Inventory: automatically create emtpy file on write

pkgs/clan-cli/clan_cli/inventory/__init__.py

@@ -473,8 +473,16 @@ def patch(d: dict[str, Any], path: str, content: Any) -> None:
 
 @API.register
 def patch_inventory_with(base_dir: Path, section: str, content: dict[str, Any]) -> None:
+    """
+    Pass only the section to update and the content to update with.
+    Make sure you pass only attributes that you would like to persist.
+    ATTENTION: Don't pass nix eval values unintentionally.
+    """
+
     inventory_file = get_inventory_path(base_dir)
+
     curr_inventory = {}
+    if inventory_file.exists():
         with inventory_file.open("r") as f:
             curr_inventory = json.load(f)
 

pkgs/clan-cli/clan_cli/machines/create.py

@@ -12,12 +12,11 @@ from clan_cli.flake import Flake
 from clan_cli.git import commit_file
 from clan_cli.inventory import (
     Machine as InventoryMachine,
-    patch_inventory_with,
-    dataclass_to_dict,
 )
 from clan_cli.inventory import (
     MachineDeploy,
-    get_inventory,
+    dataclass_to_dict,
+    patch_inventory_with,
 )
 from clan_cli.machines.list import list_nixos_machines
 from clan_cli.templates import (

pkgs/clan-cli/tests/test_patch_inventory.py

@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
 # Functions to test
+from typing import Any
+
 import pytest
 from clan_cli.errors import ClanError
 from clan_cli.inventory import (
@@ -370,7 +372,7 @@ def test_dont_persist_defaults() -> None:
         "enabled": True,
         "config": {"foo": "bar"},
     }
-    data_disk = {}
+    data_disk: dict[str, Any] = {}
     writeables = determine_writeability(prios, data_eval, data_disk)
     assert writeables == {"writeable": {"config", "enabled"}, "non_writeable": set()}