## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip coordinates autonomous company work through local and
hosted runtime surfaces.
> - Local embedded Postgres and tenant import/export paths are
foundational reliability pieces.
> - A runtime failure in either path can stop agents or imports before
useful work begins.
> - The branch included remaining fixes for embedded native library
bootstrap and async tenant import handling.
> - This pull request groups those runtime/import reliability changes
into one standalone PR.
> - The benefit is a more robust local runtime and safer cloud tenant
import behavior.
## What Changed
- Prepared embedded Postgres native runtime before startup in
CLI/server/test entrypoints.
- Added embedded Postgres native bootstrap coverage.
- Added async tenant import job handling and deferred validation
coverage.
- Kept the runtime/import changes based directly on current
`origin/master` after related upstream PRs had already merged.
## Verification
- `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/plugin-sdk build`
- `NODE_ENV=test pnpm exec vitest run
packages/db/src/embedded-postgres-native.test.ts
server/src/__tests__/company-portability-routes.test.ts`
## Risks
- Medium-low: this touches startup/import paths, but the branch is small
and covered by targeted tests.
- The embedded Postgres change depends on platform-specific
native-library behavior, so CI and follow-up checks should still verify
supported runners.
> For core feature work, check [`ROADMAP.md`](ROADMAP.md) first and
discuss it in `#dev` before opening the PR. Feature PRs that overlap
with planned core work may need to be redirected — check the roadmap
first. See `CONTRIBUTING.md`.
## Model Used
- OpenAI GPT-5 Codex via `codex_local`, tool-enabled coding session;
exact context window not exposed by this runtime.
## Checklist
- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] If this change affects the UI, I have included before/after
screenshots
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [x] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge
The embedded-postgres library hardcodes --lc-messages=en_US.UTF-8 and
strips the parent process environment when spawning initdb/postgres.
In slim Docker images (e.g. node:20-bookworm-slim), the en_US.UTF-8
locale isn't installed, causing initdb to exit with code 1.
Two fixes applied:
1. Add --lc-messages=C to all initdbFlags arrays (overrides the
library's hardcoded locale since our flags come after in the spread)
2. pnpm patch on embedded-postgres to preserve process.env in spawn
calls, preventing loss of PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and other vars
Co-Authored-By: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
On macOS, `initdb` defaults to SQL_ASCII encoding because it infers
locale from the system environment. When `ensurePostgresDatabase()`
creates a database without specifying encoding, the new database
inherits SQL_ASCII from the cluster. This causes string functions like
`left()` to operate on bytes instead of characters, producing invalid
UTF-8 when multi-byte characters are truncated.
Two-part fix:
1. Pass `--encoding=UTF8 --locale=C` via `initdbFlags` to all
EmbeddedPostgres constructors so the cluster defaults to UTF-8.
2. Explicitly set `encoding 'UTF8'` in the CREATE DATABASE statement
with `template template0` (required because template1 may already
have a different encoding) and `C` locale for portability.
Existing databases created with SQL_ASCII are NOT automatically fixed;
users must delete their local `data/db` directory and restart to
re-initialize the cluster.
Relates to #636
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Dotta