Description

Running npm run plugin:generate causes 22+ files to appear as modified in git status despite having identical content to HEAD. This creates noise in the working tree and can lead to accidental commits of no-op changes.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start with a clean working tree (git status shows no changes)
2. Run npm run plugin:generate
3. Run git status

Expected Behavior

Only files with actual content changes appear in git status.

Actual Behavior

22 files show as modified ( M) including all plugin.json and plugin README.md files. Running git diff on these files produces empty output — the content is byte-for-byte identical to HEAD.

Root Cause

The plugin generator script rewrites output files unconditionally (write-always pattern), even when the content hasn't changed. This updates filesystem timestamps (mtime/ctime), which invalidates git's index stat cache. With core.filemode=false (typical in devcontainers) and * text=auto in .gitattributes, git update-index --refresh fails to resolve the mismatch, leaving the files permanently marked as "needs update."

Affected Files

• .github/plugin/marketplace.json
• collections/hve-core-all.collection.yml
• All plugins/*/README.md files (11 plugins)
• All plugins/*/.github/plugin/plugin.json files (11 plugins)

Suggested Fix

Update the plugin generator to use a write-if-changed pattern: compute the new content, compare it to the existing file, and only write when the content differs. This avoids touching timestamps on unchanged files.

Workaround

Run git checkout -- <file> on the phantom files to reset the stat cache, or use:

git status --porcelain | grep '^ M' | awk '{print $2}' | xargs git checkout --

Environment

• Dev container (Ubuntu 22.04)
• core.filemode=false
• .gitattributes: * text=auto