Three coordinated changes per operator request 2026-05-24:
1. Settings UI rename matching the language we actually use:
- Chat Model -> Chat & Voice Model
- Worker Model -> Curator Model
Setting KEYS (default_model / background_model) unchanged on
purpose; renaming them requires a migration touching 50+ call
sites for purely UX-facing benefit.
2. Settings UI help text rewritten:
- Chat & Voice: documents that it handles chat AND small
conversational automations (titles, tags). Recommends
OLLAMA_NUM_PARALLEL=2+ on the Ollama server so background
automations get their own KV-cache slot and don't evict
the chat model's working state.
- Curator: notes the app enforces SERIAL execution regardless
of NUM_PARALLEL — only one curator pass runs at a time. This
matters most for 70b CPU models where a second instance
would waste system RAM.
3. Enforce serial curator execution globally:
- New module-level _CURATOR_RUN_LOCK in services/curator.py.
- run_curator_for_conversation now wraps its body in 'async
with _CURATOR_RUN_LOCK' — every entry point (scheduler sweep,
manual route trigger, future hooks) is serialized through it.
- is_curator_running() helper exposes the lock state.
- routes/journal.py manual trigger checks is_curator_running()
first and returns 409 {busy: true} immediately rather than
blocking the HTTP request for minutes waiting for a 70b CPU
pass to finish. The user can retry once the curator clears.
Why a 409 instead of queue: a curator pass on a 70b CPU model
can take 5+ minutes. Tying up an HTTP worker that long is bad;
making the user wait without feedback is worse. 409 surfaces
the busy state immediately and the user retries when they want.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The HTTP surface for the review queue. Three endpoints, all under
the existing /api/journal blueprint to keep the journal-related routes
together:
- GET /api/journal/pending — list current user's pending actions.
- POST /api/journal/pending/<id>/approve — replay the proposed tool
call via execute_tool(authority='user'). On success, marks
the row 'approved'; on replay error, leaves it pending so
the user can retry.
- POST /api/journal/pending/<id>/reject — marks 'rejected' with no
execution.
Each route is a thin wrapper around services/pending_actions and
delegates user-scoping to the service (which checks user_id on every
load — actions are private to the proposer).
api/client.ts:
- PendingCuratorAction interface mirroring the backend dict shape:
id, user_id, conv_id, action_type, target_type/id/label, payload,
current_snapshot, status, timestamps.
- listPendingActions / approvePendingAction / rejectPendingAction
helpers for the upcoming Needs Review panel.
C5 next: the panel itself.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The architecture loop closes. Curator extracts beats and writes a
≤240-char summary; the next chat turn loads that summary into the
journal system prompt so the chat model — which has no tools and
cannot retrieve anything itself — gains awareness of recent topics
captured by the curator.
Migration 0049:
- conversations.curator_summary (text, nullable). Last-write-wins; no
history of prior summaries.
models/conversation.py:
- New curator_summary column on Conversation.
services/curator_scheduler.py:
- _stamp_last_run() takes an optional summary kwarg; persists it when
non-empty (clobbering the previous summary). Empty summary keeps
the existing one rather than overwriting useful context with "".
- _sweep() passes result.summary through.
routes/journal.py:
- Manual /api/journal/curator/run/<conv_id> writes curator_summary
alongside last_curator_run_at on success.
services/journal_pipeline.py:
- build_journal_system_prompt() gains an optional `conv_id` param.
When provided, appends a "CURATOR NOTES" block at the end of the
system prompt with the conversation's stored summary. Positioned
after ambient context so the chat model treats it as current
awareness rather than background.
services/llm.py:
- Threads conv_id through to build_journal_system_prompt.
This is the last commit of the conversation+curator architecture
arc (Fable #172):
- Phase 1a (a7002a8): chat=tools[], curator service backend
- Phase 1b (a73dd17): right-rail captures panel + manual trigger
- Phase 2 (83f1676): auto-scheduler every 15 min
- Phase 3 (this): curator summary → chat context feedback loop
Operator can now device-test the architecture end-to-end: have a
journal conversation (model can't lie about tool calls because it
has none), wait for the scheduler or hit "Process captures", see
moments appear in the right rail, then continue the conversation
and notice the chat model staying topic-aware via the summary block.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The curator now runs automatically every 15 minutes against any
journal conversation that has user messages newer than its last
curator run. Manual triggers from Phase 1b still work and now also
stamp the timestamp so the scheduler doesn't double-process.
Migration 0048:
- conversations.last_curator_run_at (timestamptz, nullable).
- Partial index ix_conversations_journal_last_curator on the column
filtered to conversation_type='journal'. The scheduler's candidate
query is "journal AND (NULL OR stale)" so an index narrowed to
journal rows is the right shape — index size stays small even on
instances with many non-journal conversations.
models/conversation.py:
- New `last_curator_run_at` column on Conversation. DateTime imported.
services/curator_scheduler.py (new):
- IntervalTrigger every 15 min via BackgroundScheduler (same pattern
as journal_scheduler.py).
- _candidate_conversations(): SELECT journal conversations where the
newest user message is newer than last_curator_run_at (or NULL).
Capped at 20 per sweep so a backlog after downtime doesn't stall
the scheduler.
- _sweep() processes candidates sequentially under an asyncio.Lock
so overlapping ticks can't double-fire on the same conversation.
Failed runs leave the timestamp alone — natural retry on next sweep.
- start_/stop_curator_scheduler() wired into app.py boot/shutdown.
routes/journal.py:
- Manual /api/journal/curator/run/<conv_id> stamps last_curator_run_at
on success. Errors don't stamp so the scheduler retries.
What's still pending:
- Phase 3: feedback loop (curator summary into chat context). Currently
the curator's summary lives in the run result but doesn't reach the
chat model.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Backend half of the conversation+curator architecture (Fable #172).
Decouples the journal chat surface from tool calling: the chat model
now sees `tools=[]` and just talks, while a separate curator pass
extracts beats and fires the tool calls.
services/generation_task.py:
- When conversation_type == "journal", pass `tools=[]` to Ollama
regardless of what the journal tool set would normally provide.
The chat model literally cannot fire record_moment / create_task /
etc., so it cannot lie about firing them — the primary failure
mode this architecture removes.
services/curator.py (new):
- `run_curator_for_conversation(conv_id, since=None)` loads recent
messages, builds a curator-specific system prompt (extract beats,
emit tool calls, optionally a one-line summary), and iterates the
Ollama tool-call loop using the user's background_model so the
chat model's KV cache survives.
- Same tool registry as a normal journal conversation
(record_moment, search_notes, update_task, create_task,
save_person, save_place, etc.). The curator chooses naturally
among them; no need for a separate curator-specific filter.
- Returns CuratorRunResult with per-call status + a summary line.
- Caps at 4 tool-call rounds — bounded task (extract beats from a
fixed transcript), shouldn't need more.
- Errors land in result.error rather than raising; the manual
trigger surface (and later the scheduler) want a structured
result, not exceptions.
routes/journal.py:
- New POST /api/journal/curator/run/<conv_id> for manual triggers.
Validates conv ownership before running. Returns the
CuratorRunResult dict so the UI can show what was captured.
What's not in this commit (deferred to later phases):
- The scheduler that auto-runs the curator (phase 2 — adds the
`conversations.last_curator_run_at` column + APScheduler job).
- Curator → chat feedback loop (phase 3 — summary gets injected
into subsequent chat system prompts).
- Right-rail captures panel in JournalView (phase 1b — pure frontend
work, separate commit for clean review).
- Research surface separation (phase 4).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Prep prose (services/journal_prep.py):
- Emit explicit "WEATHER: none available — do NOT mention weather"
absent-marker so a small model can't invent partly-cloudy/temperature
prose when both configured locations have empty addresses.
- Replace negative-only system rule with positive-anchored guidance
forbidding weather/temp/precip mentions unless a numeric WEATHER
section is present; also bans echoing parenthetical labels verbatim.
- Reword overdue header to "(past their due date, still open — backlog,
not today's work)" and render lines as "was due <date>, N day(s)
overdue" with correct singular/plural. Supersedes the wording noted
in Fable task #159.
- Deterministic fabricated-weather reconciler: low-false-positive regex
detects fabricated weather phrasing; on trip with an empty section,
regenerate once with a corrective. Persistent fabrication logs ERROR
rather than mangling prose.
Journal route (routes/journal.py):
- Override message_count with len(messages) in _day_payload. The chat
path already does this; the journal path was hitting the
Conversation.to_dict() fallback to 0 because messages aren't
eager-loaded on that instance.
Tests:
- tests/test_journal_message_count.py — pins the model-level trap and
the override contract (3 cases).
- tests/test_journal_prep_hardening.py — 11 cases covering the
fabricated-weather reconciler and absent-marker rendering.
- tests/test_journal_prep_filtering.py — updated one stale assertion.
Tracks Fable task #171.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Two related gaps in the journal weather panel:
1. Saving locations via PUT /journal/config didn't trigger a weather
fetch, so newly-entered sites had no cache row (or a stale one) until
the user manually clicked the panel's refresh button. The panel
rendered "two sites with empty values" against pre-existing cache
rows that no longer matched what the user had configured.
2. get_cached_weather_rows returned every WeatherCache row for the user
regardless of whether the location was still in journal_config.
Briefing-era rows survived migration 0040 (which only deleted the
briefing_config setting, not the cache table) and showed up as
ghost tabs in the UI.
Changes:
- get_cached_weather_rows accepts an optional valid_keys filter; rows
whose location_key is not in the set are excluded.
- routes/journal.py:
- put_config kicks off a background refresh_location_cache for any
saved location with valid lat/lon.
- GET /weather and POST /weather/refresh both pass valid_keys derived
from the current config so orphaned rows don't surface.
- services/journal_prep.py filters the weather section to currently-
configured locations as well; uses a lazy import of get_journal_config
to avoid a cycle (journal_scheduler imports journal_prep).
153 tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The /api/journal/weather route was filtering out cache rows older than 24
hours via parse_weather_card_data, while journal_prep.py read the same
rows raw without freshness checking. Result: the daily prep referenced
"home" and "work" temperatures while the right-rail UI showed nothing —
two surfaces, same backing data, inconsistent visibility.
Two changes:
1. parse_weather_card_data no longer returns None for stale data.
WeatherCard already exposes fetched_at and gracefully hides
today_high / forecast fields when they're absent, so old data renders
with whatever fields the cached forecast still covers.
2. The /weather route opportunistically schedules a background refresh
for any cache row older than 4 hours. If the user's journal_config
has lat/lon for that location_key, the refresh runs and the next
page load gets fresh data; if no usable config, the refresh is a
silent no-op and the stale cache is still served.
This makes prep and UI consistent. It also self-heals over time — once
locations are configured, stale caches get refreshed on the next page
load instead of waiting indefinitely.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The journal UI was over-stripped earlier — weather panel, current-conditions
poll, and the upcoming-events sidebar were all dropped. Restored those (calls
the new /api/journal/weather, /api/journal/weather/current,
/api/journal/weather/refresh, /api/journal/weather/geocode endpoints).
Also: the daily-prep system message was rendering as flat text inside
ChatPanel because there's no .role-system bubble styling. Added a hideMessage
guard in ChatMessage so daily-prep system messages don't render in the chat
stream — they're already shown above as a structured prep card.
News / RSS reactions / article-discuss are intentionally NOT in the journal
(scoped out per user direction). The broader RSS infrastructure cleanup is
a separate, larger task.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
bvandeusen