Make update-client idempotent when a GBrain source already exists

[100yenadmin]

TLDR

scripts/update-client.mjs should treat an already-registered openclaw-support-kb GBrain source as success, even when newer gbrain sources add returns only a generic Error: command failed. During the Golden VM Eva Brain canary, the KB repo updated correctly and the existing source was healthy, but the installer aborted before sync/embed because source registration was not idempotent enough.

Why this matters

Fleet upgrades need to be boring. Existing customer VMs will usually already have an openclaw-support-kb source, so the updater must refresh that source instead of failing and requiring an agent to SSH in and manually run sources federate, sync, and embed.

flowchart TD
  A[update-client.mjs] --> B[git pull KB repo]
  B --> C[install support skills]
  C --> D[gbrain sources add openclaw-support-kb]
  D -->|generic nonzero when already exists| E[installer aborts]
  E --> F[sync/embed/status skipped]
  D -->|desired| G[recognize existing source]
  G --> H[gbrain sources federate]
  H --> I[gbrain sync --source openclaw-support-kb]
  I --> J[gbrain embed --stale --source openclaw-support-kb]

Loading

Repro from Golden VM

Environment:

• VM: golden / 178.104.117.126
• Eva Brain: upgraded to gbrain 0.33.0
• Existing source: openclaw-support-kb at /root/.gbrain/sources/openclaw-support-kb
• Source status before manual recovery: healthy, 654 pages

Failure path:

node /root/.gbrain/sources/openclaw-support-kb/scripts/update-client.mjs

Observed output:

Installed 4 OpenClaw support skills into /root/.openclaw/skills
Updated agent hint block in /root/.openclaw/AGENTS.md
Updated agent hint block in /root/.openclaw/workspace/AGENTS.md
gbrain sources add failed for openclaw-support-kb
[ai.gateway] recipe "google" declares an embedding touchpoint without max_batch_tokens; recursion is the only safety net for batch caps.
Error: command failed

Direct command evidence:

gbrain sources add openclaw-support-kb \
  --path /root/.gbrain/sources/openclaw-support-kb \
  --name "OpenClaw Support KB" \
  --federated

returns exit code 1 with only:

Error: command failed

The source already existed and was valid:

{
  "id": "openclaw-support-kb",
  "name": "OpenClaw Support KB",
  "local_path": "/root/.gbrain/sources/openclaw-support-kb",
  "federated": true,
  "page_count": 654
}

Manual recovery that worked

gbrain sources federate openclaw-support-kb
gbrain sync --repo /root/.gbrain/sources/openclaw-support-kb --source openclaw-support-kb
gbrain embed --stale --source openclaw-support-kb
node /root/.gbrain/sources/openclaw-support-kb/scripts/status.mjs

Result:

• gbrain 0.33.0
• source pages: 649
• embeddings: completed for stale KB chunks
• support KB status: healthy

Acceptance criteria

• update-client.mjs succeeds when the named source already exists and points at the target dir.
• If sources add returns a generic failure, the script checks gbrain sources list --json or equivalent before aborting.
• Existing source with matching path is federated/refreshed, not removed.
• Existing source with mismatched path still follows the current safe recreate path.
• The script runs source-scoped sync/embed after an existing-source success path.
• Regression test covers the generic-error existing-source case.