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ubicloud: usage is an awk syntax error on macOS, which also disables the vCPU quota preflight

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
88/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
awk, bash, typescript
Domain
cli

Research direction

Read scripts/ubicloud/ubi-runner.sh around cmd_usage and quota_preflight, then inspect test/ubicloud-runner.test.ts and the macos-named-regressions list in .github/workflows/free-tests.yml. Run the Ubicloud runner tests on macOS if available. Done means usage prints the expected totals without an awk syntax error and the quota preflight refuses an over-limit request.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

What happened

On macOS, gstack-ubi usage fails with an awk syntax error and exits 2:

awk: syntax error at source line 4
 context is
	      for (o in cpu) printf "%-14s %4d %6d%s\n", o, vms[o], cpu[o], o >>>  == <<<
awk: illegal statement at source line 4
awk: illegal statement at source line 4

The larger effect is on up: quota_preflight reads the total from cmd_usage, gets an empty string, and returns 0. So on macOS the vCPU preflight never refuses: with 20 vCPUs in use, a 16-vCPU ceiling (UBI_QUOTA_VCPUS=16) and a standard-4 request, it lets the create through; with the line fixed, it dies with "vCPU quota exhausted" as intended.

Cause

cmd_usage L384:

for (o in cpu) printf "%-14s %4d %6d%s\n", o, vms[o], cpu[o], o == me ? "  (you)" : "" | "sort -k3,3nr"

macOS ships the one-true-awk (/usr/bin/awk, "awk version 20200816"), whose grammar rejects an unparenthesized == inside a print/printf argument list. The | "sort" redirect is not the trigger; this fails too:

/usr/bin/awk 'BEGIN { o = "a"; me = "a"; printf "%s%s\n", o, o == me ? " (you)" : "" }'

CI does not see it: free-tests is green on 047dad78, and test/ubicloud-runner.test.ts runs only on the Linux shards because it is not in the macos-named-regressions list.

Steps to reproduce

On macOS, from a gstack checkout at 047dad78 (no Ubicloud account needed; a local stand-in answers POST /cli for a project with two VMs):

cat > /tmp/fake_ubi_two.py <<'EOF'
# Answers POST /cli for a project with two VMs: one standard-4 owned by
# lane7, one standard-16 that this runner did not name.
import json, sys
from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
class H(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
    def do_POST(self):
        argv = json.loads(self.rfile.read(int(self.headers["Content-Length"])))["argv"]
        if argv[:2] == ["vm", "list"]:
            body = "eu-central-h1  ubirun-lane7-1761900000-ab12-t3\neu-north-h1  someone-elses-vm\n"
        else:
            body = "size: standard-4\n" if "lane7" in argv[1] else "size: standard-16\n"
        b = body.encode()
        self.send_response(200); self.send_header("Content-Length", str(len(b))); self.end_headers(); self.wfile.write(b)
    def log_message(self, *a): pass
HTTPServer(("127.0.0.1", 18733), H).serve_forever()
EOF
python3 /tmp/fake_ubi_two.py & srv=$!; sleep 1
UBICLOUD_API_URL=http://127.0.0.1:18733 UBICLOUD_API_KEY=offline UBI_RUNNER_STATE=$(mktemp -d) UBI_OWNER=lane7 \
  bash scripts/ubicloud/ubi-runner.sh usage; echo "exit=$?"
kill $srv

Expected:

OWNER           VMS  VCPUS
(other)           1     16
lane7             1      4  (you)
total             2     20

Actual: the syntax error above, exit 2.

Proposed fix

Parenthesize the ternary (valid in every awk):

--- a/scripts/ubicloud/ubi-runner.sh
+++ b/scripts/ubicloud/ubi-runner.sh
@@ -381,7 +381,7 @@
       vms[o]++; cpu[o] += n; total += n; count++ }
     END {
       printf "%-14s %4s %6s\n", "OWNER", "VMS", "VCPUS"
-      for (o in cpu) printf "%-14s %4d %6d%s\n", o, vms[o], cpu[o], o == me ? "  (you)" : "" | "sort -k3,3nr"
+      for (o in cpu) printf "%-14s %4d %6d%s\n", o, vms[o], cpu[o], (o == me ? "  (you)" : "") | "sort -k3,3nr"
       close("sort -k3,3nr")
       printf "%-14s %4d %6d\n", "total", count, total
     }'

Verified on macOS /usr/bin/awk 20200816: usage prints the expected table and exits 0, and quota_preflight (20 vCPUs used, ceiling 16, standard-4 requested) refuses with "vCPU quota exhausted". No other print/printf in scripts/ubicloud/*.sh has an unparenthesized comparison. Suggested guard: add test/ubicloud-runner.test.ts to the macos-named-regressions file list, which would also catch the pack issue, #3680. (The whole file has not been run on macOS here, so it may surface more than these two.)

Readiness report

Hit on the 1.91.333.0 install below; the repro above is against main at 047dad78 (1.91.357.0), where the line is unchanged. Home paths are shortened to ~, and the paths of local CLAUDE.md files are removed from the last check line.

gstack doctor 
gstack doctor 1.91.333.0
ok              install root    ~/.claude/skills/gstack: claude global current (1.91.333.0), codex global current (1.91.333.0)
ok              rescue refs     none in ~/.claude/skills/gstack
ok              state root      ~/.gstack durable=yes (selected by default)
ok              bun             1.4.4 at /opt/homebrew/bin/bun (floor 1.3.3, tested 1.4.2)
ok              hooks           9 hook(s) parse
ok              codex           codex-cli 0.163.0; self-locate ok; model gpt-6.1-sol (source: ~/.codex/config.toml model)
ok              codex probe     cached MODEL_OK, 18m ago (not re-run; --live probes now)
not configured  artifacts sync  off; cross-machine artifacts sync is unavailable
ok              browse bundle   browse/dist built
ok              binaries        find-browse, design, pdf, gstack-global-discover launch (4 of 4)
ok              cso             native helper 1.91.333.0 (11c17d466af3)
ok              claude code     2.1.303 (Claude Code) at ~/.local/bin/claude
ok              session journal largest of 2: 1.6 MiB
ok              guard log       816 decisions (61 denied)
ok              CLAUDE.md       no gstack section lists skills
14 ok, 0 warn, 1 not configured, 0 fail

Environment

  • Host: Claude Code 2.1.303
  • OS: macOS 26.6.2 (25G83), arm64; /usr/bin/awk "awk version 20200816"
  • gstack: hit on 1.91.333.0, reproduced on main 047dad78 (1.91.357.0)
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