In order to upsert an attribute in an XML file, you need to have both an insert and an update in the same command.
Example that adds a style
attribute to the root >svg<
element of every SVG file.
xmlstarlet edit \
--inplace \
--update '/_:svg/@style' -x 'string("background-color: white")' \
--insert '/_:svg[not(@style)]' --type attr -n newattr --value 'background-color: white' \
*.svg