Problem

npx aidd <target> --dry-run creates <target> on disk even though the dry-run is supposed to be a preview only.

In lib/cli-core.js, executeClone calls ensureTargetDir before checking the dryRun flag:

// lib/cli-core.js:222–227
formatHeader({ ...paths, verbose })(logger);

// Ensure target directory exists
await ensureTargetDir(paths)();

if (dryRun) {
  // Dry run: show what would be copied
  ...

ensureTargetDir (lib/cli-core.js:68–80) wraps fs.ensureDir(targetBase), which creates the directory if it doesn't already exist.

Repro

ls /tmp/aidd-dryrun-demo  # does not exist
npx aidd /tmp/aidd-dryrun-demo --dry-run
ls -la /tmp/aidd-dryrun-demo  # directory now exists, empty

Expected

--dry-run should produce no filesystem side effects. The target directory should not be created.

Impact

Minor — only matters when the target directory doesn't already exist. The default invocation (npx aidd .) is unaffected because . already exists. But the behavior surprises users who treat --dry-run as a strict no-op, and the same executeClone path is reused by aidd create, so the surprise compounds in scaffolded flows.

Suggested direction

Move await ensureTargetDir(paths)(); inside the non-dry-run branch (one-line move, ~5 LoC diff including comment update). The dry-run branch only reads from paths.source (the framework's ai/ directory) and prints — it doesn't need the target to exist.

Optionally also gate the source-existence dry-run output on whether paths.targetBase exists, so users see "would create directory" instead of silently assuming it.

Notes

Found during a third-party audit of the install primitive. Citations are against paralleldrive/aidd@57758344 (current main).