fix: watch files that do not exist yet

[JarbasAl]

Summary

FileWatcher.__init__ chose file-mode vs directory-mode with os.path.isfile(file_path). A path that does not exist yet is not a file, so it fell through to directory mode: watch_dir became the nonexistent path (which watchdog cannot schedule an observer on) and the handler ran unfiltered instead of being scoped to that single path.

Practical effect: FileWatcher(["/some/dir/config.json"], cb) could not detect the file being created later, even with the default ignore_creation=False whose whole point is to report created events. Callers were forced to either pre-create the file or watch the entire containing directory.

This is exactly what ovos-config PR #194 hit: it switched to watching specific config files, and a test that registers the watcher before writing mycroft.conf stopped firing, because the not-yet-existing file was silently dropped into directory mode.

Fix

Dispatch on os.path.isdir() instead of os.path.isfile():

• an existing directory → directory mode, unchanged behavior
• anything else (an existing file, or a path that doesn't exist yet) → file mode: watch the parent directory, filter to that single path. This is safe because of the per-file filtering added in fix: FileEventHandler must only fire for the file it watches #406 — the handler watches the parent dir but only fires for its own path.

If the parent directory also doesn't exist, watchdog can't schedule an observer on it either. Rather than let an opaque watchdog traceback propagate, that entry is skipped with LOG.warning.

Consumers re-checked

• ovos-workshop skill_launcher.py: FileWatcher([self.skill_directory], ...) — existing directory, still lands in directory mode. Unaffected.
• ovos-microphone-plugin-files: FileWatcher([self.files_folder], ...) — same, unaffected.

This unblocks downstream consumers (e.g. ovos-config) that need to watch specific config files which may not exist yet at startup.

Test plan

• Path that doesn't exist yet is watched in file mode; a created event for it fires the callback, while a different file created in the same directory does not
• Existing directory still watched in directory mode, fires for any file inside (pre-existing test, still passing)
• Existing file still fires only for itself (pre-existing test, still passing)
• Missing parent directory: entry is skipped with LOG.warning, no exception raised
• Full suite: 935 passed (up from 933 baseline), same 2 pre-existing unrelated failures in test_log_parser.py::TestOvosLogsCLINoStrayFiles

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Review details

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: defaults

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Run ID: 7540e6b6-34bb-47bf-9e13-8571b7593e16

📥 Commits

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📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• ovos_utils/file_utils.py
• test/unittests/test_file_utils.py

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• Commit unit tests in branch fix/filewatcher-not-yet-existing-file

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Processing sequence 0x4F564F53 complete! 🦾

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📋 Repo Health

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✅ All required files present.

Latest Version: 0.13.8a1

✅ ovos_utils/version.py — Version file
✅ README.md — README
✅ LICENSE — License file
✅ pyproject.toml — pyproject.toml
⚠️ setup.py — setup.py
✅ CHANGELOG.md — Changelog
✅ ovos_utils/version.py has valid version block markers

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Current: 0.13.8a1 → Next: 0.13.9a1

Signal	Value
Label	(none)
PR title	fix: watch files that do not exist yet
Bump	build

✅ PR title follows conventional commit format.

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🚀 Release Channel Compatibility

Predicted next version: 0.13.9a1

Channel	Status	Note	Current Constraint
Stable	❌	Too new (must be <0.9.0)	ovos-utils>=0.8.1,<0.9.0
Testing	❌	Too new (must be <0.8.5)	ovos-utils>=0.8.4,<0.8.5
Alpha	✅	Compatible	ovos-utils>=0.13.7a1

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✅ No known vulnerabilities found (47 packages scanned).

📊 Coverage

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✅ 85.2% total coverage

Files below 80% coverage (5 files)

File	Coverage	Missing lines
ovos_utils/log_parser.py	48.4%	225
ovos_utils/__init__.py	63.6%	16
ovos_utils/file_utils.py	74.4%	56
ovos_utils/thread_utils.py	76.9%	12
ovos_utils/geolocation.py	78.4%	22

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✅ All versions pass

Python	Build	Install	Tests
3.10	✅	✅	✅
3.11	✅	✅	✅
3.12	✅	✅	✅
3.13	✅	✅	✅
3.14	✅	✅	✅

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