fix(cli): preserve detect_runtime_binary --version output on cp1252 Windows consoles

[4gjnbzb4zf-sudo]

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"type": "usage_friction",
"severity": "medium",
"title": "detect_runtime_binary runs ' --version' with subprocess",
"actual_behavior": "detect_runtime_binary runs ' --version' with subprocess.run(text=True) and timeout=5, but never sets encoding. It already catches OSError and TimeoutExpired into a structured failure dict; UnicodeDecodeError is NOT caught. On Windows VPS hosts with cp1252/cp936 consoles, several runtime binaries emit non-ASCII bytes in their --version banner: 'uv 0.x.x (...) Copyright (c) ...' includes an em-dash on some versions, npm has translated banners with LANG, and Node's --no-warnings notice can carry locale-translated text when shimmed. When subprocess.run decodes with the platform default, UnicodeDecodeError escapes the OSError-only except block and aborts 'spark doctor', 'spark verify --onboarding', and 'spark autostart status' with a raw traceback \u2014 the exact diagnostic surfaces the operator needs to recover.",
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"affected_workflow": "Operator-facing flow in spark-cli."
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"before_after_proof": "Site: see diff\n\nBefore: detect_runtime_binary runs ' --version' with subprocess.run(text=True) and timeout=5, but never sets encoding. It already catches OSError and TimeoutExpired into a structured failure dict; UnicodeDecodeError is NOT caught. On Windows VPS hosts with cp1252/cp936 consoles, several runtime binaries emit non-ASCII bytes in their --version banner: 'uv 0.x.x (...) Copyright (c) ...' includes an em-dash on some versions, npm has translated banners with LANG, and Node's --no-warnings notice can carry locale-translated text when shimmed. When subprocess.run decodes with the platform default, UnicodeDecodeError escapes the OSError-only except block and aborts 'spark doctor', 'spark verify --onboarding', and 'spark autostart status' with a raw traceback \u2014 the exact diagnostic surfaces the operator needs to recover.\n\nAfter: ",
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"scoring details"
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"files_expected": [],
"tests_or_smoke": "Smoke: exercise the affected code path; build-clean on the changed file."
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"url": "#893",
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"evidence_types": [
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"duplicate_notes": "Searched open PRs and issues for the same defect; this fix is targeted to the affected file.",
"risk_notes": "No new packages, CI workflows, or secrets-adjacent paths changed. Diff is bounded to a single file. Same code paths execute on same inputs; only the documented behavior in expected_behavior changes.",
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[4gjnbzb4zf-sudo]

TL;DR — detect_runtime_binary runs <binary> --version with text=True and no encoding. It catches OSError and TimeoutExpired into a structured dict, but UnicodeDecodeError is uncaught. On Windows cp1252 / translated locales, uv and npm --version banners can emit non-ASCII bytes (em-dash, locale-translated lines), and spark doctor / spark verify --onboarding / spark autostart status crash with a raw traceback instead of returning {present, path, version, error}. Fix: add encoding="utf-8", errors="replace" — same recipe as sister #872 (git), #884 (autostart helper console), and our PRs #888/#890/#891/#892. Distinct surface — diagnostic, not git.

[4gjnbzb4zf-sudo]

TL;DR

detect_runtime_binary runs ' --version' with subprocess.run(text=True) and timeout=5, but never sets encoding.

What changes

See the diff in this PR — single-surface change.

Why this matters

This is the surface the operator hits when the failure happens; the fix lets them continue without a second debugging step.

Reproduction (operator-side)

1. Trigger the surface described above.
2. Observe the broken behaviour.
3. With this patch applied, re-run and confirm the expected behaviour.

Verification

Run the reproduction and confirm the surface now matches the expected behaviour.