Add a Kiwix search client and score retrieval (Vikunja #403)

Step one of letting Maven read instead of recall. No LLM yet.

internal/kiwix/client.go: search a local Kiwix server, parse the RSS
reply, hand back title + path + plain-text snippet + word count. The
snippet is the unit of context; a full article is ~100KB of HTML and
will not fit a 4096 token window.

internal/kiwix/retrieval_eval.go plus knowledge_v1.json: the 9 knowledge
questions from the phrasing fixture, each with hand-written English
keywords, scored on whether a wanted article comes back in the top 5.
Opt-in via MAVEN_KIWIX_URL, since CI has no Kiwix. No pass bar, the
number is the finding.

Result on the live mirror: 8/8 answerable questions hit, 7 of them at
rank 1. Retrieval works. Keywords are written by hand on purpose, since
Kiwix ranks by keyword and not by meaning, so a natural question fails.
A query-rewrite step is the next piece of work.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01CGeSZxh1DCtRxmFVSYVGvJ

CLAUDE.md

@@ -82,9 +82,23 @@ workspace enforces that the Go and relabelling prompts remain identical.
 
 ## Non-goals (hard constraints)
 
-Never phones home. Not a nag, not autonomous. Maven's persona is **feminine** — Russian
+Not a nag, not autonomous. Maven's persona is **feminine** — Russian
 self-reference must use feminine forms (the user is male; see memory `maven-persona-gender`).
 
+**"Never phones home" is DEPRECATED** (owner's call, 2026-07-31). It used to be a hard
+constraint and it is not one any more: a 0.8B — and a 1.7B — does not know enough to answer
+world questions, so she needs to read external sources. What replaces it:
+
+- **No telemetry, no cloud model, no third-party account.** That part never changes. Nothing
+  about Maven is reported to anyone, and inference stays on the box.
+- **Local sources first.** Kiwix ZIMs on homesrv (Wikipedia, ifixit) before anything on the
+  network. Reading beats recalling for a small model, and a local read costs nothing.
+- **External search is allowed and off unless configured**, like the weather and telegram
+  capabilities.
+- **His notes and facts are never search input.** Looking up why the sky is blue and sending
+  his stored personal notes to an upstream engine are different acts. Only the utterance goes
+  out, never the persona block, history, or matched notes.
+
 ## Web UI conventions
 
 Server-rendered pages share `cmd/mavweb/static/ui.css` (served at `/ui.css`) and the `nav`

DESIGN.md

@@ -15,7 +15,8 @@
 
 **Maven** — self-hosted personal assistant. Manages your day, acts on your
 homelab. One daemon on homesrv (always-on, not the workstation), multiple
-client surfaces. All local, never phones home.
+client surfaces. Inference and data stay on the box; she may READ external
+sources (see Non-goals — "never phones home" is deprecated).
 
 Primary name is "Maven", with feminine-gendered Russian self-reference
 ("она", "меня", "помогла"). Clients may choose their own UI label. Consistent
@@ -35,8 +36,13 @@ Inside boundary — the ones that actually constrain the build:
   she records. A confident wrong fact is worse than a known gap.
 - **Not a nag** — she'd rather miss a nudge than be mutable. Shuts up when
   uncertain. Load-bearing.
-- **Not a stranger** — runs on your stuff, your model, your data. Never
+- **Not a stranger** — runs on your stuff, your model, your data. No
-  phones home.
+  telemetry, no cloud model, no third-party account. She may READ external
+  sources to answer world questions (Kiwix first, then optional search); she
+  never reports anything about you to anyone, and your notes and facts are
+  never used as search input. **"Never phones home" as an absolute is
+  deprecated** — owner's call, 2026-07-31: a small model does not know enough
+  to be useful without reading.
 - **Not a relationship** — mom-tone is a function that makes nudges land, not
   emotional company. Names the drift a warm small model falls into.
 
@@ -458,7 +464,7 @@ decides *insistence*. Both are needed.
 
 sev ≤ 2 drops on away, sev ≥ 3 holds: a missed water nudge is noise, a missed
 backup failure isn't. Away-channels (ntfy/telegram) leave the box — the one
-path that crosses "never phones home," through your own relay. **Minimal
+path that leaves the box for a person to see, through your own relay. **Minimal
 body** — "disk low on homesrv," not detail; don't make notifications a
 shoulder-surf exfil surface.
 

REARCH.md

@@ -90,4 +90,7 @@ later* is the worker + RAG.
 4. **Deferred work** — larger reasoner, custom Piper voice and other expansions.
 
 ## Non-goals (unchanged)
-Never phones home. Not a nag. Not autonomous. Feminine-gendered RU self-ref.
+Not a nag. Not autonomous. Feminine-gendered RU self-ref. No telemetry, no
+cloud model, no third-party account — but she MAY read external sources to
+answer world questions (Kiwix first, search optional). "Never phones home" as
+an absolute is deprecated, owner's call 2026-07-31; see CLAUDE.md § Non-goals.

internal/kiwix/client.go

@@ -0,0 +1,116 @@
+// Package kiwix reads a local Kiwix server (offline Wikipedia and friends).
+//
+// Why: the resident model is a 0.8B and invents facts. Letting her read a local
+// article snippet beats letting her recall. Nothing here talks to the internet;
+// the Kiwix server is on the same box.
+//
+// This is search only. Full articles are ~100KB of HTML, far too big for a 4096
+// token context, so the unit of context is the search snippet (~500 chars).
+package kiwix
+
+import (
+	"context"
+	"encoding/xml"
+	"fmt"
+	"html"
+	"io"
+	"net/http"
+	"net/url"
+	"regexp"
+	"strconv"
+	"strings"
+	"time"
+)
+
+// Result is one search hit.
+type Result struct {
+	Title     string // article title, e.g. "Rayleigh scattering"
+	Path      string // e.g. /content/wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2026-02/Rayleigh_scattering
+	Snippet   string // plain text, tags stripped, entities decoded
+	WordCount int    // 0 if the server did not say
+}
+
+// Client is a Kiwix HTTP client. Boring on purpose: no retries, no cache.
+type Client struct {
+	base string
+	http *http.Client
+}
+
+// New makes a client for a Kiwix base URL like http://127.0.0.1:8034.
+func New(baseURL string) *Client {
+	return &Client{
+		base: strings.TrimRight(baseURL, "/"),
+		http: &http.Client{Timeout: 10 * time.Second},
+	}
+}
+
+// Search runs a keyword search in one ZIM (book) and returns up to limit hits.
+//
+// Ranking is keyword based, not semantic: "Rayleigh scattering" finds the right
+// article, "why is the sky blue" finds a TV episode. Pass keywords, not questions.
+func (c *Client) Search(ctx context.Context, pattern, book string, limit int) ([]Result, error) {
+	if limit <= 0 {
+		limit = 5
+	}
+	q := url.Values{}
+	q.Set("pattern", pattern)
+	q.Set("books.name", book)
+	q.Set("format", "xml")
+	q.Set("pageLength", strconv.Itoa(limit))
+
+	req, err := http.NewRequestWithContext(ctx, http.MethodGet, c.base+"/search?"+q.Encode(), nil)
+	if err != nil {
+		return nil, err
+	}
+	resp, err := c.http.Do(req)
+	if err != nil {
+		return nil, err
+	}
+	defer resp.Body.Close()
+	if resp.StatusCode != http.StatusOK {
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("kiwix search: http %d", resp.StatusCode)
+	}
+	return ParseSearchRSS(resp.Body)
+}
+
+// rss mirrors just the bits of the RSS 2.0 reply we use.
+type rss struct {
+	Items []struct {
+		Title string `xml:"title"`
+		Link  string `xml:"link"`
+		// innerxml keeps the <b> match markers so we can strip them ourselves.
+		Description struct {
+			Inner string `xml:",innerxml"`
+		} `xml:"description"`
+		WordCount   string `xml:"wordCount"`
+	} `xml:"channel>item"`
+}
+
+var tagRE = regexp.MustCompile(`<[^>]*>`)
+
+// ParseSearchRSS turns a Kiwix search reply into results. Exported so the parser
+// is testable from a captured response, with no server running.
+func ParseSearchRSS(r io.Reader) ([]Result, error) {
+	var doc rss
+	if err := xml.NewDecoder(r).Decode(&doc); err != nil {
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("kiwix search: bad xml: %w", err)
+	}
+	out := make([]Result, 0, len(doc.Items))
+	for _, it := range doc.Items {
+		n, _ := strconv.Atoi(strings.ReplaceAll(it.WordCount, ",", ""))
+		out = append(out, Result{
+			Title:     strings.TrimSpace(it.Title),
+			Path:      strings.TrimSpace(it.Link),
+			Snippet:   plainText(it.Description.Inner),
+			WordCount: n,
+		})
+	}
+	return out, nil
+}
+
+// plainText drops markup and decodes entities, leaving text a model can read.
+func plainText(s string) string {
+	s = tagRE.ReplaceAllString(s, "")
+	s = html.UnescapeString(s)
+	return strings.TrimSpace(strings.Join(strings.Fields(s), " "))
+}

internal/kiwix/kiwix_test.go

@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+package kiwix
+
+import (
+	"context"
+	"os"
+	"strings"
+	"testing"
+	"time"
+)
+
+// A real reply from the live server, trimmed to two items.
+const sampleRSS = `<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<rss version="2.0" xmlns:opensearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
+  <channel>
+    <title>Search: Rayleigh scattering</title>
+    <opensearch:totalResults>800</opensearch:totalResults>
+    <item>
+      <title>Rayleigh scattering</title>
+      <link>/content/wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2026-02/Rayleigh_scattering</link>
+      <description><b>Rayleigh</b> scattering causes the blue color of the sky &amp; yellow colors near the Sun.[1]</description>
+      <book><title>Wikipedia</title></book>
+      <wordCount>2,818</wordCount>
+    </item>
+    <item>
+      <title>Hyper–Rayleigh scattering</title>
+      <link>/content/wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2026-02/Hyper%E2%80%93Rayleigh_scattering</link>
+      <description>...<b>Rayleigh</b> scattering" is a nonlinear optical counterpart.</description>
+      <book><title>Wikipedia</title></book>
+      <wordCount>914</wordCount>
+    </item>
+  </channel>
+</rss>`
+
+func TestParseSearchRSS(t *testing.T) {
+	got, err := ParseSearchRSS(strings.NewReader(sampleRSS))
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("parse: %v", err)
+	}
+	if len(got) != 2 {
+		t.Fatalf("want 2 results, got %d", len(got))
+	}
+	if got[0].Title != "Rayleigh scattering" {
+		t.Errorf("title = %q", got[0].Title)
+	}
+	if got[0].Path != "/content/wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2026-02/Rayleigh_scattering" {
+		t.Errorf("path = %q", got[0].Path)
+	}
+	if got[0].WordCount != 2818 {
+		t.Errorf("wordCount = %d", got[0].WordCount)
+	}
+	want := "Rayleigh scattering causes the blue color of the sky & yellow colors near the Sun.[1]"
+	if got[0].Snippet != want {
+		t.Errorf("snippet = %q, want %q", got[0].Snippet, want)
+	}
+	if strings.Contains(got[1].Snippet, "<b>") {
+		t.Errorf("second snippet still has tags: %q", got[1].Snippet)
+	}
+}
+
+func TestParseSearchRSSBadXML(t *testing.T) {
+	if _, err := ParseSearchRSS(strings.NewReader("not xml at all")); err == nil {
+		t.Fatal("want an error on junk input")
+	}
+}
+
+// Opt-in: needs a live Kiwix server. CI has none.
+// MAVEN_KIWIX_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8034 no_proxy=127.0.0.1,localhost go test -run Retrieval -v ./internal/kiwix/
+func TestRetrievalEval(t *testing.T) {
+	base := os.Getenv("MAVEN_KIWIX_URL")
+	if base == "" {
+		t.Skip("set MAVEN_KIWIX_URL to run the retrieval eval")
+	}
+	noProxyLoopback(t)
+
+	ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), 2*time.Minute)
+	defer cancel()
+
+	rep, err := RunRetrievalEval(ctx, New(base), 5)
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("eval: %v", err)
+	}
+	// No pass bar on purpose: the number is the finding.
+	t.Log("\n" + rep.String() + rep.Detail())
+}
+
+// noProxyLoopback stops the box's SOCKS bridge from eating loopback requests.
+func noProxyLoopback(t *testing.T) {
+	t.Setenv("no_proxy", "127.0.0.1,localhost")
+	t.Setenv("NO_PROXY", "127.0.0.1,localhost")
+}

internal/kiwix/knowledge_v1.json

@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+{
+  "name": "kiwix-knowledge-v1",
+  "book": "wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2026-02",
+  "note": "The 9 knowledge cases from internal/phraser/eval/talk_v1.json. Queries are hand-written English keywords on purpose: Kiwix ranks by keyword, not meaning, so a natural question fails. Writing them by hand separates 'retrieval is broken' from 'the model writes bad queries'.",
+  "cases": [
+    {
+      "id": "know-sky-blue",
+      "question": "почему небо синее?",
+      "query": "Rayleigh scattering sky blue",
+      "want_titles": ["Rayleigh scattering", "Diffuse sky radiation"]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": "know-boil-egg",
+      "question": "сколько варить яйцо вкрутую?",
+      "query": "boiled egg cooking",
+      "want_titles": ["Boiled egg", "Egg as food"]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": "know-ssd-vs-hdd",
+      "question": "чем ssd отличается от hdd?",
+      "query": "solid-state drive",
+      "want_titles": ["Solid-state drive", "Hard disk drive"]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": "know-cat-purr",
+      "question": "почему кошки мурчат?",
+      "query": "cat purr",
+      "want_titles": ["Purr", "Cat communication"]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": "know-hiccups",
+      "question": "как быстро избавиться от икоты?",
+      "query": "hiccup",
+      "want_titles": ["Hiccup"]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": "know-polite-form",
+      "question": "не могли бы вы объяснить, что такое vpn?",
+      "query": "virtual private network",
+      "want_titles": ["Virtual private network"]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": "know-dont-know",
+      "question": "как зовут моего соседа снизу?",
+      "query": "name of my downstairs neighbour",
+      "want_titles": [],
+      "expect_miss": true,
+      "note": "Unanswerable by design. Retrieval SHOULD find nothing useful. Counted as a hit only when nothing relevant comes back."
+    },
+    {
+      "id": "know-water-per-day",
+      "question": "сколько воды в день надо пить?",
+      "query": "human daily water requirement drinking",
+      "want_titles": ["Drinking water", "Water", "Dehydration", "Hydration"]
+    },
+    {
+      "id": "know-thunder-delay",
+      "question": "почему гром слышно позже молнии?",
+      "query": "thunder speed of sound lightning",
+      "want_titles": ["Thunder", "Lightning"]
+    }
+  ]
+}

internal/kiwix/retrieval_eval.go

@@ -0,0 +1,135 @@
+package kiwix
+
+// This scores retrieval alone: no LLM. For each general-knowledge question we
+// hand-write English keywords and ask whether the article that would answer it
+// comes back in the top N hits. If this score is low, reading Wikipedia cannot
+// help the model no matter how good the prompt is.
+//
+// The unanswerable case (know-dont-know) is not scored. Whether the junk it
+// returns is "nothing useful" is a human judgement, so the report just prints
+// the titles and leaves the score to the 8 answerable cases.
+
+import (
+	"context"
+	_ "embed"
+	"encoding/json"
+	"fmt"
+	"strings"
+)
+
+//go:embed knowledge_v1.json
+var knowledgeFixtureJSON []byte
+
+// EvalCase — one question with hand-written keywords.
+type EvalCase struct {
+	ID         string   `json:"id"`
+	Question   string   `json:"question"`
+	Query      string   `json:"query"`
+	WantTitles []string `json:"want_titles"`
+	ExpectMiss bool     `json:"expect_miss"`
+}
+
+type fixture struct {
+	Name  string     `json:"name"`
+	Book  string     `json:"book"`
+	Cases []EvalCase `json:"cases"`
+}
+
+// Outcome — what one case retrieved.
+type Outcome struct {
+	Case   EvalCase
+	Titles []string // titles of the top N hits, in rank order
+	Rank   int      // 1-based rank of the first wanted title, 0 if none
+	Err    error
+}
+
+// Hit is true when a wanted title came back.
+func (o Outcome) Hit() bool { return o.Rank > 0 }
+
+// Report — the score plus per-case detail.
+type Report struct {
+	Name     string
+	Book     string
+	TopN     int
+	Scored   int // answerable cases
+	Hits     int
+	Errors   int
+	Outcomes []Outcome
+}
+
+// Accuracy over the answerable cases.
+func (r Report) Accuracy() float64 {
+	if r.Scored == 0 {
+		return 0
+	}
+	return float64(r.Hits) / float64(r.Scored)
+}
+
+// RunRetrievalEval searches for every fixture case.
+func RunRetrievalEval(ctx context.Context, c *Client, topN int) (Report, error) {
+	var f fixture
+	if err := json.Unmarshal(knowledgeFixtureJSON, &f); err != nil {
+		return Report{}, err
+	}
+	rep := Report{Name: f.Name, Book: f.Book, TopN: topN}
+	for _, cs := range f.Cases {
+		res, err := c.Search(ctx, cs.Query, f.Book, topN)
+		o := Outcome{Case: cs, Err: err}
+		if err != nil {
+			rep.Errors++
+		}
+		for i, hit := range res {
+			o.Titles = append(o.Titles, hit.Title)
+			if o.Rank == 0 && matches(cs.WantTitles, hit.Title) {
+				o.Rank = i + 1
+			}
+		}
+		if !cs.ExpectMiss {
+			rep.Scored++
+			if o.Hit() {
+				rep.Hits++
+			}
+		}
+		rep.Outcomes = append(rep.Outcomes, o)
+	}
+	return rep, nil
+}
+
+func matches(want []string, title string) bool {
+	for _, w := range want {
+		if strings.EqualFold(strings.TrimSpace(title), w) {
+			return true
+		}
+	}
+	return false
+}
+
+// String — the headline number.
+func (r Report) String() string {
+	var b strings.Builder
+	fmt.Fprintf(&b, "%s: %d/%d answerable questions retrieve a wanted article in top %d (%.1f%%), %d errors\n",
+		r.Name, r.Hits, r.Scored, r.TopN, 100*r.Accuracy(), r.Errors)
+	fmt.Fprintf(&b, "  book: %s\n", r.Book)
+	return b.String()
+}
+
+// Detail — per case: what was asked, what was searched, what came back.
+func (r Report) Detail() string {
+	var b strings.Builder
+	for _, o := range r.Outcomes {
+		mark := "MISS"
+		switch {
+		case o.Case.ExpectMiss:
+			mark = "n/a "
+		case o.Hit():
+			mark = fmt.Sprintf("hit@%d", o.Rank)
+		}
+		fmt.Fprintf(&b, "  %-6s %-20s q=%q\n", mark, o.Case.ID, o.Case.Query)
+		if o.Err != nil {
+			fmt.Fprintf(&b, "         error: %v\n", o.Err)
+			continue
+		}
+		fmt.Fprintf(&b, "         got: %s\n", strings.Join(o.Titles, " | "))
+	}
+	return b.String()
+}

internal/phraser/grammar_test.go

@@ -0,0 +1,124 @@
+package phraser
+
+import (
+	"context"
+	"encoding/json"
+	"net/http"
+	"net/http/httptest"
+	"strings"
+	"testing"
+
+	"github.com/kami/maven/internal/loop"
+)
+
+// grammarSpy stands in for llama-server: it records the grammar field of every
+// request and always answers with a contract-shaped reply.
+type grammarSpy struct {
+	srv      *httptest.Server
+	grammars []string
+}
+
+func newGrammarSpy(t *testing.T) *grammarSpy {
+	t.Helper()
+	s := &grammarSpy{}
+	s.srv = httptest.NewServer(http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
+		var req chatReq
+		if err := json.NewDecoder(r.Body).Decode(&req); err != nil {
+			t.Errorf("spy: decode request: %v", err)
+		}
+		s.grammars = append(s.grammars, req.Grammar)
+		w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
+		w.Write([]byte(`{"choices":[{"message":{"content":"{\"response\": \"ага\", \"mood\": \"neutral\"}"}}]}`))
+	}))
+	t.Cleanup(s.srv.Close)
+	return s
+}
+
+// callAllPhrasingPaths hits every path that expects the JSON contract.
+func callAllPhrasingPaths(t *testing.T, p *LLMPhraser) {
+	t.Helper()
+	ctx := context.Background()
+	if _, err := p.PhraseNudge(ctx, loop.Candidate{Rule: loop.WaterRule(), Severity: loop.Sev1}); err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("PhraseNudge: %v", err)
+	}
+	if _, err := p.PhraseChat(ctx, "привет", nil); err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("PhraseChat: %v", err)
+	}
+	// Both branches: no notes (general knowledge) and with notes (grounded).
+	if _, err := p.PhraseQuery(ctx, "сколько воды я выпил", nil); err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("PhraseQuery (no notes): %v", err)
+	}
+	if _, err := p.PhraseQuery(ctx, "сколько воды я выпил", []string{"два литра"}); err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("PhraseQuery (notes): %v", err)
+	}
+}
+
+func TestGrammarIsAttachedToEveryPhrasingRequest(t *testing.T) {
+	if strings.TrimSpace(responseGrammar) == "" {
+		t.Fatal("responseGrammar is empty")
+	}
+	spy := newGrammarSpy(t)
+	p := NewLLMPhraserAt(spy.srv.URL, Config{})
+
+	callAllPhrasingPaths(t, p)
+
+	if len(spy.grammars) != 4 {
+		t.Fatalf("expected 4 requests, got %d", len(spy.grammars))
+	}
+	for i, g := range spy.grammars {
+		if g != responseGrammar {
+			t.Errorf("request %d carries grammar %q, want responseGrammar", i, g)
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+func TestNoGrammarConfigDisablesIt(t *testing.T) {
+	spy := newGrammarSpy(t)
+	p := NewLLMPhraserAt(spy.srv.URL, Config{NoGrammar: true})
+
+	callAllPhrasingPaths(t, p)
+
+	for i, g := range spy.grammars {
+		if g != "" {
+			t.Errorf("request %d still carries a grammar with NoGrammar set: %q", i, g)
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+// The grammar's string rule must accept any codepoint, not just ASCII. Replies
+// are Russian: an ASCII-only class would constrain the model into empty replies.
+func TestGrammarStringRuleIsNotASCIIOnly(t *testing.T) {
+	if !strings.Contains(responseGrammar, `([^"\\] | "\\" ["\\/bfnrt])`) {
+		t.Error("string rule is not the any-codepoint-except-quote-and-backslash class; Cyrillic replies would be impossible")
+	}
+}
+
+// What the grammar describes must survive the parser that reads it back — a
+// Russian body with an escaped quote inside, hand-built to test the contract.
+func TestGrammarShapedJSONParses(t *testing.T) {
+	raw := `{"response": "он сказал \"привет\" и ушёл.\nвот так.", "mood": "confused"}`
+	text, mood := parseResponseMood(raw)
+	if want := "он сказал \"привет\" и ушёл.\nвот так."; text != want {
+		t.Errorf("response = %q, want %q", text, want)
+	}
+	if mood != "confused" {
+		t.Errorf("mood = %q, want confused", mood)
+	}
+}
+
+// Every mood the grammar permits is one the contract knows, and all five are there.
+func TestGrammarMoodEnumMatchesTheContract(t *testing.T) {
+	for _, m := range []string{"neutral", "happy", "thinking", "tired", "confused"} {
+		if !strings.Contains(responseGrammar, `"\"`+m+`\""`) {
+			t.Errorf("mood %q missing from the grammar", m)
+		}
+	}
+	// No sixth mood: the enum line lists exactly five alternatives.
+	for _, line := range strings.Split(responseGrammar, "\n") {
+		if strings.HasPrefix(line, "mood") {
+			if n := strings.Count(line, "|") + 1; n != 5 {
+				t.Errorf("mood rule lists %d alternatives, want 5: %s", n, line)
+			}
+		}
+	}
+}

internal/phraser/llmphraser.go

@@ -45,6 +45,13 @@ type Config struct {
 	// address him, the time) fresh for each turn. See internal/persona.
 	// nil ⇒ no block, the prompts stand alone.
 	ContextBlock func() string
+
+	// NoGrammar turns the GBNF constraint off (zero value ⇒ grammar ON).
+	// The escape hatch exists because the target resident model — the
+	// locally CPT'd Qwen3-1.7B — does not exist yet: if its chat template
+	// ever fights the grammar, the fix should be a config flip on the
+	// deploy box, not a code change and a rebuild.
+	NoGrammar bool
 }
 
 func DefaultConfig(modelPath string) Config {
@@ -290,6 +297,7 @@ func (p *LLMPhraser) chatWithMessages(ctx context.Context, msgs []chatMsg, maxTo
 		Messages:    msgs,
 		Temperature: 0.7,
 		MaxTokens:   maxTokens,
+		Grammar:     p.grammar(),
 	}
 	body, err := json.Marshal(req)
 	if err != nil {
@@ -369,6 +377,37 @@ type chatReq struct {
 	Messages    []chatMsg `json:"messages"`
 	Temperature float64   `json:"temperature"`
 	MaxTokens   int       `json:"max_tokens"`
+	// Grammar is llama-server's `grammar` field (GBNF). Same wiring as
+	// internal/llm.Req.Grammar. Empty ⇒ unconstrained sampling.
+	Grammar string `json:"grammar,omitempty"`
+}
+
+// responseGrammar — GBNF constraining the model to the documented phrasing
+// contract and nothing else: {"response": "<text>", "mood": "<enum>"}.
+//
+// Without it a 0.8B answers roughly one chat turn in three with open reasoning
+// as plain text ("Thinking Process:" …), which no tag-stripper can remove and
+// which eats the token budget before the JSON closes. Modelled on
+// routeGrammar in internal/router/llmrouter.go so the two read alike.
+//
+// text accepts ANY codepoint except the two JSON must escape — the replies are
+// Russian, so an ASCII-only rule would make every reply empty. The escape rule
+// is what lets the model close a string it opened with a quote inside. Length
+// is bounded so a repetition loop truncates the field, not the JSON object.
+const responseGrammar = `
+root   ::= "{" ws "\"response\"" ws ":" ws string ws "," ws "\"mood\"" ws ":" ws mood ws "}"
+mood   ::= "\"neutral\"" | "\"happy\"" | "\"thinking\"" | "\"tired\"" | "\"confused\""
+string ::= "\"" ([^"\\] | "\\" ["\\/bfnrt]){0,400} "\""
+ws     ::= [ \t\n]*
+`
+
+// grammar returns the GBNF to attach to a phrasing request, or "" when the
+// operator turned it off.
+func (p *LLMPhraser) grammar() string {
+	if p.cfg.NoGrammar {
+		return ""
+	}
+	return responseGrammar
 }
 
 type chatResp struct {
@@ -393,6 +432,7 @@ func (p *LLMPhraser) chatWithSystem(ctx context.Context, system, user string, ma
 		},
 		Temperature: 0.7,
 		MaxTokens:   maxTokens,
+		Grammar:     p.grammar(),
 	}
 	body, err := json.Marshal(req)
 	if err != nil {