didericis
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The harness's second run hit the wall the first one predicted: a fresh account has no pipx, so install.sh fell to `pip install --user`, and every Python a Mac offers — Homebrew and python.org alike — is externally managed, so PEP 668 blocked it. That fallback was never a fallback on macOS; it was a dead end that printed instructions. Replace it with a venv at ~/.bot-bottle/venv (BOT_BOTTLE_VENV to move it), with the console script symlinked into ~/.local/bin. PEP 668 does not apply inside a venv, and venv is stdlib, so unlike pipx there is nothing to bootstrap first. pipx stays the preferred path when present, so anyone already managing their Python apps that way is unaffected — and the post-install PATH check now asks pipx for PIPX_BIN_DIR instead of assuming ~/.local/bin. Keeping the venv under ~/.bot-bottle rather than ~/.local/share means the whole footprint stays in one directory, which is what lets the throwaway-account teardown remain a complete reset. This removes the PEP 668 pre-flight and the sysconfig user-scheme lookup, both of which existed only to serve the --user path. Their tests go with them: * `detects_externally_managed_python` asserted the check that is now moot; replaced by one asserting pipx is still preferred when present. * `checks_pip_usable_before_fallback` pinned a pip probe that no longer runs; replaced by one asserting the venv's own pip does the install, since using the base interpreter's would install outside the venv. * `resolves_user_scripts_dir_not_hardcoded` and `macos_user_scheme_is_not_dot_local_bin` guarded the ~/Library/Python scripts-dir lookup. Nothing installs there now. The surviving "don't hardcode" concern is pipx's bin dir, which has its own test. Five tests are added for the new path: the venv fallback exists, no --user path survives, the venv is under the config dir, venv creation failure names python3-venv (Debian ships it separately), and the entry point is exposed outside the venv. Verified end to end in a sandbox HOME with a fresh-account PATH and no pipx: venv built, package installed, symlink created, `doctor` reached and green (python 3.14.5, macos-container ready), exit 0. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01WEfZZhakx13bxTfXcZCoS5
Research notes
Investigations into a question or a design space — landscape surveys,
tradeoff analyses, "should we do X or Y," assessments of an approach
before (or instead of) committing it to a PRD. A research note is where
the thinking lives; a PRD is where a decided feature lives, and a
decision record is where a settled choice lives (see
../README.md for picking between them).
Notes are opinionated. They reach a conclusion rather than dumping a neutral survey — the point is to move a decision forward and leave a durable record of why it went the way it did.
Naming
kebab-case-topic.md, named by subject and not numbered (unlike
PRDs and decision records). Pick a name that says what was
investigated: bash-vs-python-vs-go.md, pipelock-assessment.md,
issue-tracking-vs-in-repo-decision-history.md.
Shape (freeform)
There's no fixed template — use whatever structure fits the question. In practice most notes share a loose shape:
- Open with the question — a sentence or two on what's being investigated and why it came up.
- Lead with the verdict — a
## Summarynear the top stating the conclusion, so a reader gets the answer without reading the whole thing. - Then the analysis — whatever the argument needs: comparison tables, per-option sections, failure-mode walkthroughs, the axes that actually matter.
- End with a recommendation when the note exists to drive a decision.
Keep the reasoning self-contained and grounded: cite sources, link files and PRDs, and prefer concrete evidence from this repo over generic claims — a note should stand on its own without a chat log or a Gitea thread. When a note's recommendation gets acted on, capture the resulting decision in a PRD or a decision record; the note stays as the "why we looked into it," not the system of record for the choice.