fix(cli): give honest error for path-shaped status targets (AI-native-Systems-Research#182)

Before: `nous status /abs/path/.nous/missing-run` from any cwd printed
"Could not find .nous/ directory in any parent" — misleading because
the user gave a fully-qualified path. resolve_work_dir() silently
re-interpreted the unresolved path as a bare run-id and walked up from
cwd looking for .nous/, conflating three distinct failure modes under
one error.

Now: a target containing a path separator or absolute path that doesn't
resolve to a valid work-dir produces "Work directory not found: <p>",
naming the actual path. Bare run-id resolution (the existing ergonomic
of `nous status my-campaign` from inside a repo) is preserved.

Closes AI-native-Systems-Research#181

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: sriumcp

orchestrator/cli.py

@@ -45,6 +45,10 @@ def resolve_work_dir(target):
     if p.is_dir() and (p / "state.json").exists():
         return p
 
+    if p.is_absolute() or "/" in target:
+        print(f"Work directory not found: {p}", file=sys.stderr)
+        sys.exit(1)
+
     run_id = target
     root = _find_repo_root()
     work_dir = root / ".nous" / run_id

tests/test_cli.py

@@ -46,6 +46,47 @@ def test_campaign_yaml_not_found_raises(self):
         with pytest.raises(SystemExit):
             resolve_work_dir("/no/such/campaign.yaml")
 
+    def test_absolute_path_to_nonexistent_dir_reports_missing_workdir(
+        self, tmp_path, capsys
+    ):
+        """An absolute path that doesn't exist must not be silently
+        reinterpreted as a bare run-id — the user clearly intended a path,
+        so the error should name that path, not 'no .nous/ in any parent'.
+        Regression for #181."""
+        missing = tmp_path / "inference-sim" / ".nous" / "paper-burst"
+        with pytest.raises(SystemExit):
+            resolve_work_dir(str(missing))
+        err = capsys.readouterr().err
+        assert "Work directory not found" in err
+        assert str(missing) in err
+        assert ".nous/ directory in any parent" not in err
+
+    def test_absolute_path_to_dir_without_state_json_reports_missing_workdir(
+        self, tmp_path, capsys
+    ):
+        """A directory that exists but lacks state.json (e.g. mid-bootstrap
+        or wrong path) must produce the same path-shaped error, not the
+        run-id walk-up error. Regression for #181."""
+        half = tmp_path / ".nous" / "half-bootstrapped"
+        half.mkdir(parents=True)
+        with pytest.raises(SystemExit):
+            resolve_work_dir(str(half))
+        err = capsys.readouterr().err
+        assert "Work directory not found" in err
+        assert ".nous/ directory in any parent" not in err
+
+    def test_relative_path_with_separator_treated_as_path(
+        self, tmp_path, monkeypatch, capsys
+    ):
+        """A relative target containing a path separator is path-shaped —
+        don't fall through to run-id resolution."""
+        monkeypatch.chdir(tmp_path)
+        with pytest.raises(SystemExit):
+            resolve_work_dir("subdir/missing-run")
+        err = capsys.readouterr().err
+        assert "Work directory not found" in err
+        assert ".nous/ directory in any parent" not in err
+
 
 class TestCmdRun:
     def test_run_errors_if_state_beyond_init(self, tmp_path):