MGS3018: a directory as a job write path

magus job fork, the magus_job tool and magus\job.put refused a job because one of its write paths names a directory that already exists and is not a project root:

[MGS3018] job: wave/docs-fix declares a directory as a write path: "internal/job",
  inside project ".". A directory claims every file under it, so the job would
  overlap every job editing anything there. List the files the job will edit, or
  declare the root of the project it owns whole

Nothing was written to the job store.

Why

A write path is a claim. A directory claims every file under it, so a job that declares one overlaps every other job that edits anything in that directory, whether or not the two ever touch the same file. The overlap report then fills with pairs that share no file, and an orchestrator reading it as a queue holds work back that could have started.

A job's brief names the files it will change. The write paths should name the same files.

What passes

• A file, existing or not: internal/job/store.go.
• A path that does not exist yet. The job creates it, so nobody else can be editing anything under it.
• A project root, meaning a directory holding a magusfile.buzz, a magusfiles/ directory or a magus.yaml. The job owns that project whole. The workspace root, ., counts when it is a project.
• A file pattern, such as internal/job/*.go or internal/**/*_test.go.

A glob whose last segments are only wildcards, such as internal/**, internal/* or internal/**/*, names everything under its directory, so it is judged as that directory. When the directory part is itself a pattern (libs/*/src/**), each directory it matches is judged.

A directory under node_modules, vendor, .git, .claude and the other trees the workspace load skips is never a project root, even when it holds a magusfile.

What to do

List the files the job will edit:

magus job fork wave/docs-fix --write-paths internal/job/store.go,internal/job/store_test.go

If the job really does own a whole project, declare that project's root. The error names the project the directory sits in. There is no flag that accepts a plain directory.

See also

• Leases: what a write path grants and what the guard enforces.