Closes #975

Problem

bm project default <name> failed with No default project is currently set — but setting the default is exactly the command you reach for when none is set, making a recoverable state unrecoverable from the CLI (the bootstrap/recovery case).

Repro (before the fix)

export BASIC_MEMORY_CONFIG_DIR=/tmp/bm-975-test/config BASIC_MEMORY_HOME=/tmp/bm-975-test/home
bm project add qa /tmp/bm-975-test/notes --local   # only project; no default row in DB
bm project default qa
# Error setting default project: No default project is currently set

Root cause

src/basic_memory/api/v2/routers/project_router.py set_default_project_by_id fetched the current default solely to echo it as old_project in the response, and raised 404 when there was none. That guard was marked # pragma: no cover — the no-current-default path was never tested. ProjectStatusResponse.old_project is already Optional, so the 404 served no schema requirement.

Fix

Remove the 404 guard. Build old_project=ProjectItem(...) only when a previous default exists, otherwise pass old_project=None. The rest of the handler is unchanged. No schema change needed.

A check of the rest of src/basic_memory/api/ confirmed there is no v1 router (only v2/) and the "No default project is currently set" string now appears nowhere in the tree, so there was no duplicate pattern to fix.

Test coverage

Added test_set_default_project_when_none_is_set: clears is_default so no row is default, calls the set-default endpoint, and asserts 200, old_project is None, the new project is default, and a follow-up get_default_project() returns it. All existing tests stay green. The removed # pragma: no cover guard is gone, and both branches of the new old_project construction are exercised by the existing and new tests.

Verification

• uv run pytest tests/api/v2/test_project_router.py tests/services/test_project_service.py tests/repository/test_project_repository.py tests/cli/test_project_list_and_ls.py — 91 passed, 2 skipped
• uv run ruff check + ruff format --check on changed files — clean
• uv run ty check src tests test-int — All checks passed

End-to-end (the user's actual repro)

export BASIC_MEMORY_CONFIG_DIR=/tmp/bm-975-test/config BASIC_MEMORY_HOME=/tmp/bm-975-test/home
uv run bm project add qa /tmp/bm-975-test/notes --local   # Project 'qa' added successfully
uv run bm project default qa                              # Project 'qa' set as default successfully (exit 0)

bm project default qa now succeeds where it previously failed with No default project is currently set. No #974-shaped config/DB drift was encountered on this path.

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