍🐙

Updated per the suggestions.

Changes included:

• resolved the init path before scanning so the CLI prints an absolute path instead of .
• added the no-argument mempalace init example to the CLI docstring

Re-ran the lightweight CLI checks locally after the update.