v4.9.6

Two-fix patch atop v4.9.4. Note: v4.9.5 contains separate curated-skills work (v4.9.5-dev branch) currently held pending the taracodlabs/aiden-skills catalog populating. v4.9.6 patches apply atop v4.9.4 and will be forward-merged into v4.9.5 before it ships.

Fixed

• aiden daemon start from a TS checkout — Previously the supervisor spawned the packaged dist-bundle even when running from source, causing "stale dist crashes before daemon comes up" in dev iterations. New resolveDaemonChildCommand() helper prefers the current source invocation when process.argv[1] ends in aidenCLI.ts; installed builds (node dist/cli/v4/aidenCLI.js) continue to use the bundle. Both daemon start and Windows daemon restart route through the helper for parity.
• chokidar 4.x option validation error — File watchers configured with --polling but no explicit --polling-interval / --polling-binary-interval tripped chokidar's number-type validation on undefined fields. Now uses conditional spread so unset intervals fall back to chokidar's own defaults (100ms / 300ms).

Reverted (not shipped)

• An earlier attempt at fixing Bug D (REPL typing-suggestion cursor misalignment) was found inert via Windows PowerShell smoke and reverted. @inquirer/core's screen-manager.js strips VT control characters from the prompt and emits an absolute cursorTo() after our content, defeating any inline cursor-back escape. The deferral marker test (expect(line).not.toMatch(/\[\d+D/)) is restored to catch any future structurally-inert "fix" as a changed test rather than silent regression.

Known follow-ups for v4.10

• Bug D properly fixed via screen-manager-aware refactor + node-pty test harness (real TTY behavioral assertions, not string-content mocks).
• Hooks subprocess runner + MCP install healthCheck still use the pre-v4.9.2 spawn pattern.