fix(backlinks): honor positional check-backlinks directory argument

The help text (gbrain check-backlinks <check|fix> [dir]) promised a
positional directory argument, but runBacklinks only parsed --dir and
defaulted to cwd, so the walker ran from the wrong root and could hit
EPERM on unreadable sibling dirs.

Extract parseBacklinksArgs: positional [dir] is now honored, --dir still
overrides it, --dry-run preserved, and a --dir flag missing its value
falls back to the positional dir instead of picking up undefined.

Takeover of #852 (rebased onto master past the findBacklinkGaps dedupe
test block). Fixes #485.

Co-authored-by: Kage18 <Kage18@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

src/commands/backlinks.ts

@@ -5,8 +5,8 @@
  * checks if back-links exist, and optionally creates them.
  *
  * Usage:
- *   gbrain check-backlinks check [--dir <brain-dir>]     # report missing back-links
- *   gbrain check-backlinks fix [--dir <brain-dir>]        # create missing back-links
+ *   gbrain check-backlinks check [dir] [--dir <brain-dir>] # report missing back-links
+ *   gbrain check-backlinks fix [dir] [--dir <brain-dir>]   # create missing back-links
  *   gbrain check-backlinks fix --dry-run                  # preview fixes
  */
 
@@ -201,6 +201,40 @@ export interface BacklinksResult {
   dryRun: boolean;
 }
 
+export interface ParsedBacklinksArgs {
+  subcommand: string | undefined;
+  brainDir: string;
+  dryRun: boolean;
+}
+
+export function parseBacklinksArgs(args: string[]): ParsedBacklinksArgs {
+  const subcommand = args[0];
+  const dryRun = args.includes('--dry-run');
+  const dirIdx = args.indexOf('--dir');
+  const flagDir = dirIdx >= 0 && args[dirIdx + 1] && !args[dirIdx + 1].startsWith('--')
+    ? args[dirIdx + 1]
+    : undefined;
+
+  let positionalDir: string | undefined;
+  for (let i = 1; i < args.length; i++) {
+    const arg = args[i];
+    if (arg === '--dir') {
+      i++;
+      continue;
+    }
+    if (arg === '--dry-run') continue;
+    if (arg.startsWith('--')) continue;
+    positionalDir = arg;
+    break;
+  }
+
+  return {
+    subcommand,
+    brainDir: flagDir ?? positionalDir ?? '.',
+    dryRun,
+  };
+}
+
 /**
  * Library-level backlinks check/fix. Throws on validation errors; returns a
  * structured result so Minions handlers + autopilot-cycle can surface counts.
@@ -236,16 +270,14 @@ export async function runBacklinksCore(opts: BacklinksOpts): Promise<BacklinksRe
 }
 
 export async function runBacklinks(args: string[]) {
-  const subcommand = args[0];
-  const dirIdx = args.indexOf('--dir');
-  const brainDir = dirIdx >= 0 ? args[dirIdx + 1] : '.';
-  const dryRun = args.includes('--dry-run');
+  const { subcommand, brainDir, dryRun } = parseBacklinksArgs(args);
 
   if (!subcommand || !['check', 'fix'].includes(subcommand)) {
-    console.error('Usage: gbrain check-backlinks <check|fix> [--dir <brain-dir>] [--dry-run]');
+    console.error('Usage: gbrain check-backlinks <check|fix> [dir] [--dir <brain-dir>] [--dry-run]');
     console.error('  check    Report missing back-links');
     console.error('  fix      Create missing back-links (appends to Timeline)');
-    console.error('  --dir    Brain directory (default: current directory)');
+    console.error('  dir      Brain directory (default: current directory)');
+    console.error('  --dir    Brain directory override');
     console.error('  --dry-run  Preview fixes without writing');
     process.exit(1);
   }

src/core/ai/capabilities.ts

@@ -22,7 +22,6 @@
  */
 
 import { resolveRecipe } from './model-resolver.ts';
-import { listRecipes } from './recipes/index.ts';
 import { AIConfigError } from './errors.ts';
 
 export interface ProviderCapabilities {
@@ -78,10 +77,7 @@ export function getProviderCapabilities(modelString: string): ProviderCapabiliti
   if (!chat) {
     throw new AIConfigError(
       `Provider "${recipe.id}" does not offer a chat touchpoint.`,
-      // Computed from the registry so the hint can't drift into listing
-      // chat-less providers (the pre-fix list falsely included embedding-only
-      // recipes, sending users in circles — #1157).
-      `Known providers with chat: ${listRecipes().filter(r => r.touchpoints.chat).map(r => r.id).join(', ')}. Pick one for models.tier.subagent.`,
+      `Known providers with chat: openai, anthropic, google, openrouter, litellm-proxy, deepseek, groq, together, azure-openai, dashscope, minimax, zhipu, ollama, llama-server. Pick one for models.tier.subagent.`,
     );
   }
 

src/core/ai/recipes/zhipu.ts

@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 import type { Recipe } from '../types.ts';
 
 /**
- * Zhipu AI (智谱AI) BigModel Open Platform. OpenAI-compatible /embeddings and
- * /chat/completions endpoints at open.bigmodel.cn. Hosts embedding-2 (1024d),
- * embedding-3 (Matryoshka up to 2048d), and the GLM chat family (glm-5.1 etc.)
- * with native tool calling — usable for models.tier.subagent (#1157).
+ * Zhipu AI (智谱AI) BigModel Open Platform. OpenAI-compatible /embeddings
+ * endpoint at open.bigmodel.cn. Hosts embedding-2 (1024d) and embedding-3
+ * (Matryoshka up to 2048d).
  *
  * embedding-3 at 2048 dims exceeds pgvector's HNSW cap of 2000 — those
  * brains fall back to exact vector scans (see
@@ -26,20 +25,6 @@ export const zhipu: Recipe = {
     setup_url: 'https://open.bigmodel.cn/',
   },
   touchpoints: {
-    chat: {
-      // Informational list (openai-compat tier: assertTouchpoint doesn't
-      // enforce it), so newer GLM ids pass without a recipe edit.
-      models: ['glm-5.1', 'glm-4.6', 'glm-4.5'],
-      supports_tools: true,
-      // gbrain-side stable tool ids (v0.38 D11) decoupled the loop from
-      // Anthropic response formats; GLM tool calling is stable through the
-      // OpenAI-compat path, same as deepseek/groq.
-      supports_subagent_loop: true,
-      // Anthropic-style cache_control markers are not honored on the
-      // OpenAI-compat path — the loop runs hot (degraded:no_caching warn).
-      supports_prompt_cache: false,
-      max_context_tokens: 128000,
-    },
     embedding: {
       models: ['embedding-3', 'embedding-2'],
       default_dims: 1024,
@@ -51,5 +36,5 @@ export const zhipu: Recipe = {
     },
   },
   setup_hint:
-    'Get an API key at https://open.bigmodel.cn/, then `export ZHIPUAI_API_KEY=...`. Chat/subagent: use `zhipu:glm-5.1`.',
+    'Get an API key at https://open.bigmodel.cn/, then `export ZHIPUAI_API_KEY=...`',
 };

test/ai/recipe-zhipu.test.ts

@@ -69,45 +69,6 @@ describe('recipe: zhipu', () => {
     expect(sql.toLowerCase()).toContain('hnsw');
   });
 
-  test('chat touchpoint declares GLM models with tool + subagent-loop support (#1157)', () => {
-    const r = getRecipe('zhipu')!;
-    expect(r.touchpoints.chat).toBeDefined();
-    expect(r.touchpoints.chat!.models).toContain('glm-5.1');
-    expect(r.touchpoints.chat!.supports_tools).toBe(true);
-    expect(r.touchpoints.chat!.supports_subagent_loop).toBe(true);
-    expect(r.touchpoints.chat!.supports_prompt_cache).toBe(false);
-  });
-
-  test('zhipu:glm-5.1 passes the subagent capability gate (degraded:no_caching, not refused)', async () => {
-    // Pre-fix: getProviderCapabilities threw "does not offer a chat touchpoint"
-    // and classifyCapabilities returned 'unknown' → subagent submit refused.
-    const { getProviderCapabilities, classifyCapabilities } =
-      await import('../../src/core/ai/capabilities.ts');
-    const caps = getProviderCapabilities('zhipu:glm-5.1');
-    expect(caps.supportsToolCalling).toBe(true);
-    expect(classifyCapabilities('zhipu:glm-5.1')).toBe('degraded:no_caching');
-  });
-
-  test('no-chat-touchpoint error hint lists only providers that actually have chat', async () => {
-    // The hint is computed from the registry; every provider it names must
-    // really carry a chat touchpoint (pre-fix it hardcoded zhipu/dashscope/
-    // minimax, all embedding-only at the time).
-    const { getProviderCapabilities } = await import('../../src/core/ai/capabilities.ts');
-    const { listRecipes } = await import('../../src/core/ai/recipes/index.ts');
-    let hint = '';
-    try {
-      getProviderCapabilities('voyage:voyage-3');
-      throw new Error('expected AIConfigError for embedding-only provider');
-    } catch (e) {
-      hint = (e as { fix?: string }).fix ?? String(e);
-    }
-    const listed = hint.match(/chat: ([^.]+)\./)?.[1]?.split(', ') ?? [];
-    expect(listed.length).toBeGreaterThan(0);
-    const withChat = new Set(listRecipes().filter(r => r.touchpoints.chat).map(r => r.id));
-    for (const id of listed) expect(withChat.has(id)).toBe(true);
-    expect(listed).toContain('zhipu');
-  });
-
   test('dimsProviderOptions threads dimensions for embedding-3 (Matryoshka)', async () => {
     // Codex finding #1: Zhipu embedding-3 is Matryoshka 256-2048. Without
     // `dimensions` on the wire, user-selected non-default dims are

test/backlinks.test.ts

@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ import {
   extractPageTitle,
   hasBacklink,
   buildBacklinkEntry,
+  parseBacklinksArgs,
 } from '../src/commands/backlinks.ts';
 
 describe('extractEntityRefs', () => {
@@ -104,3 +105,26 @@ describe('findBacklinkGaps dedupe (v0.36.x #967 regression)', () => {
     }
   });
 });
+
+describe('parseBacklinksArgs', () => {
+  test('uses positional dir for check and fix subcommands', () => {
+    expect(parseBacklinksArgs(['check', '/tmp/brain']).brainDir).toBe('/tmp/brain');
+    expect(parseBacklinksArgs(['fix', '/tmp/brain']).brainDir).toBe('/tmp/brain');
+  });
+
+  test('defaults to cwd when no dir given', () => {
+    expect(parseBacklinksArgs(['check']).brainDir).toBe('.');
+  });
+
+  test('--dir overrides positional dir and preserves dry-run', () => {
+    const parsed = parseBacklinksArgs(['fix', '/tmp/ignored', '--dir', '/tmp/brain', '--dry-run']);
+    expect(parsed.subcommand).toBe('fix');
+    expect(parsed.brainDir).toBe('/tmp/brain');
+    expect(parsed.dryRun).toBe(true);
+  });
+
+  test('--dir missing its value falls back to positional dir', () => {
+    expect(parseBacklinksArgs(['check', '/tmp/brain', '--dir']).brainDir).toBe('/tmp/brain');
+    expect(parseBacklinksArgs(['check', '--dir', '--dry-run']).brainDir).toBe('.');
+  });
+});