Audit CLI tool calls: ensure all commands have clean --format json

[bm-clawd]

Context

The plugin shells out to bm tool ... for all operations. Some commands output clean JSON natively, others need --format json (PR basic-memory#553), and some have no JSON output at all.

The parseJsonOutput() function in bm-client.ts exists to strip non-JSON junk (warnings, Rich markup) from CLI output. Once all commands support clean --format json, this workaround can be removed.

Current state

Command	Method	JSON support	Notes
search-notes	execToolNativeJson	✅ Native JSON	Works clean
build-context	execToolNativeJson	✅ Native JSON	Works clean
read-note	execTool + --format json	⚠️ Needs PR #553	Also needs frontmatter stripping
write-note	execTool + --format json	⚠️ Needs PR #553	Response used to confirm write
recent-activity	execTool + --format json	⚠️ Needs PR #553
project add	execRaw	❌ No JSON	Output ignored, errors silenced

Goal

1. Confirm PR #553 covers read-note, write-note, recent-activity with clean JSON
2. Once merged, verify all commands return parseable JSON without prefix junk
3. Remove parseJsonOutput() workaround — replace with direct JSON.parse()
4. Collapse execTool / execToolNativeJson into a single method (all commands become native JSON)
5. Decide: does project add need JSON output? (currently fire-and-forget)

Longer term: writes via markdown files

Per architecture discussion: write operations (write-note, edit) should eventually write markdown files directly to the project path and let BM's filewatcher index them. This removes the CLI dependency for writes entirely. Reads stay on CLI with --format json.

Depends on

• basic-memory PR #553 (--format json for CLI tools)