QA follow-up: feat(lifecycle): update and uninstall directory targets via recorded ownership (#354) #366

Post-merge QA follow-up (#354)

Source: #354 — feat(lifecycle): update and uninstall directory targets via recorded ownership

Lens: evidence + test design.

The merge covers #342 with real end-to-end evidence: directoryLifecycleInstall drives the production dispatch to a genuinely installed state, and the three tests then check the plan writes nothing, apply actually changes the projected skill, an uninstalled target refuses instead of becoming a first install, and uninstall keeps a foreign file while removing the state file and every owned skill. The ownership wiring (NewUninstallRoot, the RuntimeDirectory arm in validUninstallRoot, the runtimeRank entry) is small and consistent with the existing tables, and the --target-dir/--runtime mutual exclusion in parseUpdateArgs holds.

Two defects and two evidence gaps. The main one: runDirectoryUpdate maps every candidate-build failure to invalid_catalog, and the candidate build also fails when the target path is not absolute, so the documented relative-path invocation of update reports a catalog error that has nothing to do with the catalog. Separately, this PR drops a still-true assertion (docs/README.md listed in the root README) from test_foundation_documents_state_clean_target_status — unrelated to directory lifecycle and unexplained in the PR body. On the evidence side, the update test never checks the manifest refresh the acceptance criteria name, and its ../../catalog fixture resolves only because Go runs the package test with internal/cli as the working directory.

Blocking findings

• A relative or malformed --target-dir is reported as invalid_catalog (internal/cli/update.go:245): buildDirectoryUpdateCandidate fails for two unrelated reasons: the catalog cannot be built, or skillroot.ResolveIntoDirectory rejects the target (its validPath requires filepath.IsAbs). Both collapse into writeError(stderr, "invalid_catalog") with exit 1. runUninstallCommand gets this right — NewUninstallRoot returns invalid_target for the same class of path — so update now contradicts its sibling command and the operating guide, which documents ./agent-skills style paths as usable.
  • Failure scenario: An installed target at ./agent-skills with a valid ./catalog. cortex update --target-dir ./agent-skills --catalog ./catalog passes os.Stat, then ResolveIntoDirectory refuses the non-absolute root, and the command prints error=invalid_catalog and exits 1. The operator hunts a catalog problem that does not exist, and no diagnostic mentions the path.

Acceptance criteria

• Fixed: A relative or malformed --target-dir is reported as invalid_catalog (internal/cli/update.go:245). The scenario below no longer reproduces: An installed target at ./agent-skills with a valid ./catalog. cortex update --target-dir ./agent-skills --catalog ./catalog passes os.Stat, then ResolveIntoDirectory refuses the non-absolute root, and the command prints error=invalid_catalog and exits 1. The operator hunts a catalog problem that does not exist, and no diagnostic mentions the path.