[Bug]: Misleading "pattern '<binary-name>' not found" when no pattern is specified, plus README zsh yt() example is broken since #1960

[tietjen]

What happened?

fabric-ai falls back to using its own binary name as the pattern name when called without -p but with positional args or with -y URL --transcript, producing this confusing error:

could not get pattern fabric-ai: pattern 'fabric-ai' not found.
Run 'fabric -l' to see available patterns

This appears to be a side effect of #1960 ("consume all positional arguments as input"). It hits two common entrypoints:

1. Stale README zsh yt() helper. The current shell-integration snippet in the README defines:

yt() {
    ...
    fabric -y "$video_link" $transcript_flag
}

With v1.4.452, yt <url> produces the binary-name-not-a-pattern error. Adding -p extract_wisdom (or any other pattern) makes it work again.

2. Anyone trying fabric-ai update (or any positional-arg "subcommand-ish" invocation), e.g. expecting a CLI subcommand pattern. Same misleading error — easy to misread as "fabric-ai isn't installed" or "Homebrew packaging is broken" before realizing it's the CLI looking up its own binary name as a pattern.

Repro

# v1.4.452, installed via Homebrew (homebrew-core formula)

fabric-ai update
# → could not get pattern fabric-ai: pattern 'fabric-ai' not found.

fabric-ai -y "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2znvI2ZBd8" --transcript
# → could not get pattern fabric-ai: pattern 'fabric-ai' not found.

fabric-ai -y "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2znvI2ZBd8" --transcript -p extract_wisdom
# ✓ works as expected

Expected

Either (a) a clear error like "no pattern specified — use -p PATTERN" and a non-zero exit, or (b) print-only behaviour for --transcript when no pattern is set (matches the wording in --help: "...send to chat or print it...").

In any case, the fallback to using os.Args[0] as a pattern name is a bug — the binary name will never be a valid pattern, and the resulting error message sends users hunting in the wrong direction.

Also: README update

The shell-integration yt() example in the README should be updated to either:

• include a default pattern (e.g. -p extract_wisdom), or
• pipe the raw transcript out (and let users compose with | fabric-ai -p ...).

Version

• fabric-ai 1.4.452 (homebrew-core formula fabric-ai, Apple Silicon)
• macOS 26.4

[kitofr]

+1 on this