Core Hardening — SettingsService Scope Casing Compatibility (`user` vs `USER`)

[DJJones66]

🛡️ Core Hardening — SettingsService Scope Casing Compatibility (user vs USER)

Objective

• Ensure SettingsService reads existing settings instances regardless of scope casing differences (e.g., user vs USER).
• Prevent duplicate instances from being created due to casing mismatches.
• Normalize all writes to a canonical lowercase scope (user) while remaining backward-compatible with pre-existing uppercase rows.

Background

• Some environments/databases contain settings with uppercase scopes (e.g., USER).
• The current SettingsService queries/writes using lowercase (user). If an uppercase row exists, the service may fail to find it and create a duplicate lowercase row.
• Standardizing scope handling avoids duplicate instances and reduces the need for ad-hoc plugin workarounds.