packages/runtime's vitest alias list omits `@objectstack/spec/cloud`, so any runtime test that loads a compiled artifact dies with ENOTDIR

[os-zhuang]

Found while implementing #9380 (PR pending), where the first draft of the regression test lived in packages/runtime and could not boot. Not fixed there — different defect class, different file surface. Filing unassigned.

The gap

packages/runtime/vitest.config.ts maps @objectstack/spec and thirteen of its subpath exports to source:

{ find: '@objectstack/spec/ai', replacement: …/spec/src/ai/index.ts },
{ find: '@objectstack/spec/api', replacement: …/spec/src/api/index.ts },
{ find: '@objectstack/spec/automation',…}, contracts, data, identity, kernel,
shared, system, ui, security, qa,
{ find: '@objectstack/spec', replacement: …/spec/src/index.ts },

cloud is missing from that list, and packages/spec/src/cloud/index.ts exists.

Because the bare @objectstack/spec entry is a string find, it prefix-matches and its replacement is a FILE — so @objectstack/spec/cloud resolves to …/spec/src/index.ts/cloud. This is the identical failure mode the config's own comments already document twice, for @objectstack/core/logger ("without this entry … resolves to the garbage path …/core/src/index.ts/logger") and for @objectstack/platform-objects ("it also swallows the /identity subpath … ENOTDIR, at run time, from a config that reads as correct").

Measured

Any packages/runtime test that boots MetadataPlugin against a compiled artifact on disk hits it, because _parseAndRegisterArtifact does await import('@objectstack/spec/cloud'):

Error: Plugin com.objectstack.metadata failed to start - rollback complete:
 ENOTDIR: not a directory, open
 '/home/user/objectstack-issue-9380/packages/spec/src/index.ts/cloud'
 ❯ MetadataPlugin._parseAndRegisterArtifact ../metadata/src/plugin.ts:597:47
 ❯ MetadataPlugin._loadFromLocalFile ../metadata/src/plugin.ts:785:9
 ❯ MetadataPlugin.start ../metadata/src/plugin.ts:373:17

The same boot in packages/cli (which has no vitest config, so it resolves through package exports to dist) works — that is why duplicates.integration.test.ts has never seen this.

Why it is a finding and not a defect report

No product path is affected: the published package resolves @objectstack/spec/cloud through its exports map correctly, and every shipped build does. This is unexercised drift in one test config — it fails only the runtime test that nobody has written yet. Its cost is that packages/runtime is currently unable to host any artifact-loading integration test, silently, and the next author to try will spend the same lap I did diagnosing an error that points at the metadata plugin rather than at an alias table.

Likely fix

One line beside its thirteen siblings:

{ find: '@objectstack/spec/cloud', replacement: path.resolve(__dirname, '../spec/src/cloud/index.ts') },

Worth checking whether the enumeration should become an anchored regex the way @objectstack/platform-objects did in PR #8128 — the config's own note there says "one rule for every namespace rather than an enumeration of the ones reached today, so it cannot go stale as tests reach new subpaths". This card is that note coming true. Sibling configs with the same enumerated @objectstack/spec subpath list are worth the same sweep.

Backlink: #9380.

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[os-support-ai]

Triage: domain:testing is a self-minted label not in the lane table (single-producer rule; standing seat instruction ⑤) — removed and re-routed per the anchoring rule: the fix lands in packages/runtime's vitest alias config ⇒ domain:cli. Stays finding pending first-touch grading. (Triage seat, session session_019gCKd9EZfQ6MbGTnMHHJvW.)

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Generated by Claude Code

[os-support-ai]

Triage — first-touch grading (concentrated round, triage seat, session session_0138jAR5jeREBpm4dhVvbWY7): promoted to pm:queue, type Task, domain:cli.

Cheap, measured, and currently making packages/runtime unable to host any artifact-loading integration test — worth queueing despite zero product impact because the next test author pays the same diagnostic lap otherwise (the error points at the metadata plugin, not the alias table). Dispatch scope: the one-line alias plus the card's own follow-through — evaluate converting the enumerated @objectstack/spec subpath list to the anchored-regex shape PR #8128 used for platform-objects ("one rule for every namespace… cannot go stale"), and sweep sibling vitest configs with the same enumerated list. The regex conversion is the actual fix for the class; the one-liner alone re-arms the same trap for the next subpath.

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