Running `python scripts/export_catalog.py` on a deployed site died with
1045 "Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost'", naming a user that site
does not have.
Nothing loads .env for a plain script run. wsgi.py calls load_dotenv() for the
served app and the flask CLI loads .env for itself, so both reach the real
database; a bare `python scripts/...` gets neither. DATABASE_URL then stays
unset, FLASK_ENV defaults to development, and config.py falls back to a
hardcoded root@localhost URL.
The read-only failure above is the harmless version. Six of these seven
scripts WRITE - backfill, reclassify, retype, collapse, refile, import - and
on any box where those fallback root credentials happen to resolve, they would
have silently rewritten the wrong database with no error at all. That is also
why this survived: the dev .env points at root, so the fallback matched what
the developer expected and nothing ever looked wrong here.
All seven now load .env from the repo root, resolved from __file__ rather than
the working directory, since these are run by hand during a deployment and
rarely from the repo root.
tests/test_maintenance_scripts.py pins it for any future script: every script
that calls create_app must call load_dotenv, before create_app rather than
after it, and with an explicit path rather than a cwd-relative search.
`flask seed reference-data` wrote a dozen generic model types and no vendors or
models at all, so adopting this platform began by retyping a catalog another
site had already spent a year building. That is the largest single obstacle to
standing a new facility up.
scripts/export_catalog.py dumps the catalog from a live instance to
shopdb/data/catalog.json, and `flask seed catalog` loads it. What travels:
vendors 53, models 128, modelsupplies 146, modeltypes 35, machinetypes 21,
computertypes 10, printertypes 9, networkdevicetypes 5, locationtypes 11,
operatingsystems 14, measuringtooltypes 8, notificationtypes 3,
accessprotocols 3
The 146 printer supplies are the most useful part after the models themselves:
every toner, drum and maintenance kit with its part number, colour, capacity
tier and page yield, already matched to the right model, instead of somebody
reading them off spent cartridges.
IDEMPOTENT and ADDITIVE. Records match on a natural key - a vendor by name, a
model by vendor plus model number, a supply by model plus part number - so a
second run adds nothing, and it never updates or deletes: a site that corrected
a description or pointed a model at its own photo keeps its version.
Catalog only. No assets, locations, employees, business units or anything with a
serial number: nobody wants one plant's machines appearing at another. Vendor
contact details are excluded too, since a rep's name and number belong to
whoever holds that relationship. supportteams, printerdrivers and customfields
are site-specific and deliberately absent.
Models and supplies reference their vendor by NAME rather than id, because ids
differ between databases and an id-keyed catalog would silently attach part
numbers to the wrong printer.
The installer offers it as a tick-box on a new "Starter data" page, defaulting
to on, passing -SeedCatalog to stage 3. Offered rather than assumed: a site that
machines nothing does not want 21 machine types cluttering its dropdowns.
Verified by loading into an empty database and running twice: every group
populated on the first pass, "Catalog already present, nothing to add" on the
second.
