create --force fails whenever the target folder is non-empty

[Schmandarine]

--force is documented as "Allow scaffolding into a non-empty folder" (src/commands/create.js:25), but it never works on the default path. It only works with --from.

Orientation

node bin/brmbh.js create demo --from ../brmbh-agentic-wp-suite   # local copy path
node bin/brmbh.js create demo                                     # clone path (default)

create has two ways to get the theme files, both in materializeTheme() (src/registry.js:22):

• --from <path> → copyDir() (src/fsutil.js:36), which merges into an existing directory happily
• default → git clone --depth 1 (src/registry.js:43-47), which refuses a non-empty destination

Repro

mkdir my-site && touch my-site/keep.txt
node bin/brmbh.js create my-site
# → ✗ Folder already exists and is not empty: … / Pass --force to scaffold anyway.   (correct)

node bin/brmbh.js create my-site --force
# → ✗ `git clone --depth 1 https://… my-site` exited with code 128                   (wrong)

git's own message — fatal: destination path 'my-site' already exists and is not an empty directory — is streamed to the terminal, but the CLI's own error is the opaque command_failed exit code. In --json mode the envelope reports {"ok":false,"code":"command_failed"} with no hint that --force is the thing that failed.

Where it goes wrong

src/commands/create.js:37-42 correctly skips the empty-folder guard when --force is set. Execution then falls through to materializeTheme(), which has no concept of --force at all — the flag is never passed to it (src/registry.js:22 takes { dest, from, ref, ctx }).

Options

1. Clone to a temp dir, then merge — clone into fs.mkdtemp(), delete .git, copyDir() into dest, remove the temp dir. Makes --force behave identically on both paths. Most work, best result.
2. Download a tarball instead of cloning — extraction over an existing directory just works, and removes the hard git dependency. Bigger change than this issue needs; only worth it if wanted for other reasons.
3. Make the limitation explicit — if --force and no --from, fail early with a real message: "--force requires --from (git cannot clone into a non-empty folder)". Cheapest, honest, but leaves the flag half-useful.

Recommend option 1.

Acceptance

mkdir my-site && touch my-site/keep.txt
node bin/brmbh.js create my-site --force --skip-install
ls my-site   # → keep.txt AND the theme files

And whichever option is chosen, no path may surface a bare exited with code 128. Use ToolError (src/tool.js:24) with a code and detail so both pretty and --json modes explain the cause.

Note

There is no test suite — package.json declares "test": "node --test test/" but no test/ directory exists. This bug is a good candidate for the first test, if we want one.

[Schmandarine]

Carries over to brmbh/wordpress — this repo is being archived per brmbh/wordpress#8. The work is still valid; it just lands in packages/cli/ there rather than here. Tracked in the migration checklist on brmbh/wordpress#8.

[Schmandarine]

Fixed in 89e21c1 (brmbh/wordpress), shipped in @brmbh/cli@1.1.0.

create now stages the clone in a temp dir and copies across, so --force behaves the same on the clone path as it always did via --from. git never sees a non-empty destination.

Bonus from staging: HEAD is captured before .git is deleted, so the result envelope now reports the source commit (source.commit) — the provenance that #3 wanted, without needing its own mechanism.

Verified: create mysite --force into a directory containing keep.txt leaves the file in place and materializes the theme around it.