Add BEADS_DIR as a replacement for BEADS_DB to point to the .beads
directory instead of the database file directly.
Rationale:
- With --no-db mode, there's no .db file to point to
- The .beads directory is the logical unit (contains config.yaml, db
files, jsonl files)
- More intuitive: point to the beads directory not the database file
Implementation:
- Add BEADS_DIR environment variable support to FindDatabasePath()
- Priority order: BEADS_DIR > BEADS_DB > auto-discovery
- Maintain backward compatibility with BEADS_DB (now deprecated)
- Update --no-db mode to respect BEADS_DIR
- Update MCP integration (config.py, bd_client.py)
- Update documentation to show BEADS_DIR as preferred method
Testing:
- Backward compatibility: BEADS_DB still works
- BEADS_DIR works with regular database mode
- BEADS_DIR works with --no-db mode
- Priority: BEADS_DIR takes precedence over BEADS_DB
Follow-up issues for refactoring:
- bd-efe8: Refactor path canonicalization into helper function
- bd-c362: Extract database search logic into helper function
Closes bd-e16b
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Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
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