feat(installer): stop prompting for location during register — auto-derive from timezone (#354)

[saadqbal]

Closes#354.

What

The installer's Register this machine step prompted for both a client name and a location zone. This drops the location prompt: we now prompt for the name only and derive the carbon zone silently from the system timezone. When detection yields nothing, we provision with no location rather than asking.

Why it's safe now

The location prompt was an explicit INTERIM measure (provision.sh), kept only because the deployed CLI hard-required --name/--location without a TTY. cli#137 has since shipped — in CLI v0.9.2 and main — so tracebloc client create now auto-names <firstname>-NN and treats --location as fully optional (never prompted, never required; sends nothing when absent, backend records no location). The installer pulls the CLI from releases/latest, so it already has this behavior. No CLI-repo change is needed.

Behavior

Case	Before	After
Interactive install	prompts name and location (Enter to accept detected zone)	prompts name only; zone auto-derived from timezone
Timezone not detectable	required-entry loop until a zone is typed	provisions with no--location, no prompt
TRACEBLOC_CLIENT_LOCATION set	used, prompt skipped	used, still overrides (unchanged)
Unattended (env name)	silent auto-derive	silent auto-derive (unchanged)

Changes

• scripts/lib/provision.sh: remove the interactive location block (detected-zone accept + required-entry loop); refresh the now-stale interim comments and the _report_create_failure hint that referenced the removed prompt.
• scripts/tests/provision.bats: +2 tests (auto-derive from timezone → --location; no detection → no --location, never prompts). Full suite green (23/23).
• scripts/manifest.sha256: regenerated (R8 Static-analysis gate).

shellcheck clean.

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---

Note

Low Risk
Installer UX and provisioning-args logic only; name prompting and env overrides are unchanged, with new bats tests locking behavior.

Overview
Interactive Register this machine now asks only for the client name; carbon zone is never prompted.

When TRACEBLOC_CLIENT_LOCATION is unset, provision.sh silently derives a zone from the system timezone and passes --location only when one is found. If detection fails, it calls client createwithout--location instead of blocking on a required-entry loop. Invalid-zone errors now tell users to set TRACEBLOC_CLIENT_LOCATION rather than referring to the removed prompt.

provision.bats adds coverage for silent auto-derive and no-location provisioning; manifest.sha256 is updated for the changed script.

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[LukasWodka]

👋 Heads-up — Code review queue is at 48 / 30

Above the WIP limit. The team convention is to review existing PRs before opening new work.

Open PRs currently in Code review (oldest first):

• averaging-service#183 — docs: SafeTensors deployment-order & resume-safety runbook (epic ci: drop push-tags trigger from release-helm-chart.yaml to fix race with release-published #116) · author: @shujaatTracebloc · reviewer: @saadqbal
• averaging-service#184 — test(weights): shared SafeTensors golden-corpus drift guard + declare safetensors dep (SEC-03) · author: @LukasWodka · no reviewer assigned
• averaging-service#185 — test(weights): average a real SafeTensors edge + a legacy edge in one cycle — SEC-03 §8 · author: @LukasWodka · no reviewer assigned
• backend#1093 — chore(deps): bump django from 5.2.14 to 5.2.15 · author: @dependabot · no reviewer assigned
• backend#1108 — test(api): CLI response-shape contract fixtures for the 9 CLI endpoints (WS-D.2) · author: @LukasWodka · reviewer: @saadqbal
• backend#1112 — fix(runners): migrate deprecated trainingClasses/getTrainingPlan to snake_case (#1102) · author: @LukasWodka · reviewer: @saqlainsyed007
• cli#327 — chore(deps): bump actions/add-to-project from 1.0.2 to 2.0.0 · author: @dependabot · no reviewer assigned
• cli#328 — chore(deps): bump helm/kind-action from 1.10.0 to 1.14.0 · author: @dependabot · no reviewer assigned
• cli#329 — chore(deps): bump actions/upload-artifact from 4 to 7 · author: @dependabot · no reviewer assigned
• cli#330 — chore(deps): bump softprops/action-gh-release from 2 to 3 · author: @dependabot · no reviewer assigned

Pull from review before opening new work. (This is a nudge from the kanban WIP check, not a block.)

[aptracebloc]

@saadqbal — Approved. Correctly-sequenced removal of the interim location prompt (the "KEEP THIS PROMPT until cli#137 ships" block from #341) — and importantly you waited for cli#137 to actually release, not just merge. I verified the load-bearing bits:

• ✅ cli#137 is shipped, not just closed. At the v0.9.2 tag (released today, the latest the installer pulls), client create's --location is a plain optional StringVar with no MarkFlagRequired — "optional … never prompted, never required … omitted if unset," request field omitempty (backend records no location, not a silent default), plus auto-naming. So a no-detection curl | bash install sending client create --name X with no --location now succeeds — the exact breakage the interim comment guarded against is gone.
• ✅ Manifest hash matches — recomputed provision.sh = bf283e1… == manifest.sha256. R8 intact.
• ✅ --location conditionally passed — [[ -n "$client_location" ]] && _create_args+=(--location "$client_location"); never --location "", clean array construction.
• ✅ Clean removal — parses, no orphaned refs to the deleted locals/prompt strings, _detect_location_zone still defined + used by the silent fallback, and _report_create_failure's hint was updated in lockstep to point at TRACEBLOC_CLIENT_LOCATION.
• ✅ Tests pin both paths — detection → --location FR silently, no prompt; no-detection → no --location, no prompt, non-fatal. Both feed only a name on stdin, so a lingering prompt would hang the test — good structural guard. (bats isn't installed locally; I parse-checked + logic-reviewed, CI runs the suite.)

⚪ Minor (non-blocking)

• No explicit CLI-version gate for optional-location: safety rests on "latest release carries cli#137" (v0.9.2 does). A run that pins an olderTRACEBLOC_CLI_VERSIONand has no detectable zone and no TRACEBLOC_CLIENT_LOCATION would send a --location-less client create to a pre-#137 CLI and fail. Edge case — the env override covers it and _report_create_failure surfaces the real error rather than failing blind — but a one-line note wouldn't hurt.

Touches your code-owned provision.sh + manifest (R8); you're the author, so this is the approving second set of eyes. Clear to merge.

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