canned-prompts/workplans/CANP-WP-0003-registry-naming-residual.md

id	type	title	domain	repo	status	owner	topic_slug	created	updated	state_hub_workstream_id
CANP-WP-0003	workplan	Default registry name reads as 'registry:'	agents	canned-prompts	finished	codex	practice	2026-09-06	2026-09-06	d7865fc8-a618-5033-a8de-947c59715cf6

Default registry name reads as registry:

Residual from CANP-WP-0002 (origin: residual, origin_ref: CANP-WP-0002).

Give the default registry a better name

id: CANP-WP-0003-T01
status: done
priority: low
state_hub_task_id: "ead2d409-2b80-5f50-9f0f-a397822ba2ae"

CANP-WP-0002-T02 made a registry's name come from its registry.yaml, and otherwise from its directory basename (§ 20.1). The reference tool's default registry lives at ~/.canned-prompts/registry, so its basename-derived name is registry, and every install from it reads:

installed registry:practice/pqrst-estimate@0.1.0

That is honest — it is genuinely what the directory is called — but it reads poorly, and registry: is a confusing qualifier for the one registry most users will ever see.

Deliberately not fixed in CANP-WP-0002: special-casing the default path to produce a prettier name would be exactly the kind of magic the § 20.1 rule was written to avoid, and it was not worth an exception mid-task.

Options worth weighing:

1. Write a starter registry.yaml when the default registry is first created, naming it something like default or local-registry. Uses the documented mechanism rather than bypassing it; the cost is a tool writing a file into a store the user may consider theirs.
2. Rename the default directory itself, so the basename is already good. Changes an existing on-disk layout.
3. Accept it and document it. Zero code, and the escape hatch — add a registry.yaml — already exists and is documented.

Option 3 is the current state. Pick deliberately rather than by default.

Outcome

Decision (operator, 2026-09-06): option 2 — rename the default directory to ~/.canned-prompts/default, so the § 20.1 basename rule produces a good name with no special case, no file written into the user's store, and no second naming mechanism.

The cost of deferring had been understated. The workplan recorded this as reading poorly in one output line. It is not only display: the name reaches qualified references, the on-disk catalog layout (catalog/registry/...) and index.yaml rows (registry: registry). Once packages are installed and inclusions recorded, changing it is a migration rather than an edit — which is an argument for deciding early, not late.

Delivered:

• default_registry() returns ~/.canned-prompts/default.
• check_legacy_registry refuses to silently create a fresh empty store beside a populated ~/.canned-prompts/registry. It names the exact mv, and the --registry flag for keeping the old one. Silently starting empty would have been worse than the wart being fixed.
• The check fires only for the default path; an explicitly passed --registry is never second-guessed.
• Docs updated in both READMEs. Tests 95 → 99.