Put mavwaked on workpc, where the microphone is (V-515)

mavwaked and mavenclient have been written, tested and deployed nowhere since
V-463 parked them. homesrv has a microphone because it is a laptop, but it is
in the wrong room. workpc is where he sits, and it has a fifine on card 0.

V-515 said this was a config line: "ipc.Dial already speaks
tcp://host:port?token=... so this is config, not protocol work". That premise
is wrong and it is worth writing down. Both mavwaked and mavenclient speak
internal/voice through voice.Dial, not internal/ipc. The netaddr token guards
the daemon-to-daemon IPC seam and never touches the voice wire. That wire is
plaintext with no auth at all, and voice/server.go says so: production binds
inside the wg tunnel, because "the wg layer IS the L0 floor".

workpc is not a wg peer. It sits on wlan0. So the floor here is ssh: mavend
publishes the voice port to homesrv loopback only (127.0.0.1:9110, since host
9100 is Vikunja's MCP), and a user unit on workpc forwards it over his key.
Nothing new is on the LAN. That mattered more than it looks: SurfaceVoice caps
acts at L0, so an unauthorized speaker could not run a destructive tool, but
L0 does not cap reading. A LAN bind would let anyone on the wifi hear his
facts, his notes and his calendar read back.

Two things the deployment found that no test could:

The vendored onnxruntime under deps/ has two copies and the stale one is
1.17.1. The Go binding asks for API 26, so silero refused to load until
1.26.0 was shipped instead. mavwaked logged it and kept running on the energy
threshold, which is the designed fallback working.

The fifine offers 2 channels at 44100 or 48000 and nothing else. mavwaked asks
arecord for 16kHz mono, so hw:0,0 dies on "Channels count non available"
before a frame is read. The unit uses plughw:0,0 so ALSA downmixes and
resamples.

Verified end to end through mavwaked's own -test mode, so no human had to
speak: a 2.43s Russian fixture reached mavend over the tunnel, was transcribed
on the workstation by CW2, routed intent=query, claimed by the calendar
source, and came back as 3.68s of piper audio.

There is still no wake word (V-487 stage two), so the loop runs open. Silero
is passed on purpose, since it declines white noise the energy floor accepts.
Barge-in is not, because its threshold is room-specific and this room has no
number yet.

.gitignore

@@ -70,3 +70,5 @@ coverage.out
 
 # root .env — MAVEN_AMBIENT_TOKEN and friends, same class as deploy/telegram.env
 .env
+# silero-vad, downloaded (see AGENTS.md)
+/models/vad/

AGENTS.md

@@ -95,6 +95,22 @@ model: the code puts `query: ` in front of a question and `passage: ` in front
 of a stored note, which is how e5 was trained. The quantized file is the one
 that is downloaded, deployed and measured.
 
+## Voice activity model for mavwaked
+
+`mavwaked` decides an utterance has started with silero-vad when `-vad-model`
+points at it, and with an energy threshold when it does not. The model is 2.3MB
+and is not committed:
+
+```sh
+mkdir -p models/vad
+curl -sL -o models/vad/silero_vad.onnx \
+  https://github.com/snakers4/silero-vad/raw/master/src/silero_vad/data/silero_vad.onnx
+```
+
+It needs the same `libonnxruntime.so` the embedder needs, passed as `-onnx-lib`
+or read from `MAVEN_ONNX_LIB`. The measurement is
+`docs/evals/2026-08-09-silero-vad.md`, and the tests skip without the file.
+
 **Also need ONNX Runtime** (`libonnxruntime.so`):
 
 ```sh

cmd/mavend/actions_query.go

@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/kami/maven/internal/crawl"
 	"github.com/kami/maven/internal/decision"
 	"github.com/kami/maven/internal/ipc"
+	"github.com/kami/maven/internal/kiwix"
 	"github.com/kami/maven/internal/memory"
 	"github.com/kami/maven/internal/morning"
 	"github.com/kami/maven/internal/phraser"
@@ -79,6 +80,15 @@ type querySource struct {
 	// not named do not get to try. The lookups still run, because a named
 	// destination is evidence and not a promise.
 	guesses bool
+
+	// boundary — dropping this source widens what leaves the box, so only a
+	// literal pattern may do it (V-666, owner's call of 2026-08-09).
+	//
+	// Every other guesser costs an answer when it is wrongly taken off a turn.
+	// This one costs the rule that a question about him never reaches an
+	// upstream engine. A grammar read the words to name a destination. A model
+	// and a softmax both inferred one, and neither may spend that.
+	boundary bool
 }
 
 // querySources is the ordered chain actionQuery walks; first source to claim
@@ -156,7 +166,7 @@ var querySources = []querySource{
 	// below answers from the world's. A question about him that got this far
 	// has no answer in his data, and no outside source can supply one, so this
 	// stops the walk rather than let the encyclopedia and the model guess.
-	{name: "personal", answer: (*reactiveHandler).queryPersonal, dest: router.SourceRecall, guesses: true},
+	{name: "personal", answer: (*reactiveHandler).queryPersonal, dest: router.SourceRecall, guesses: true, boundary: true},
 	// The world, read live. Owner's ruling of 2026-08-02: a metasearch hit beats
 	// a frozen ZIM, so SearXNG asks before Kiwix does. Nothing of his is at
 	// stake by this point — the boundary above already stopped every question
@@ -198,12 +208,17 @@ var querySources = []querySource{
 // No destination named ⇒ the table exactly as written, which is what shipped
 // before the field existed. That is the floor. The classifier arm names
 // nothing, so a box whose model is down routes queries the way it always did.
-func queryWalk(dest router.Source) (walk, skipped []querySource) {
+// The personal boundary is the one exception, and anchored is what buys it
+// (V-666). A grammar matched a literal pattern to name the destination. The
+// routing heads and the resident model inferred one, and an inferred SourceWorld
+// takes the boundary off a question about him. That widens what is asked
+// upstream rather than costing a local answer, so those two keep it.
+func queryWalk(dest router.Source, anchored bool) (walk, skipped []querySource) {
 	if dest == router.SourceUnknown {
 		return querySources, nil
 	}
 	for _, s := range querySources {
-		if s.guesses && s.dest != dest {
+		if s.guesses && s.dest != dest && (anchored || !s.boundary) {
 			skipped = append(skipped, s)
 			continue
 		}
@@ -219,7 +234,7 @@ func (h *reactiveHandler) actionQuery(ctx context.Context, dec router.Decision)
 	// (V-564). Finish names everyone below the winner.
 	decision.Expect(ctx, decision.StageQuery, querySourceNames())
 	rec := decision.From(ctx)
-	walk, skipped := queryWalk(dec.Source)
+	walk, skipped := queryWalk(dec.Source, dec.SourceAnchored)
 	for _, src := range skipped {
 		rec.Note(decision.Claim{
 			Stage: decision.StageQuery, Claimant: src.name, Outcome: decision.NeverAsked,
@@ -912,6 +927,28 @@ func (h *reactiveHandler) queryKiwix(ctx context.Context, t *queryTurn) (string,
 		}
 	}
 
+	// The topic, not the sentence (V-668). Kiwix ranks by keyword overlap, so
+	// the question words outrank the one word that names the article: measured
+	// on 2026-08-09, "что такое TCP" returns "Перехват TCP-соединения" and
+	// "TCP" returns TCP. Only the verbatim path needs this. The rewriter
+	// already reduces a question to English keywords, and reducing twice would
+	// take the topic off the input it reads.
+	if verbatim {
+		if topic := kiwix.Topic(pattern); topic != "" {
+			// The article named exactly, before any ranking runs. A ZIM is
+			// addressable by title and a wrong title is a 404, so this either
+			// answers or costs one request that says nothing.
+			for _, cand := range kiwix.TitleCandidates(topic) {
+				page, err := h.kiwix.client.Article(ctxK, kiwix.TitlePath(book, cand), h.kiwix.runes)
+				if err == nil && page.Text != "" {
+					log.Printf("voice: kiwix: %q in %q → title hit %q", topic, book, page.Title)
+					return h.kiwixReply(ctx, t, page.Title, page.Text)
+				}
+			}
+			pattern = topic
+		}
+	}
+
 	hits, err := h.kiwix.client.Search(ctxK, pattern, book, h.kiwix.max)
 	if err != nil {
 		log.Printf("voice: kiwix: search %q: %v", pattern, err)
@@ -944,14 +981,18 @@ func (h *reactiveHandler) queryKiwix(ctx context.Context, t *queryTurn) (string,
 		}
 		page = crawl.Page{Title: top.Title, Text: top.Snippet}
 	}
-	// Handed over the same way a note or a page is: context for the question he
-	// asked, not something to recite.
-	snippet := top.Title + "\n" + crawl.TrimRunes(page.Text, h.kiwix.runes)
+	return h.kiwixReply(ctx, t, top.Title, page.Text)
+}
+
+// kiwixReply hands one article over the same way a note or a page is handed
+// over: context for the question he asked, not something to recite.
+func (h *reactiveHandler) kiwixReply(ctx context.Context, t *queryTurn, title, text string) (string, bool) {
+	snippet := title + "\n" + crawl.TrimRunes(text, h.kiwix.runes)
 	reply := h.phraseSource(ctx, "kiwix", t.dec.Utterance, []string{snippet})
 	if reply == "" {
 		// No phraser, or it failed. Read back the best hit rather than pretend
 		// the search did not happen.
-		return readBack(top.Title + " — " + page.Text), true
+		return readBack(title + " — " + text), true
 	}
 	return reply, true
 }

cmd/mavend/querywalk_test.go

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ import (
 // whose model is down names nothing, and naming nothing has to walk the chain
 // the way it walked before the field existed.
 func TestNoDestinationWalksTheWholeChain(t *testing.T) {
-	walk, skipped := queryWalk(router.SourceUnknown)
+	walk, skipped := queryWalk(router.SourceUnknown, false)
 	if len(skipped) != 0 {
 		t.Errorf("skipped %d sources with no destination named, want none", len(skipped))
 	}
@@ -32,15 +32,16 @@ func TestANamedDestinationSilencesTheOtherGuessers(t *testing.T) {
 		dest      router.Source
 		utterance string
 		silenced  string
+		anchored  bool // a stage 0 grammar named the destination
 	}{
-		{router.SourceWorld, "что такое TCP?", "weather"},
-		{router.SourceWorld, "сколько будет 17 на 23?", "weather"},
-		{router.SourceWorld, "кто такой Линус Торвальдс?", "personal"},
-		{router.SourceRecall, "какой у меня любимый язык?", "feeds"},
-		{router.SourceCalendar, "что в календаре на завтра?", "weather"},
+		{router.SourceWorld, "что такое TCP?", "weather", true},
+		{router.SourceWorld, "сколько будет 17 на 23?", "weather", true},
+		{router.SourceWorld, "кто такой Линус Торвальдс?", "personal", true},
+		{router.SourceRecall, "какой у меня любимый язык?", "feeds", false},
+		{router.SourceCalendar, "что в календаре на завтра?", "weather", true},
 	}
 	for _, c := range cases {
-		walk, skipped := queryWalk(c.dest)
+		walk, skipped := queryWalk(c.dest, c.anchored)
 		if inWalk(walk, c.silenced) {
 			t.Errorf("%q named %q: %q is still asked", c.utterance, c.dest, c.silenced)
 		}
@@ -56,7 +57,7 @@ func TestANamedDestinationSilencesTheOtherGuessers(t *testing.T) {
 // data first, then the world", and a destination a model wrote must not be able
 // to reverse it.
 func TestNamingTheWorldStillReadsHisDataFirst(t *testing.T) {
-	walk, _ := queryWalk(router.SourceWorld)
+	walk, _ := queryWalk(router.SourceWorld, true)
 	for _, look := range []string{"fact-by-key", "embed", "memory", "notes"} {
 		if !inWalk(walk, look) {
 			t.Errorf("%q was dropped; only the sources that guess may be dropped", look)
@@ -74,7 +75,7 @@ func TestNamingTheWorldStillReadsHisDataFirst(t *testing.T) {
 // makes "какой у меня любимый язык?" answer "не нашла у тебя такой записи"
 // rather than reaching SearXNG once nothing local had it.
 func TestNamingRecallKeepsTheBoundary(t *testing.T) {
-	walk, _ := queryWalk(router.SourceRecall)
+	walk, _ := queryWalk(router.SourceRecall, true)
 	if !inWalk(walk, "personal") {
 		t.Fatal("the personal boundary was skipped on a turn named for his own data")
 	}
@@ -83,12 +84,33 @@ func TestNamingRecallKeepsTheBoundary(t *testing.T) {
 	}
 }
 
+// The owner's call of 2026-08-09 (V-666): only a stage 0 grammar may take the
+// personal boundary off a turn. The routing heads and the resident model both
+// name a destination by inference, and an inferred SourceWorld would send a
+// question about him upstream. Every other guesser still goes.
+func TestOnlyAGrammarMayDropTheBoundary(t *testing.T) {
+	walk, skipped := queryWalk(router.SourceWorld, false)
+	if !inWalk(walk, "personal") {
+		t.Error("an inferred destination took the boundary off the turn")
+	}
+	if !inWalk(skipped, "weather") {
+		t.Error("weather is still asked; the rule covers the boundary alone")
+	}
+	if posOf(walk, "personal") > posOf(walk, "search") {
+		t.Error("the boundary no longer sits in front of the world")
+	}
+	if anchored, _ := queryWalk(router.SourceWorld, true); inWalk(anchored, "personal") {
+		t.Error(`a grammar named the world and the boundary stayed: ` +
+			`"кто такой Линус Торвальдс?" is answered "не нашла у тебя такой записи" again`)
+	}
+}
+
 // Whatever the destination, the walk is a subsequence of the table. Every
 // comment on that table argues an order between two sources, and none of those
 // reasons is about this field.
 func TestTheWalkNeverReordersTheTable(t *testing.T) {
 	for _, dest := range append([]router.Source{router.SourceUnknown}, router.Sources...) {
-		walk, skipped := queryWalk(dest)
+		walk, skipped := queryWalk(dest, true)
 		if len(walk)+len(skipped) != len(querySources) {
 			t.Errorf("%q: %d walked + %d skipped, want %d", dest, len(walk), len(skipped), len(querySources))
 		}

cmd/mavwaked/main.go

@@ -5,12 +5,17 @@
 // is detected sends it as a PushToTalk frame to the voice server. The reply
 // audio is played back through aplay(1).
 //
-// No wake-word model yet (MVP uses voice-activity-only trigger). The
-// SurfaceVoice auth layer caps all commands at L0 (no destructive acts),
-// making accidental triggers safe by design. A proper wake-word engine
-// (openWakeWord / Silero VAD ONNX) is the planned upgrade — the VAD shape
-// (30ms frames, 16kHz PCM) matches silero-vad's input interface exactly, so
-// swapping energy-threshold for ONNX-inference is a local change in vad.go.
+// Voice activity is silero-vad when -vad-model points at the graph, and an
+// energy threshold when it does not. Silero declines noise the threshold
+// accepts: 0 frames against 68 to 99 on the four fixtures, measured in
+// docs/evals/2026-08-09-silero-vad.md. Note that the model window is 512
+// samples and the capture frame is 480, so silero.go re-chunks. This comment
+// used to say the two matched, which was true of silero v4.
+//
+// There is still no wake-word model, so anything spoken near the microphone
+// becomes a turn (V-487 stage two). The SurfaceVoice auth layer caps all
+// commands at L0 (no destructive acts), which is what makes an accidental
+// trigger safe rather than expensive.
 //
 // While a reply is playing the capture side is muted (half-duplex): without
 // it, Maven's own voice comes back in through the mic and she answers
@@ -73,6 +78,9 @@ func run(args []string) error {
 	bargeIn := flag.Bool("barge-in", false, "cut Maven off when he talks over her (needs a room-tuned -barge-in-rms)")
 	bargeRMS := flag.Int("barge-in-rms", defaultBargeRMS, "RMS x10000 a frame must clear to count as barge-in")
 	bargeFrames := flag.Int("barge-in-frames", defaultBargeFrames, "consecutive frames over -barge-in-rms before playback is cut")
+	vadModel := flag.String("vad-model", "", "silero-vad onnx file; empty runs the energy threshold instead")
+	vadThreshold := flag.Float64("vad-threshold", defaultSileroThreshold, "speech probability a frame must clear")
+	onnxLib := flag.String("onnx-lib", os.Getenv("MAVEN_ONNX_LIB"), "libonnxruntime.so, needed with -vad-model")
 	flag.CommandLine.Parse(args)
 
 	ctx, stop := signal.NotifyContext(context.Background(), syscall.SIGINT, syscall.SIGTERM, syscall.SIGHUP)
@@ -82,8 +90,20 @@ func run(args []string) error {
 	vc := voice.Dial(*addr)
 	defer vc.Close()
 
-	// VAD engine.
+	// VAD engine. A model that will not load is logged and not fatal: the
+	// energy threshold is worse, and it is a great deal better than a
+	// listening client that refuses to start.
 	vad := NewVAD(*minRMS, *speechMs, *silenceMs, *maxMs)
+	if *vadModel != "" {
+		s, err := newSileroVAD(*vadModel, *onnxLib)
+		if err != nil {
+			log.Printf("mavwaked: silero unavailable, energy threshold unchanged: %v", err)
+		} else {
+			defer s.Close()
+			vad.UseSilero(s, *vadThreshold)
+			log.Printf("mavwaked: silero-vad from %s, threshold %.2f", *vadModel, *vadThreshold)
+		}
+	}
 
 	// Audio source.
 	var src io.ReadCloser

cmd/mavwaked/silero.go

@@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
+package main
+
+// silero-vad, the speech detector that replaces the energy threshold (V-487).
+//
+// Why an energy threshold is not a voice activity detector. It answers "is
+// this frame loud", and a fan, a door and a television are all loud. mavwaked
+// sends every utterance it accepts to speech-to-text and then to the daemon,
+// so a false trigger is a turn Maven takes on something nobody said to her.
+// Silero answers "is this frame speech", which is the question.
+//
+// It is 2.3MB of ONNX and runs on one CPU core in real time. That is not an
+// aside: this is the one model in the system that may never be offloaded or
+// gated on GPU admission, because a wake path that waits on a card is not a
+// wake path.
+//
+// Nil is a working value. Without -vad-model the daemon runs the energy VAD
+// exactly as it did before this file existed.
+
+import (
+	"fmt"
+	"sync"
+
+	ort "github.com/yalue/onnxruntime_go"
+)
+
+const (
+	// sileroWindow — samples per inference at 16kHz. The model is fixed at
+	// 512 and does not accept another size, which is why this file
+	// re-chunks rather than reusing the 480-sample capture frame. main.go
+	// used to claim the two matched; that was true of silero v4.
+	sileroWindow = 512
+
+	// sileroContext — samples of the previous window prepended to each
+	// inference, as the reference implementation does. Without it the first
+	// milliseconds of every window are judged with no history and speech
+	// onsets score low.
+	sileroContext = 64
+
+	// sileroState — the LSTM state carried between windows, [2][1][128].
+	sileroStateDim = 128
+
+	// defaultSileroThreshold — probability above which a window is speech.
+	// 0.5 is the reference default. Raising it costs speech onsets, which
+	// are the quietest part of an utterance.
+	defaultSileroThreshold = 0.5
+)
+
+// sileroVAD holds one ONNX session and the streaming state around it. It is
+// fed 30ms capture frames and answers per frame, buffering across calls
+// because 480 samples never line up with a 512-sample window.
+type sileroVAD struct {
+	mu      sync.Mutex
+	session *ort.DynamicAdvancedSession
+
+	pending []float32              // samples not yet part of a full window
+	context [sileroContext]float32 // tail of the previous window
+	state   []float32              // [2][1][128], carried between windows
+	last    float64                // most recent probability, held between windows
+	sr      []int64
+}
+
+// newSileroVAD loads the graph. The ONNX environment is initialised here when
+// nothing else has done it, because mavwaked has no embedder to do it first.
+func newSileroVAD(modelPath, libPath string) (*sileroVAD, error) {
+	if !ort.IsInitialized() {
+		if libPath != "" {
+			ort.SetSharedLibraryPath(libPath)
+		}
+		if err := ort.InitializeEnvironment(); err != nil {
+			return nil, fmt.Errorf("silero: onnx runtime: %w", err)
+		}
+	}
+	s, err := ort.NewDynamicAdvancedSession(modelPath,
+		[]string{"input", "state", "sr"}, []string{"output", "stateN"}, nil)
+	if err != nil {
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("silero: load %s: %w", modelPath, err)
+	}
+	return &sileroVAD{
+		session: s,
+		state:   make([]float32, 2*sileroStateDim),
+		sr:      []int64{16000},
+	}, nil
+}
+
+// Speech reports whether the frame carries speech, and the probability behind
+// that answer. A frame that completes no window inherits the previous
+// probability, so the caller sees one answer per frame either way.
+func (s *sileroVAD) Speech(frame []int16, threshold float64) (bool, float64) {
+	s.mu.Lock()
+	defer s.mu.Unlock()
+
+	for _, v := range frame {
+		s.pending = append(s.pending, float32(v)/32768.0)
+	}
+	for len(s.pending) >= sileroWindow {
+		p, err := s.infer(s.pending[:sileroWindow])
+		if err != nil {
+			// A failed inference must not silence the microphone. Hold the
+			// last answer and let the next window try again.
+			break
+		}
+		s.last = p
+		s.pending = s.pending[sileroWindow:]
+	}
+	return s.last >= threshold, s.last
+}
+
+// infer runs one window and rolls the state and the context forward.
+func (s *sileroVAD) infer(window []float32) (float64, error) {
+	in := make([]float32, sileroContext+sileroWindow)
+	copy(in, s.context[:])
+	copy(in[sileroContext:], window)
+
+	inT, err := ort.NewTensor(ort.NewShape(1, int64(len(in))), in)
+	if err != nil {
+		return 0, err
+	}
+	defer inT.Destroy()
+	stT, err := ort.NewTensor(ort.NewShape(2, 1, sileroStateDim), s.state)
+	if err != nil {
+		return 0, err
+	}
+	defer stT.Destroy()
+	srT, err := ort.NewTensor(ort.NewShape(1), s.sr)
+	if err != nil {
+		return 0, err
+	}
+	defer srT.Destroy()
+
+	out, err := ort.NewEmptyTensor[float32](ort.NewShape(1, 1))
+	if err != nil {
+		return 0, err
+	}
+	defer out.Destroy()
+	next, err := ort.NewEmptyTensor[float32](ort.NewShape(2, 1, sileroStateDim))
+	if err != nil {
+		return 0, err
+	}
+	defer next.Destroy()
+
+	if err := s.session.Run(
+		[]ort.Value{inT, stT, srT},
+		[]ort.Value{out, next},
+	); err != nil {
+		return 0, err
+	}
+	copy(s.state, next.GetData())
+	copy(s.context[:], in[len(in)-sileroContext:])
+	return float64(out.GetData()[0]), nil
+}
+
+// Reset drops the streaming state. Called at every utterance boundary and
+// after barge-in, so echo-era history never scores the next sentence.
+func (s *sileroVAD) Reset() {
+	s.mu.Lock()
+	defer s.mu.Unlock()
+	s.pending = s.pending[:0]
+	s.context = [sileroContext]float32{}
+	for i := range s.state {
+		s.state[i] = 0
+	}
+	s.last = 0
+}
+
+// Close releases the session.
+func (s *sileroVAD) Close() error {
+	if s == nil || s.session == nil {
+		return nil
+	}
+	return s.session.Destroy()
+}

cmd/mavwaked/silero_test.go

@@ -0,0 +1,149 @@
+package main
+
+// What this measures. The energy threshold cannot tell a voice from a
+// television, and every utterance it accepts becomes a turn. So the test that
+// matters is not "does silero find speech" — it is "does it decline what the
+// energy threshold accepts".
+//
+// Speech is the four piper fixtures mavsttd already scores against. They are
+// synthesised, so nothing of the owner's voice is committed. Non-speech is
+// white noise at the same loudness, which is the cheapest thing that fools an
+// energy floor and the honest floor for this claim.
+//
+// Both halves skip without models/vad/silero_vad.onnx and MAVEN_ONNX_LIB,
+// like the TestONNX measurements in internal/router/eval.
+
+import (
+	"math"
+	"math/rand"
+	"os"
+	"path/filepath"
+	"testing"
+)
+
+const wavHeader = 44 // 16kHz mono s16le, written by piper
+
+func loadSilero(t *testing.T) *sileroVAD {
+	t.Helper()
+	model := filepath.Join("..", "..", "models", "vad", "silero_vad.onnx")
+	lib := os.Getenv("MAVEN_ONNX_LIB")
+	if _, err := os.Stat(model); err != nil {
+		t.Skipf("missing %s: %v", model, err)
+	}
+	if lib == "" {
+		t.Skip("MAVEN_ONNX_LIB unset")
+	}
+	s, err := newSileroVAD(model, lib)
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Skipf("silero unavailable: %v", err)
+	}
+	return s
+}
+
+// feedAll runs a whole clip through a VAD and reports how many utterances it
+// produced and how many frames it called speech.
+func feedAll(v *VAD, pcm []int16) (utterances, speechFrames int) {
+	for i := 0; i+frameSamples <= len(pcm); i += frameSamples {
+		frame := pcm[i : i+frameSamples]
+		utt, state := v.Feed(frame)
+		if state == StateSpeech {
+			speechFrames++
+		}
+		if utt.Bytes != nil {
+			utterances++
+		}
+	}
+	return utterances, speechFrames
+}
+
+func readFixture(t *testing.T, name string) []int16 {
+	t.Helper()
+	raw, err := os.ReadFile(filepath.Join("..", "mavsttd", "testdata", name))
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Skipf("missing fixture %s: %v", name, err)
+	}
+	if len(raw) <= wavHeader {
+		t.Fatalf("%s: %d bytes, no audio", name, len(raw))
+	}
+	return PCMToI16(raw[wavHeader:])
+}
+
+// noise returns white noise scaled to the same RMS as ref. Same loudness,
+// nothing said.
+func noise(ref []int16, seed int64) []int16 {
+	target := frameRMS(ref)
+	r := rand.New(rand.NewSource(seed))
+	out := make([]int16, len(ref))
+	for i := range out {
+		out[i] = int16(r.NormFloat64() * target * 32768.0)
+	}
+	return out
+}
+
+func TestSileroHearsSpeechAndDeclinesNoise(t *testing.T) {
+	s := loadSilero(t)
+	defer s.Close()
+
+	for _, name := range []string{"ru_fact.wav", "ru_query.wav", "ru_reminder.wav", "en_act.wav"} {
+		pcm := readFixture(t, name)
+
+		v := NewVAD(0, 0, 0, 0)
+		v.UseSilero(s, defaultSileroThreshold)
+		_, spoke := feedAll(v, pcm)
+		if spoke == 0 {
+			t.Errorf("%s: silero heard no speech in a spoken clip", name)
+		}
+
+		s.Reset()
+		v2 := NewVAD(0, 0, 0, 0)
+		v2.UseSilero(s, defaultSileroThreshold)
+		_, heard := feedAll(v2, noise(pcm, 7))
+
+		energy := NewVAD(0, 0, 0, 0)
+		_, energyHeard := feedAll(energy, noise(pcm, 7))
+
+		t.Logf("%s: speech frames — silero on speech %d, silero on noise %d, energy on noise %d",
+			name, spoke, heard, energyHeard)
+		if heard >= energyHeard {
+			t.Errorf("%s: silero called %d noise frames speech, energy called %d — no improvement",
+				name, heard, energyHeard)
+		}
+		s.Reset()
+	}
+}
+
+// BenchmarkSileroFrame answers the only performance question that matters
+// here: one 30ms frame must cost far less than 30ms on one core, or the
+// detector cannot run always-on beside everything else on that machine.
+func BenchmarkSileroFrame(b *testing.B) {
+	s := loadSilero(&testing.T{})
+	if s == nil {
+		b.Skip("silero unavailable")
+	}
+	defer s.Close()
+	frame := make([]int16, frameSamples)
+	for i := range frame {
+		frame[i] = int16(i%400 - 200)
+	}
+	for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
+		s.Speech(frame, defaultSileroThreshold)
+	}
+}
+
+// TestSileroRechunksAcrossFrames pins the reason this file exists. The capture
+// frame is 480 samples and the model window is 512, so a detector that ran one
+// inference per frame would be feeding the model a shape it does not accept.
+func TestSileroRechunksAcrossFrames(t *testing.T) {
+	s := loadSilero(t)
+	defer s.Close()
+
+	silence := make([]int16, frameSamples)
+	for i := 0; i < 20; i++ {
+		if _, p := s.Speech(silence, defaultSileroThreshold); math.IsNaN(p) {
+			t.Fatalf("frame %d: probability is NaN", i)
+		}
+	}
+	if len(s.pending) >= sileroWindow {
+		t.Errorf("pending grew to %d samples, so windows are not being consumed", len(s.pending))
+	}
+}

cmd/mavwaked/vad.go

@@ -68,6 +68,37 @@ type VAD struct {
 	// follows the room's ambient level. Initialised to minRMS; updated
 	// on each silence frame.
 	floorRMS float64
+
+	// speech is silero-vad, or nil. When it is set the energy floor decides
+	// nothing: the question becomes "is this speech" rather than "is this
+	// loud", and the noise floor is not even tracked. Everything after that
+	// answer — the speech hold, the silence hold, the length cap, the
+	// buffer — is the same state machine either way, which is why the
+	// detector goes here and not around this type.
+	speech    *sileroVAD
+	speechMin float64
+}
+
+// UseSilero swaps the energy threshold for the model. Passing nil is a
+// no-op, so a caller that could not load the graph keeps a working VAD.
+func (v *VAD) UseSilero(s *sileroVAD, threshold float64) {
+	if s == nil {
+		return
+	}
+	if threshold <= 0 {
+		threshold = defaultSileroThreshold
+	}
+	v.speech = s
+	v.speechMin = threshold
+}
+
+// isSpeech answers the one question the state machine asks of a frame.
+func (v *VAD) isSpeech(frame []int16, rms float64) bool {
+	if v.speech != nil {
+		ok, _ := v.speech.Speech(frame, v.speechMin)
+		return ok
+	}
+	return rms >= v.floorRMS
 }
 
 // NewVAD creates a VAD with the given thresholds. Zero values use defaults.
@@ -110,7 +141,7 @@ func (v *VAD) State() SpeechState { return v.state }
 // should send the audio to the voice server before feeding more frames.
 func (v *VAD) Feed(frame []int16) (_ audio.Audio, state SpeechState) {
 	rms := frameRMS(frame)
-	isSpeech := rms >= v.floorRMS
+	isSpeech := v.isSpeech(frame, rms)
 
 	switch v.state {
 	case StateSilence:
@@ -175,6 +206,9 @@ func (v *VAD) Feed(frame []int16) (_ audio.Audio, state SpeechState) {
 func (v *VAD) Reset() { v.reset() }
 
 func (v *VAD) reset() {
+	if v.speech != nil {
+		v.speech.Reset()
+	}
 	v.state = StateSilence
 	v.speechFrames = 0
 	v.silenceFrames = 0

deploy/maven-voice-tunnel.service

@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+# maven-voice-tunnel — the ssh leg that carries the voice wire to homesrv.
+#
+# Runs on workpc, as a user unit (`systemctl --user`), beside mavgpud.service.
+#
+# WHY THIS EXISTS AT ALL. internal/voice is plaintext and unauthenticated.
+# Its own server doc says production binds inside the wg tunnel, because "the
+# wg layer IS the L0 floor". workpc is not a wg peer, it sits on wlan0. So ssh
+# is the substitute floor: it authenticates with his key and encrypts the leg,
+# and mavend's published port stays on homesrv loopback (127.0.0.1:9110).
+# Nothing about this puts a Maven port on the LAN.
+#
+# Do not replace this with a LAN bind. SurfaceVoice caps acts at L0, so an
+# unauthorized speaker could not run a destructive tool. It would still hear
+# his facts, his notes and his calendar read back, and L0 does not cap reading.
+#
+#   install: cp to ~/.config/systemd/user/ on workpc
+#            systemctl --user enable --now maven-voice-tunnel.service
+
+[Unit]
+Description=SSH tunnel to mavend's voice wire on homesrv
+After=network-online.target
+Wants=network-online.target
+
+[Service]
+# -N: no remote command, forwarding only.
+# ExitOnForwardFailure: fail loudly rather than sit up with a dead forward,
+# which is what makes Restart meaningful.
+# ServerAlive*: a laptop that suspends drops the tunnel silently otherwise.
+ExecStart=/usr/bin/ssh -N \
+  -o ExitOnForwardFailure=yes \
+  -o ServerAliveInterval=30 \
+  -o ServerAliveCountMax=3 \
+  -o BatchMode=yes \
+  -L 127.0.0.1:9100:127.0.0.1:9110 \
+  kami@192.168.1.104
+Restart=always
+RestartSec=5
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=default.target

deploy/mavwaked.service

@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+# mavwaked — always-on listening, on workpc where the microphone is.
+#
+# User unit, beside mavgpud.service and maven-voice-tunnel.service. It is a
+# user unit because it needs his ALSA session and his ssh agent, and because
+# it should stop when he logs out.
+#
+# THERE IS NO WAKE WORD YET (V-487 stage two). Anything spoken near the fifine
+# becomes a turn. What makes that safe rather than expensive is voiceSender:
+# it sends Surface=SurfaceVoice, which caps every command at L0, so no
+# accidental trigger runs a destructive act. It does not stop her answering
+# out loud, so this unit is his to stop when the room is not his alone.
+#
+# -vad-model is passed on purpose. Silero answers "is this frame speech" where
+# the energy floor answers "is this frame loud". It declines white noise at
+# the same RMS 0 frames to 68-99, and still hears all four spoken fixtures
+# (docs/evals/2026-08-09-silero-vad.md). It costs 509us a frame, 1.7% of one
+# core, and never touches the GPU. Drop the flag and the energy floor is back.
+#
+# -barge-in is NOT passed. The threshold is room-specific and this room has no
+# number yet. Turn it on only after reading the "suppressed while speaking"
+# means out of this unit's own journal, never by guessing.
+#
+#   install: cp to ~/.config/systemd/user/ on workpc
+#            systemctl --user enable --now mavwaked.service
+
+[Unit]
+Description=Maven always-on listening (VAD, no wake word yet)
+# The tunnel is the only path to mavend and the only thing authenticating it.
+Requires=maven-voice-tunnel.service
+After=maven-voice-tunnel.service
+
+[Service]
+# card 0 is the fifine USB microphone. Named, and not "default", because the
+# default device follows whatever pipewire last decided and this daemon should
+# not change ears when he plugs in a headset.
+#
+# plughw and not hw. mavwaked asks arecord for 16kHz mono, which is what the
+# whole pipeline is canonical in. The fifine offers 2 channels at 44100 or
+# 48000 and nothing else, so bare hw:0,0 dies on "Channels count non
+# available" before a frame is read. plughw puts ALSA's downmix and resampler
+# in front. Any replacement microphone wants the same treatment.
+Environment=LD_LIBRARY_PATH=%h/.local/lib
+ExecStart=%h/.local/bin/mavwaked \
+  -device plughw:0,0 \
+  -addr 127.0.0.1:9100 \
+  -lang ru \
+  -vad-model %h/.local/share/maven/models/silero_vad.onnx \
+  -onnx-lib %h/.local/lib/libonnxruntime.so
+Restart=on-failure
+RestartSec=5
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=default.target

docker-compose.yml

@@ -53,6 +53,19 @@ services:
     # the decrypted working copy lives in RAM (see db_tmpfs in mavend.json).
     tmpfs:
       - /dev/shm
+    # the voice wire, for mavwaked and mavenclient on workpc (V-515).
+    #
+    # LOOPBACK ONLY, and that is the whole security argument. internal/voice
+    # is plaintext with no auth: its own server doc says production binds
+    # inside the wg tunnel, "the wg layer IS the L0 floor". workpc is not a wg
+    # peer, it is on wlan0. So the tunnel is ssh instead, terminated on this
+    # loopback address, and nothing new is on the LAN. Anyone who could reach
+    # a LAN-bound port here could push audio and hear his facts read back.
+    # SurfaceVoice caps acts at L0; it does not cap reading.
+    #
+    # Host 9100 is Vikunja's MCP, hence 9110. The container side stays 9100
+    # so mavweb keeps reaching mavend:9100 by name.
+    ports: ["127.0.0.1:9110:9100"]
 
   mavsttd:
     <<: *image

docs/evals/2026-08-09-e4b-phrasing.md

@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+# gemma-4-E4B on the phrasing and talk fixtures
+
+Date: 2026-08-09. Box: workpc up, E4B loaded on 8080.
+`MAVEN_LLM_URL=http://192.168.1.105:8080 make eval-phrasing`.
+
+This was the one unmeasured risk of the 2026-08-09 model swap. Routing was
+measured the same day and E4B lost four destination cases to the 12B. Phrasing
+was not measured at all, and phrasing is the half the owner hears.
+
+## Result
+
+| fixture | E4B | resident Qwen3-1.7B, 2026-08-05 |
+|---|---|---|
+| nudges | 15/15 (100%) | 15/15 (100%) |
+| talk, passes every check | **29/36 (80.6%)** | 25/36 (69.4%) |
+| lang | 36/36 | — |
+| feminine | 36/36 | 36/36 |
+| address | **36/36** | 33/36 |
+| ontopic | 29/36 | 28/36 |
+| p50 latency | **516ms** | 2.97s |
+| p95 latency | 921ms | — |
+| failed generations | 0 | 0 |
+
+E4B beats the homesrv floor by four cases and answers about six times faster.
+Persona is clean: `lang`, `feminine` and `address` are perfect, and `address`
+is where the resident model still loses three. The 2026-08-05 measurement of the
+resident model is the comparison, since both ran the same 36-case fixture.
+
+Every failure is `ontopic`. Nothing failed on persona, nothing failed to parse.
+
+## The score is at the ceiling, not below it
+
+The 2026-08-05 temperature sweep found two cases that fail at every temperature
+in every run: `reply-note-router` and `reply-fact-weight`. It named a defect in
+the reply phrasing path rather than sampling noise. It put the fixture's ceiling
+at 30/36 before persona is scored. Both cases are in E4B's failure list.
+
+So 29/36 is one case off a ceiling nothing about the model can move. The swap is
+safe on phrasing. Read this next to the routing result, not instead of it. There
+E4B costs four destination cases and buys 50ms. Here it costs nothing.
+
+## Two findings no check caught
+
+**She says she wrote something down when she did not.** Asked what to do this
+evening, E4B writes "Я записала несколько идей!". Asked for a joke, it writes
+"Я записала одну забавную ситуацию!". Nothing was stored. No check scores it,
+because `ontopic` reads the subject and `cringe` reads pet names. A claim to
+have saved something is a claim about state, and it is wrong.
+
+**Two `ontopic` failures look like check defects.** `know-dont-know` wants
+"не зна" or "не мог". It got "Я не умею знать личную информацию о твоих
+соседях", which declines correctly in words the check does not list.
+`know-hiccups` is the same shape. Neither is a model failure and both count
+against the score.
+
+## Not measured here
+
+A 12B control on the same fixture, which would need the card reloaded and is the
+owner's call. The talk fixture through the daemon rather than through the
+phraser directly. The CPT'd Qwen3-1.7B, which does not exist yet and is the
+reason `address` is a check at all.

docs/evals/2026-08-09-kiwix-topic-retrieval.md

@@ -0,0 +1,113 @@
+# Kiwix answered the wrong question, and the fix was not a relevance gate
+
+Date: 2026-08-09. Task: V-668. Box: homesrv, workstation off.
+Book: `wikipedia_ru_all_maxi_2026-02` on `127.0.0.1:8034`.
+
+## What started it
+
+Two turns on 2026-08-09 came back wrong from the offline encyclopedia.
+"почему небо голубое" was answered off the song "Город золотой". "что такое
+TCP?" was answered off "Перехват TCP-соединения". Both were phrased
+confidently, because `queryKiwix` claims a turn whenever the search returns
+anything and `len(hits) == 0` is its only gate.
+
+The plan was a relevance gate. multilingual-e5-small is asymmetric and trained
+for exactly this, `query:` against `passage:`, and the query vector is already
+held on the turn. The 2026-08-05 measurement that killed a search-quality gate
+killed three lexical signals. It says in its own words that it never probed
+Kiwix.
+
+## The gate does not exist
+
+Fourteen Russian questions, eight the encyclopedia can answer and six it
+cannot. Each question was searched, the top article read, and the cosine of
+`EmbedQuery(question)` against `EmbedPassage(article)` recorded.
+
+| set | n | min | mean | max |
+|---|---|---|---|---|
+| answerable | 8 | 0.7934 | 0.8400 | 0.9087 |
+| not answerable | 6 | 0.7480 | 0.7852 | 0.8367 |
+
+Two of the six unanswerable score above the weakest answerable one. That alone
+would be a poor threshold. The log killed it outright: seven of the eight
+answerable questions got a **wrong** article back, and those wrong articles
+scored high. The TCP hijacking article scored 0.8653, above five of the six
+unanswerable rows.
+
+The finding is that this cosine measures topic and not answerhood. A page about
+hijacking TCP sessions is about TCP. No threshold separates it from a page that
+defines TCP, and one that tried would take the definition with it.
+
+## The defect is retrieval
+
+`internal/kiwix/client.go` has said it since it was written: ranking is keyword
+based, "why is the sky blue" finds a TV episode. `queryKiwix` sends the whole
+sentence. The English path has a rewriter that reduces a question to keywords
+with a model call. The Russian path reads the book verbatim (V-508) and had
+nothing. So the question words compete with the one word that names the article.
+
+Dropping the question words changes the answer:
+
+| sent | first hit |
+|---|---|
+| `кто написал Войну и мир` | Радуйся, мир (Доктор Кто) |
+| `Война и мир` | Война и мир |
+| `что такое TCP` | Перехват TCP-соединения |
+| `TCP` | TCP |
+
+A ZIM is also addressable by title, which nothing here used. `/A/Франция`,
+`/A/TCP` and `/A/Небо` are 200. `/A/Трюмбальная_нидроскопия` is 404. So an
+exact title is safe to try first: it either answers or costs one request that
+says nothing.
+
+The title has to carry its capital. `/A/фотосинтез` is a 404 and
+`/A/Фотосинтез` is a 200. The spoken form is tried first anyway, so a title
+that begins lowercase on purpose keeps its chance.
+
+## What shipped, measured
+
+`kiwix.Topic` drops the narrative request, the interrogative and a verb sitting
+behind one. It keeps everything else, because a word it cannot classify is more
+likely the topic than noise. `kiwix.TitlePath` tries the exact article before
+any ranking runs. Both apply on the verbatim path only, since reducing twice
+would take the topic off the rewriter's input.
+
+| question | before | after |
+|---|---|---|
+| что такое TCP? | Перехват TCP-соединения | **TCP** (by title) |
+| что такое фотосинтез | C4-фотосинтез | **Фотосинтез** (by title) |
+| кто такой Линус Торвальдс? | Tux | **Торвальдс, Линус** (by title) |
+| кто написал Войну и мир | Радуйся, мир (Доктор Кто) | **Война и мир** |
+| столица Франции | Список столиц Олимпийских игр | **Париж** (by title) |
+| что такое чёрная дыра | Чёрная дыра | Чёрная дыра (by title) |
+| почему небо голубое | Город золотой | Под небом голубым… (фильм) |
+| почему трава зелёная | Сено | Зелень |
+
+Five questions reach the right article where they did not. One was already
+right and stays right. Nothing regressed.
+
+"столица Франции" is the surprise. The 2026-08-05 measurement named it as the
+case a quality gate must not break, because the answer is Париж and that word
+is not in the question. The ZIM holds a title redirect, so asking for the
+article titled "Столица Франции" returns Париж. Retrieval by title reaches an
+answer that retrieval by keyword cannot.
+
+## What is still wrong
+
+Two of the eight are still not answered, and both are the same shape. The
+question names no article and no redirect covers it. "почему небо голубое" is
+answered by Rayleigh scattering, and nothing in the question says so. Keyword
+retrieval cannot bridge that and neither can a threshold. The candidates are a
+semantic index over titles, or asking the resident model for the article title
+rather than for keywords.
+
+`Response.Empty()` is still the whole gate. A wrong article that the search
+does return is still spoken. What this change buys is that the article is
+usually right, not that a wrong one is caught.
+
+## Not measured here
+
+The English path, which still goes through the rewriter and was not touched.
+SearXNG, where the same question about answerhood is open and the 2026-08-05
+result stands. The cascade end to end, since the workstation is off and the
+phrasing arm is the resident model.

docs/evals/2026-08-09-silero-vad.md

@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+# silero-vad against the energy threshold in mavwaked
+
+*Measured 2026-08-09 on homesrv. V-487, stage one of two.*
+
+mavwaked decided an utterance had started by comparing frame energy to an
+adaptive floor. That answers "is this frame loud". A fan, a door and a
+television are all loud, and every utterance mavwaked accepts becomes a turn.
+
+silero-vad answers "is this frame speech". It is 2.3MB of ONNX and it replaces
+the comparison and nothing else. The speech hold, the silence hold, the length
+cap and the utterance buffer are the same state machine either way.
+
+## What it declines
+
+Speech is the four piper fixtures `mavsttd` already scores against, so nothing
+of the owner's voice is committed. Non-speech is white noise at the same RMS as the clip beside it. That is the
+cheapest thing that fools an energy floor.
+
+| clip | silero, speech frames on speech | silero on noise | energy on noise |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| ru_fact.wav | 59 | 0 | 68 |
+| ru_query.wav | 69 | 0 | 79 |
+| ru_reminder.wav | 80 | 0 | 89 |
+| en_act.wav | 90 | 0 | 99 |
+
+The energy threshold accepts every noise clip as a complete utterance. Silero
+calls not one frame of any of them speech, and still hears all four spoken
+clips. `TestSileroHearsSpeechAndDeclinesNoise` is that table.
+
+White noise is a floor, not a proof. It says nothing about a television, which
+is speech, or about a fan, which is narrowband. Those need room recordings and
+this box has none.
+
+## What it costs
+
+`BenchmarkSileroFrame` on the homesrv laptop (Ryzen 5 5600U), one 30ms frame
+through the model including the re-chunking:
+
+    509µs per frame
+
+That is 1.7% of one core, on the slower of the two machines. The detector runs
+on the workstation beside the microphone, never on the GPU. This number is what
+says it does not need one.
+
+## The window is 512 samples, not 480
+
+`cmd/mavwaked/main.go` claimed the frame contract matched silero's input
+exactly. That was true of silero v4. Version 5 takes exactly 512 samples at 16kHz, plus 64 samples of context from
+the previous window. So `sileroVAD` buffers across capture frames, and a frame
+completing no window inherits the previous probability. `TestSileroRechunksAcrossFrames` pins it.
+
+## Still an energy gate by default
+
+`-vad-model` is empty in the code default, so a deployment that does not pass
+it runs exactly what shipped before. Barge-in is untouched and deliberately so. It reads frame energy while she is
+speaking, which is a different question from whether the frame is speech.
+
+## Not done here
+
+The wake word. This is stage one of the two V-487 asks for. The second needs a
+keyword model that does not exist yet. The pretrained openWakeWord keywords are
+English, and a Russian one has to be trained. Until then anything spoken near
+the microphone still becomes a turn. It is now merely required to be speech.

docs/routing.md

@@ -0,0 +1,457 @@
+# Routing
+
+*Last verified: 2026-08-09 @ 31b5093*
+
+How an utterance becomes a `Decision`, why each stage exists, and what every
+stage has measured. `CLAUDE.md` carries the rules an agent must not break. This
+file carries the reasoning and the history behind them.
+
+Two decisions come out of a route. **Intent** is one of seven values. **Source**
+is where the answer lives, and it is read on `IntentQuery` alone. They are scored
+separately, because one number hides which one moved.
+
+## The cascade
+
+| Stage | What it is | Where |
+|---|---|---|
+| 0 | Deterministic grammars over the utterance | `stage0.go`, `praxis.go`, `worldquery.go` |
+| 0b | Four ONNX heads on one e5-small forward pass | `heads.go` |
+| 1 | The resident model, GBNF-constrained JSON | `llmrouter.go` |
+| 2 | Nearest neighbour over frozen seed phrases | `classifier.go`, `embedder.go` |
+
+Every stage may decline, and the next one answers. Any error at stage 0b or 1
+falls through, so a turn never breaks on a model.
+
+The resident model arm is wired at `voice.go:214` through
+`pickLLMRouter(cfg.Voice.UseLLMRouter(), llmClient)`. The flag is
+`voice.llm_router` in `config.go`, `DefaultLLMRouter` is on, and
+`deploy/mavend.json` sets it `true`. With no llama-server to talk to,
+`pickLLMRouter` logs that and degrades to the classifier.
+
+The classifier is the floor and not dead code. It runs when the resident model
+is off, when there is no llama-server to talk to, and on any per-turn error.
+Routing by seed similarity is the known cause of weak Russian queries. Deleting
+it would make a model outage a broken turn.
+
+### Why there are two engines at all
+
+The original design was the classifier alone. `docs/rearchitecture.md` replaced
+it with a model that emits structured JSON. The same weights phrase the reply.
+That demoted the embedder from a routing gate to a hint for recall. The model
+became the default on 2026-07-31.
+
+The gap it buys is smaller than the design assumed. Measured 2026-08-02 on the
+77-case Russian fixture, the classifier scores 68.8% full accuracy at p50 16.6µs.
+Qwen3-1.7B scores 72.7% through the cascade. Four points, not a doubling.
+
+An older figure of 36.8% for the classifier stood in `CLAUDE.md` until then. It
+predates the stage 0 rules and the seed additions. Both now score inside the
+classifier baseline.
+
+Latency was misreported the same way. A figure of 2.7 seconds stood for two
+days and was contention rather than the model.
+`docs/evals/2026-07-31-routing.md` line 61 measures the router at p50 825ms and
+the cascade at p50 0.80s to 1.04s.
+
+## Numbers
+
+Three arms answer, so three numbers are live. Judge a routing change against the
+classifier and the resident model, since those are what always answer.
+
+| Arm | Intent | Destination | p50 | Measured |
+|---|---|---|---|---|
+| classifier + ONNX | 76.0% (73/96) | 36.4% (12/33) | 16.6µs | 2026-08-08 |
+| resident Qwen3-1.7B, cascade | 80.2% | not measured | 1.19s | 2026-08-05 |
+| routing heads, cascade | 96.9% | 75.8% | 27.9ms | 2026-08-08 |
+| gemma-4-12b, cascade | 84.4% | 72.7% | 329ms | 2026-08-02 |
+| gemma-4-E4B, cascade | 89.6% | 57.6% (19/33) | 294ms | 2026-08-09 |
+
+The fixture grew from 77 cases to 91 to 96. So a number is comparable only to
+another number on the same fixture. Sources:
+`docs/evals/2026-08-05-routing-resident-model.md`,
+`docs/evals/2026-08-02-workstation-gemma4-12b.md`,
+`docs/evals/2026-08-09-e4b-vs-12b-routing.md`,
+`docs/evals/2026-08-08-routing-heads-in-go.md`,
+`docs/evals/2026-08-08-destination-fixture.md`.
+
+The resident model alone scores 37.4% full against 61.5% intent-only. The gap is
+slots and not routing. It routes `reminder` and leaves the time to the daemon,
+which is what the contract asks.
+
+To re-run the resident model as router, start a **second** llama-server on a
+fixed host port. The resident one binds `--port 0` inside the container and no
+host process can reach it.
+
+### The workstation is not the better router any more
+
+It was, from 2026-08-02 until the heads landed. gemma-4-12b beat everything on
+the box at 84.4% intent and 72.7% destination. The heads beat it on both at a
+twelfth of the latency. The workstation stays the better phraser.
+
+E4B replaced the 12B on 2026-08-09 by the owner's call. It is a step down on
+routing. Against a same-session 12B control it costs four destination cases and
+buys 50ms. Read destination as the finding. It names nothing where the 12B names
+`recall` or `calendar`, which is safe but walks the whole chain. It has no MTP
+and cannot be given any here. The only `gemma4-assistant` draft on disk is
+trained against the 12B's hidden states.
+
+## Stage 0: what the grammars claim, and why
+
+A rule at this stage is a claim. Either the model gets this wrong, or it wastes a
+second getting it right. Every rule was added against a measurement.
+
+- **Agenda questions** (`AgendaQueryGrammars`, 2026-08-01). "что у меня сегодня",
+  "во сколько у меня встреча" and anything naming a calendar go to `IntentQuery`.
+  They were going to `IntentSystem`, where `replySystem` has no agenda arm and
+  answered "пока не умею". Worth 2.6 points of full accuracy and calendar 0/2 to
+  2/2.
+- **Rest of day and narrative** (V-498, 2026-08-04). `rest-of-day-query` claims
+  "что дальше?". `NarrativeQueryGrammar` claims "расскажи про X", "объясни X" and
+  "опиши X". Neither carries a question mark or an interrogative, so the model
+  called both `IntentFact`. `IsQuestionShaped` caught the write downstream, so
+  this was a latency and fixture defect rather than a correctness one. The
+  narrative rule declines `chatNarrativeTopics`, because the query chain has no
+  source that answers a joke or a bedtime story.
+- **Praxis** (V-516, 2026-08-05). `PraxisGrammars()` fills `Slots.Fn` with a
+  capability name. These grammars are the **only** path to Praxis and not a
+  faster one. The model reaches Praxis 0/12 alone, the same as the classifier.
+  Nothing in the router prompt names a Praxis capability, so there is no string
+  for it to write. Through the cascade it is 11/12. Measured overall 16/30 to
+  27/30, lifecycle 0/5 to 5/5
+  (`docs/evals/2026-08-05-praxis-reach.md`,
+  `docs/evals/2026-08-05-reach-llm-router.md`).
+  `handlePraxisAct` compares `Slots.Fn` to a capability alias. Otherwise that
+  slot is filled from the deployment's enabled tool names, and no Praxis alias
+  is on that list.
+- **World questions** (`WorldQueryGrammars`, V-655, 2026-08-07). "что такое X"
+  and "сколько будет 17 на 23". Wired after the agenda rules and **before** the
+  feed and list rules. "что такое лента" is a definition question, and the feed
+  rule would take it on the noun alone.
+
+`calendar-query` and `event-time-query` name the calendar as the destination.
+The possessive agenda rules deliberately do not. "что у меня в списке покупок"
+matches `agenda-query`, and naming the calendar there would take the list source
+off the turn. That caution now costs four destination cases. See the model arm
+below.
+
+Go's `\b` is ASCII-only and never fires after a Cyrillic letter. A pattern needs
+an explicit `(\s|[?!.]|$)`.
+
+`baselineGrammars` in `eval_test.go` mirrors `buildRouter` and has drifted before.
+`WorldQueryGrammars` was wired into the daemon by V-655 and not into the mirror,
+so the fixture scored a grammar set nobody runs. Fixed by V-659, worth 3 points
+of destination.
+
+### Praxis lifecycle rules
+
+A **stative** lifecycle word ("готово", "принято") needs an item named beside it.
+A bare **imperative** ("закрывай") may ask which one. It also requires a sentence
+naming no object of its own. Otherwise "закрой шторы в комнате" goes to Praxis
+instead of the house. A demonstrative ("отметь это как сделанное") resolves
+against `h.surfacedItems` only when exactly one item was spoken. Otherwise the
+turn goes back to the cascade rather than transitioning the wrong item.
+
+### Slots on a stage 0 decision
+
+`fillMatchedSlots` runs the stage 2 extractor over whatever a grammar built
+(V-572, 2026-08-06). It fills only the slots the grammar left empty. A matched
+value always wins, because the rule read a literal pattern and the extractor
+guesses.
+
+It did not run before. So `ReminderGrammar` handed the daemon `HasTime: false`
+for "напомни в 11:00 позвонить маме", and `missingFor` read the silence as
+absence and asked "Когда?". It is inert for every grammar but the reminder:
+`Extract` fills Time, Fn and Key and nothing else. A stage 0 query costs 3.7µs
+against 3.9µs before, benchmarked at 20000x.
+
+`Slots.Text` is deliberately not filled. A grammar that left it empty meant it,
+and `agendaQueryBuild` hands the query chain the utterance itself.
+
+## Stage 0b: the routing heads
+
+Routing has a bounded output space, so it is classification rather than
+generation (owner's call, V-546,
+`docs/plans/18-routing-heads-on-e5-small.md`). The 118M multilingual-e5-small is
+already resident. A softmax cannot emit a value that does not exist, so no
+grammar is needed. Max softmax is a calibratable confidence, where
+`Confidence: 1.0` was a hardcode. Training costs roughly 5e15 FLOPs, so 10 to 30
+minutes on the workstation. A 100M decoder from scratch is 10 to 20 GPU hours.
+
+**Fine-tune a copy of the weights.** The resident embedder backs memory recall.
+Training it in place couples routing accuracy to recall@1, with nothing in the
+suite to name the trade.
+
+Four heads share one masked mean pool, trained over three days. The measurements
+are `docs/evals/2026-08-08-routing-heads-two-head.md`,
+`docs/evals/2026-08-08-slot-head-three-head.md`,
+`docs/evals/2026-08-08-clarify-head-four-head.md` and
+`docs/evals/2026-08-08-massive-warm-start.md`.
+
+| Head | Score | Notes |
+|---|---|---|
+| intent | 92.8% mean over 3 seeds | fixture is the 88 cases carrying an intent |
+| destination | 80.8% mean, best 29/33 | beats the 12B teacher it was distilled from |
+| slot BIO tags | 72.4% span F1 | still climbing when epoch selection stops it |
+| clarify | catches 7.0 of 8, 2.3 false of 88 | parity with the cascade, no rules in front |
+
+Read the best destination run as one seed and not a headline. One case is 3
+points on a fixture this small. Head intent accuracy is **not** comparable to the
+cascade's 76.0% and 84.4%. A softmax has no clarify class, so the head's fixture
+is 88 cases and not 96.
+
+Recall is 15/15 and world is 5/5.
+
+**Mood is cut, not deferred.** The enum describes her own reply state, not the
+speaker's emotion, and no dataset maps onto it.
+
+### The clarify head
+
+Clarify is not a value of intent, so a softmax cannot emit it. It is a second
+question over the same pooled vector: can Maven act on this at all. Accuracy is
+the wrong number here and a head that never asks scores 91.7%.
+
+Confidence is the other half. Max softmax over the intent head reads 0.851 where
+it is right and 0.604 where it is wrong. It ranks right above wrong in 83.4% of
+pairs.
+
+It is not free the way the slot head was. Intent, destination and slot F1 each
+move down one to four points, inside the seed spread. `поужинал` is a false
+clarify on every seed. That is the same defect `thinSingleToken` was narrowed for
+on 2026-08-01.
+
+The corpus is generated, because every existing row is answerable by
+construction. The router-prompt agreement filter cannot work here. `routeGrammar`
+has no clarify value, and a generated line always agrees with itself. A gemma
+judge replaces it. The first judge called 24 of 40 answerable rows underspecified.
+It judged against a generic assistant rather than against Maven's contract.
+
+### The slot head
+
+BIO slot tags had no Maven-domain corpus. That was true of found corpora and
+false of made ones. `label_slots.py` distils spans out of gemma-4-12b under a
+GBNF closed over Maven's own five slots. A span survives only when it is a
+literal substring of the utterance, so the agreement filter costs no second call.
+2178 spans over 1702 rows, 37 dropped, nothing unparsed.
+
+Epoch selection reads the intent dev slice alone. That costs the slot head about
+4 points.
+
+### Warm start and the floor
+
+The MASSIVE warm-start of step 2 is worth nothing here. Stock e5-small ties it on
+intent and leads by a third of a case on destination. Nothing argues for keeping
+that step.
+
+The floor was a corpus defect and it is fixed. The first 120 floor rows carried
+one sentence shape, so the head named a destination where the fixture says walk
+the chain. Rotating six shapes took the floor 3/7 to 6/7 and destination 75.8% to
+80.8%.
+
+What is left is calendar at 3/6 on every seed, which training cannot move. The
+possessive agenda rules claim those cases at stage 0 and name nothing, so no
+label reaches the head.
+
+### Reading them in Go
+
+`RouterHeads` in `internal/router/heads.go` loads `router_heads.onnx` (V-664,
+2026-08-08). It reads intent, destination and clarify off one forward pass.
+
+Three rules around it, each measured:
+
+- The **clarify head decides first**, before the intent threshold. It answers a
+  different question. A thin utterance scores low intent by construction, so
+  gating it cost 6 of 8 ambiguous cases.
+- The **destination head is read on `IntentQuery` only**, since no other intent
+  reaches `queryWalk`.
+- `headsThreshold` is 0.6, the measured knee. Every value up to 0.85 drops right
+  answers and keeps the same two wrong ones.
+
+`voice.embedder.heads_path` is the whole switch. Empty, missing or unloadable
+means the heads are nil. The cascade is then byte-for-byte what shipped before
+them.
+
+### The tokenizer bug the heads found
+
+`encodeWord` in `onnxembedder.go` read every long word backwards until 2026-08-08.
+It cost recall@1 7.4 points and recall@3 11.1. Nothing caught it, because seeds
+and queries were mangled the same way and cosine survived. The heads found it.
+They are trained through transformers and read through this.
+
+The embedder id now carries a tokenizer revision (`@384/tok2`). So fixing the
+tokenizer triggers `ReembedAll` the way swapping the model file does. Bump
+`tokenizerRev` on any change to what it emits.
+
+## Clarify
+
+`Confidence: 1.0` was hardcoded in `llmrouter.go`. So the model path could never
+ask for clarification, and it missed 6 of 6 refusal cases (V-359). The bug had a
+second half. The model branch never consulted `r.threshold` at all, so a correct
+low confidence would have been discarded anyway.
+
+Fixed 2026-07-31 with structural signal feeding the same stage 3 gate the
+classifier path already had (`gateLLMDecision` in `router.go`). Three signals: a
+single-token utterance, a keyless fact, an act with no allowlisted fn.
+
+Re-measured: missed clarify 6/6 to 1, at the cost of 3 false clarifies and 2.6
+points of full accuracy. Two of the three false clarifies are acts the model
+mis-routed and the gate caught. Asking beats wrongly executing, so the fixture
+and the daemon disagree about what is correct there.
+
+The third, `поужинал`, was a real defect. The single-token rule was an English
+intuition. It does not transfer to Russian, where one word is routinely a whole
+sentence.
+
+Narrowed 2026-08-01. `thinSingleToken` (`internal/router/singletoken.go`) still
+thins a bare one-word nominal. It spares two classes. One is a closed lexicon of
+social and control singles ("привет", "стоп", "yes"). The other is any token
+carrying a Russian verb ending, because a verb already contains its subject. Both
+tests are offline and cost nothing. False clarifies 3 to 2, intent-only 74.0% to
+75.3%.
+
+The two remaining false clarifies are the act-with-no-allowlisted-fn arm of the
+gate, not this rule.
+
+## The destination
+
+`query` was a shrug. The cascade sorted an utterance into one of seven intents,
+then `IntentQuery` handed the turn to `querySources` in the daemon. That is
+twenty-two branches deciding by seed similarity in a fixed order. It had no
+fixture, no accuracy number, no model arm and no floor.
+
+`Decision.Source` (`internal/router/source.go`) is the second half of the route
+(V-655, 2026-08-07). Twelve destinations, not twenty-two. The three recall passes
+plus `fact-by-key` are one destination from outside. So are search, Kiwix and the
+URL reader.
+
+`queryWalk` in `cmd/mavend/actions_query.go` takes sources **out** and moves none.
+That is the safety argument. The table's order is load-bearing. Every comment on
+it argues a reason between two sources. Above all it carries "the owner's data
+first, then the world". Naming `SourceWorld` does not send the turn outside on its
+own.
+
+What comes out is only the sources that **guess**. Those decide a turn is theirs
+by cosine against frozen seeds, then answer whatever they claimed. They hold no
+table that could come back empty. Weather is the pure case and has no local data
+at all. It was measured on the box 2026-08-07
+(`docs/evals/2026-08-07-week-of-usage.md` section 4). It answered both "что такое
+TCP?" and "сколько будет 17 на 23?" with "для какого города?". The feed answered
+"какой у меня любимый язык?" with kernel headlines.
+
+### Who may drop the personal boundary
+
+The personal boundary guesses, so naming `SourceWorld` drops it. That is what
+stops it answering "кто такой Линус Торвальдс?" with "не нашла у тебя такой
+записи", which it did on 2026-08-07.
+
+Three deciders name a destination and two of them infer it: the heads and the
+resident model. An inferred `SourceWorld` on a question about him would reach
+SearXNG. That widens what is asked rather than costing a local answer. So only a
+stage 0 grammar may drop it (owner's call, V-666, 2026-08-09).
+
+`Decision.SourceAnchored` carries the provenance. It is a field and not
+`Stage == 0`. Stage 0 also means confidence 1.0 and an anchored claim band, and
+one of those could stop implying the others. `definitionQueryPattern` claims "кто
+такой X", so the 2026-08-07 case is still anchored and still answered.
+
+### The destination fixture
+
+`want_source` on `eval.Case` is a pointer, because the destination has three
+states and a bare string has two. Absent is every intent but query. Present and
+empty is the `SourceUnknown` contract: name nothing and walk the chain. Present
+and named is a destination the route must produce. Thirty-three of ninety-six
+cases carry one.
+
+A destination miss does **not** fail the case. It lands in `Outcome.SourceReason`
+and never in `Reasons`, so `Accuracy` and `IntentAccuracy` mean what they meant.
+`SourceAccuracy` is a second number over the labelled cases alone.
+A route that lost its intent scores no destination hit. Otherwise a clarify would
+satisfy an empty label for free.
+
+Seven cases assert the floor and five of them are homelab operations. They cluster
+because `SourceRecall`, `SourceNetwork` and `SourceAttention` overlap on every
+question about the box. `mavpoll` writes its netdata and uptime-kuma observations
+into the fact store recall reads. That is a finding about the enum, not a gap in
+the labelling. The other two are `ru-query-005` and `ru-query-014`. No query
+source reads the reminder store, and a deadline could sit in tasks, the calendar
+or Praxis. The owner confirmed all seven floor labels on 2026-08-08.
+
+### The model arm
+
+`routeGrammar` carries a `source` rule closed over `router.Sources` plus the
+empty floor (V-660, 2026-08-08). So the model cannot emit a destination that does
+not exist. The prompt lists the twelve in Russian and says `""` is a normal answer
+to give often. `LLMRouter.Route` reads it back through `ValidSource` and on
+`IntentQuery` alone.
+
+Against gemma-4-12b the cascade scores destination 24/33 with intent unmoved, and
+recall goes 0/15 to 14/15.
+
+**Stage 0 now costs four destination points.** It did not before. The four cases
+the cascade loses and the model alone wins are all calendar. The possessive agenda
+rules claim them first and name nothing on purpose. That caution was free while
+nothing downstream could name anything either. It is not free now, and the fix is
+the owner's call (V-660 open).
+
+## The decision trace
+
+Arbitration between the claimants on the utterance stream is order. It is
+hardcoded in the pre-route resolver ladder, in `buildRouter` and in
+`querySources`. Nothing recorded who lost until V-564.
+
+`internal/decision` records one `Record` per turn. It holds every claimant, what
+it would have made the turn, the score it reported, and how it ended. A claimant
+won, declined, lost on score, was thinned by a gate or was **never asked**.
+
+The record rides the context, the same seam `querysource.go` uses. So a claim
+site cannot change a route, and a context with no record costs nothing. It is
+installed in `runTurn`, so the mic, telegram and the web leave the same trail.
+
+Adding a rung to the ladder in `runTurn` means adding its name to `preRouteLadder`
+in `cmd/mavend/decisiontrace.go`. Otherwise that rung is silently missing from the
+record.
+
+### Why it persists now
+
+The original rule was that nothing persists, because a turn record is read minutes
+later or never. Storage was a 25-turn in-memory ring read over `ipc.TurnDecisions`
+and rendered on `/trace`.
+
+The owner reversed it on 2026-08-06 (V-629,
+`docs/plans/21-persisting-the-routing-trace.md`). The routing heads cannot be
+fitted or calibrated without real utterances. And 9 of the 31 modes in
+`internal/modes` have no seed example at all.
+
+The ring did not move. `cmd/mavend/routingtrace.go` is a second sink beside it,
+writing `routing_traces` (migration #23). The utterance is stored in clear. A
+384-dimension vector of a short sentence is substantially recoverable, so storing
+vectors instead would be a privacy claim we cannot support. What makes it safe is
+the same thing that makes the fact store safe. Retention is 14 days, enforced on
+write and again on start, so a box that goes quiet does not keep every row.
+Nothing reads it outward. `Store.Wipe` deletes it with everything else.
+
+### Corrections
+
+A correction is promoted out into a seed-shaped row in `routing_labels`
+(migration #24) and kept, because a label is not a transcript. The transcript
+still expires.
+
+A turn marked wrong with no target is a usable negative, so naming the intent is
+never required. The target is one of the seven intents and never free text.
+
+All three reaches offer it as of 2026-08-06:
+
+- `/chat` offers two buttons beside the reply, over `ipc.CorrectTurn` and the
+  trace id that rides back on `ipc.ChatReply`.
+- Voice offers the `repair` rung, which has read spoken corrections since V-455.
+  It now writes the durable label beside the classifier seed it always wrote. A
+  spoken negative with no target is its own rung, `repair-negative` (V-636,
+  `docs/plans/22-correcting-a-turn.md`).
+- Telegram offers an inline keyboard under the reply. It needed the chat to become
+  readable first (V-637, `docs/plans/23-inbound-telegram.md`). The poller is dark
+  unless the `telegram` block says `intake`. It long-polls, because the box takes
+  no inbound connections. It accepts `chat_id` and no other sender, and it drops
+  whatever queued while the daemon was down. It reaches the daemon through
+  `ipc.CoreAPI` alone.
+
+The turn source is still `tap:text` for both telegram and the web. So provenance
+cannot tell a chat turn from a typed one.

internal/kiwix/client.go

@@ -127,6 +127,22 @@ func (c *Client) Article(ctx context.Context, path string, maxRunes int) (crawl.
 	return crawl.Extract(u, body, maxRunes), nil
 }
 
+// TitlePath is the article path for an exact title, for Article to fetch.
+//
+// It exists because a ZIM is addressable by title and the full-text index is
+// not the only way in. "Франция", "TCP" and "Небо" resolve; "Трюмбальная
+// нидроскопия" is a 404, which is the honest answer and the reason this is
+// safe to try first. Measured on 2026-08-09, keyword search on the same terms
+// returns "Список пэров Франции" and "Список портов TCP и UDP" instead.
+//
+// A miss is normal rather than a failure. An article whose title inverts a name
+// ("Торвальдс, Линус") is a 404 here and the first hit in search, so the caller
+// falls through and loses nothing.
+func TitlePath(book, title string) string {
+	t := strings.ReplaceAll(strings.TrimSpace(title), " ", "_")
+	return "/content/" + url.PathEscape(book) + "/A/" + url.PathEscape(t)
+}
+
 // rss mirrors just the bits of the RSS 2.0 reply we use.
 type rss struct {
 	Items []struct {

internal/kiwix/live_test.go

@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+package kiwix
+
+import (
+	"context"
+	"os"
+	"testing"
+	"time"
+)
+
+// TestLiveTopicBeatsTheSentence — the measurement V-668 turned on, kept as a
+// test so the claim can be re-run rather than believed.
+//
+// It prints the article the old path returned and the article the new one
+// returns, for the same question. It asserts nothing about which is better,
+// because "is this the right article" is a human's call. It fails only if the
+// two paths agree on every case, which would mean the change does nothing.
+//
+//	MAVEN_KIWIX_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8034 make t PKG=./internal/kiwix/ RUN=TestLive V=1
+func TestLiveTopicBeatsTheSentence(t *testing.T) {
+	base := os.Getenv("MAVEN_KIWIX_URL")
+	if base == "" {
+		t.Skip("MAVEN_KIWIX_URL unset — point it at the kiwix-server host port")
+	}
+	const book = "wikipedia_ru_all_maxi_2026-02"
+	c := New(base)
+	questions := []string{
+		"что такое TCP?",
+		"что такое фотосинтез",
+		"кто такой Линус Торвальдс?",
+		"кто написал Войну и мир",
+		"что такое чёрная дыра",
+		"почему небо голубое",
+		"почему трава зелёная",
+		"столица Франции",
+	}
+	moved := 0
+	for _, q := range questions {
+		ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), 20*time.Second)
+		before := firstTitle(ctx, c, q, book)
+		topic := Topic(q)
+		after := ""
+		for _, cand := range TitleCandidates(topic) {
+			if page, err := c.Article(ctx, TitlePath(book, cand), 400); err == nil && page.Text != "" {
+				after = page.Title + " (by title)"
+				break
+			}
+		}
+		if after == "" {
+			after = firstTitle(ctx, c, topic, book)
+		}
+		cancel()
+		if before != after {
+			moved++
+		}
+		t.Logf("%-30s  before=%-34q after=%q", q, before, after)
+	}
+	t.Logf("%d of %d questions reach a different article", moved, len(questions))
+	if moved == 0 {
+		t.Error("the topic path returns exactly what the sentence path returned")
+	}
+}
+
+func firstTitle(ctx context.Context, c *Client, pattern, book string) string {
+	hits, err := c.Search(ctx, pattern, book, 3)
+	if err != nil || len(hits) == 0 {
+		return "(nothing)"
+	}
+	return hits[0].Title
+}

internal/kiwix/topic.go

@@ -0,0 +1,118 @@
+package kiwix
+
+import (
+	"strings"
+	"unicode"
+
+	"github.com/kami/maven/internal/lexicon"
+	"github.com/kami/maven/internal/morph"
+)
+
+// Topic reduces a question to the thing it is about, because Kiwix ranks by
+// keyword overlap and a whole sentence buries the keyword that matters.
+//
+// This package's own doc says it: "why is the sky blue" finds a TV episode.
+// Measured against the Russian ZIM on 2026-08-09, the sentence and the topic
+// return different articles for the same question. "кто написал Войну и мир"
+// returns "Радуйся, мир (Доктор Кто)"; "Войну и мир" returns the novel first.
+// "что такое TCP" returns "Перехват TCP-соединения"; "TCP" returns TCP. The
+// English path had a rewriter doing this with a model call. The Russian path
+// reads the book verbatim (V-508) and had nothing.
+//
+// It drops three things off the front and stops: the narrative request, the
+// interrogative, and a verb sitting between them and the noun. Everything else
+// is kept, because a word this cannot classify is more likely the topic than
+// noise. An empty return means the utterance was question words alone, and the
+// caller searches the sentence as before.
+func Topic(utterance string) string {
+	words := strings.Fields(strings.TrimSpace(utterance))
+	cut := 0
+	for cut < len(words) {
+		w := strings.Trim(strings.ToLower(words[cut]), ".,!?…:;\"'«»")
+		if w == "" {
+			cut++
+			continue
+		}
+		switch {
+		case inList(lexicon.NarrativeRequests(), w),
+			inList(lexicon.Interrogatives(), w),
+			inList(lexicon.FirstPerson(), w),
+			// "что ТАКОЕ x", "кто ТАКОЙ x" — the copula that only ever follows
+			// an interrogative, and never a topic on its own.
+			cut > 0 && isCopula(w),
+			// "расскажи ПРО x", "о x". One-letter and two-letter prepositions
+			// are not a closed class worth a lexicon set of their own.
+			cut > 0 && isLeadingPreposition(w),
+			// "кто НАПИСАЛ Войну и мир". A verb here is the question's own
+			// verb, not part of the title. Only after something was already
+			// dropped, so "написал отчёт" as a topic survives intact.
+			cut > 0 && morph.IsVerbForm(w):
+			cut++
+		default:
+			// The question mark is the sentence's, not the title's, and Kiwix
+			// carries it into the keyword match.
+			topic := strings.TrimRight(strings.Join(words[cut:], " "), " .,!?…:;\"'«»")
+			if !hasLetter(topic) {
+				return ""
+			}
+			return topic
+		}
+	}
+	return ""
+}
+
+// TitleCandidates is the topic as it might be titled, best first.
+//
+// A ZIM title is capitalized and the utterance is not: measured on 2026-08-09,
+// `/A/фотосинтез` is a 404 and `/A/Фотосинтез` is a 200. The spoken form is
+// tried first anyway, because a title that begins lowercase on purpose
+// ("iPhone") would not survive capitalizing it. Both are one request each
+// against a server on the same box, and a miss is a 404 rather than a wrong
+// article.
+func TitleCandidates(topic string) []string {
+	if topic == "" {
+		return nil
+	}
+	r := []rune(topic)
+	up := unicode.ToUpper(r[0])
+	if up == r[0] {
+		return []string{topic}
+	}
+	return []string{topic, string(up) + string(r[1:])}
+}
+
+func isCopula(w string) bool {
+	switch w {
+	case "такое", "такой", "такая", "такие", "is", "are", "was", "were":
+		return true
+	}
+	return false
+}
+
+func isLeadingPreposition(w string) bool {
+	switch w {
+	case "про", "о", "об", "обо", "по", "about", "of", "on":
+		return true
+	}
+	return false
+}
+
+func inList(list []string, w string) bool {
+	for _, x := range list {
+		if x == w {
+			return true
+		}
+	}
+	return false
+}
+
+// hasLetter is the guard against a topic that reduced to punctuation or digits
+// alone, which no ZIM title matches.
+func hasLetter(s string) bool {
+	for _, r := range s {
+		if unicode.IsLetter(r) {
+			return true
+		}
+	}
+	return false
+}

internal/kiwix/topic_test.go

@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+package kiwix
+
+import "testing"
+
+// The cases the 2026-08-09 measurement turned on, plus the ones a topic must
+// not damage. Each left column returned a wrong article when it was sent whole.
+func TestTopicKeepsTheThingTheQuestionIsAbout(t *testing.T) {
+	cases := []struct{ utterance, want string }{
+		{"что такое TCP?", "TCP"},
+		{"что такое фотосинтез", "фотосинтез"},
+		{"кто такой Линус Торвальдс?", "Линус Торвальдс"},
+		{"кто написал Войну и мир", "Войну и мир"},
+		{"расскажи про битву при Ватерлоо", "битву при Ватерлоо"},
+		{"what is photosynthesis", "photosynthesis"},
+		// No question word, so there is nothing to drop. The topic is the
+		// whole utterance and the search is what it was before.
+		{"столица Франции", "столица Франции"},
+		{"почему небо голубое", "небо голубое"},
+	}
+	for _, c := range cases {
+		if got := Topic(c.utterance); got != c.want {
+			t.Errorf("Topic(%q) = %q, want %q", c.utterance, got, c.want)
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+// A verb only goes when a question word already went. Otherwise "написал
+// отчёт" loses the verb that names what he means.
+func TestTopicDropsAVerbOnlyBehindAQuestionWord(t *testing.T) {
+	if got := Topic("написал отчёт"); got != "написал отчёт" {
+		t.Errorf("Topic dropped a leading verb with no question word: %q", got)
+	}
+}
+
+// Question words alone reduce to nothing, and the caller reads that as "no
+// topic" and searches the sentence rather than searching the empty string.
+func TestTopicIsEmptyWhenNothingIsLeft(t *testing.T) {
+	for _, q := range []string{"что такое?", "кто?", "почему", "???"} {
+		if got := Topic(q); got != "" {
+			t.Errorf("Topic(%q) = %q, want empty", q, got)
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+func TestTitlePathEscapesAndUnderscores(t *testing.T) {
+	got := TitlePath("wikipedia_ru_all_maxi_2026-02", "Чёрная дыра")
+	want := "/content/wikipedia_ru_all_maxi_2026-02/A/%D0%A7%D1%91%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B4%D1%8B%D1%80%D0%B0"
+	if got != want {
+		t.Errorf("TitlePath = %q, want %q", got, want)
+	}
+}
+
+// A ZIM title carries a leading capital and the utterance does not. The spoken
+// form is still tried first, so a title that begins lowercase on purpose keeps
+// its chance.
+func TestTitleCandidatesTryTheSpokenFormFirst(t *testing.T) {
+	got := TitleCandidates("фотосинтез")
+	if len(got) != 2 || got[0] != "фотосинтез" || got[1] != "Фотосинтез" {
+		t.Errorf("TitleCandidates = %q", got)
+	}
+	if got := TitleCandidates("TCP"); len(got) != 1 || got[0] != "TCP" {
+		t.Errorf("an already-capital topic was tried twice: %q", got)
+	}
+	if got := TitleCandidates(""); got != nil {
+		t.Errorf("TitleCandidates(\"\") = %q, want nil", got)
+	}
+}

internal/router/intent.go

@@ -111,6 +111,21 @@ type Decision struct {
 	// before this field existed. See source.go for why it is twelve values.
 	Source Source
 
+	// SourceAnchored — a stage 0 grammar named that destination, matching a
+	// literal pattern to do it. Only the router sets this, and only there.
+	//
+	// It exists because one thing downstream is not reversible by evidence
+	// (V-666). Naming a destination normally takes guessing sources off a turn,
+	// and one of those is the personal boundary, which is what stops a question
+	// about him from reaching the world. A grammar that read "что такое X" may
+	// take it off. A model or a softmax may not, because a wrong destination
+	// there widens what leaves the box rather than costing an answer.
+	//
+	// Read Stage instead and the two decisions get coupled: stage 0 also means
+	// confidence 1.0 and an anchored claim band, and a later cascade change
+	// could make one true where the other is not.
+	SourceAnchored bool
+
 	// Continued — this decision was rebuilt from the previous turn rather
 	// than routed, because the utterance was an ellipsis ("а завтра?").
 	// Handlers use it to know that Slots.Text is the PREVIOUS turn's topic

internal/router/router.go

@@ -98,6 +98,10 @@ func (r *Router) Route(ctx context.Context, utterance string, now time.Time) (De
 			continue // grammar matched shape but not content → fall through
 		}
 		d.Utterance = utterance
+		// A literal pattern named that destination, which is the one provenance
+		// allowed to take the personal boundary off a turn (V-666). Set here and
+		// nowhere else, so no other arm of the cascade can claim it.
+		d.SourceAnchored = d.Source != SourceUnknown
 		// The grammar decided the intent; the extractor fills the slots it did
 		// not match (V-572). See fillMatchedSlots for why every grammar gets it.
 		r.fillMatchedSlots(ctx, &d, now)

v668-transcript.md

@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+# Raw transcript, two weeks of usage
+
+YOU:   что такое TCP?
+MAVEN: есть такое: Tcp/Ip — Википедия — TCP позволяет регулировать нагрузку на сеть, а также уменьшать время ожидания данных при передаче на большие расстояния. Более того, TCP гарантирует, что полученные ...
+       [2.1s src=search t=666]
+
+YOU:   кто такой Линус Торвальдс?
+MAVEN: вот что я нашла: Торвальдс, Линус — Википедия — Ли́нус Бенедикт То́рвальдс (встречается написание Ту́рвальдс, швед. Linus Benedict Torvalds МФА: [ˈliːn.ɵs ˈtuːr.valds] о файле; род. 28 декабря 1969, Хельсинки) — финско-американский программист, создатель ядра Linux.
+       [0.8s src=search t=667]
+
+YOU:   что такое фотосинтез
+MAVEN: нашла вот это: Фотосинтез — Фотосинтез
+Схематическое изображение процесса фотосинтеза, происходящего в растениях
+Упрощённое уравнение фотосинтеза, происходящего в растениях
+Упрощённая схема фотосинтеза
+Фотоси́нтез (от др.-греч. φῶς  — « свет » и σύνθεσις  — «соединённый», «складной», «связывание», « синтез ») — сл…
+       [0.6s src=kiwix t=668]
+
+YOU:   кто написал Войну и мир
+MAVEN: вот что я нашла: Война и мир — Война и мир
+Война и мир
+Война и миръ
+Обложка издания 1873 года
+Жанр
+роман-эпопея
+Автор
+Лев Николаевич Толстой
+Язык оригинала
+русский, фрагменты на французском и немецком языках
+Дата написания
+1863—1869, 1873
+Дата первой публикации
+1865—1869
+Предыдущее
+Казаки
+Следующее
+Анна Каренина
+Тек…
+       [12.4s src=kiwix t=669]
+
+```

v668.jsonl

@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+{"reply": "есть такое: Tcp/Ip — Википедия — TCP позволяет регулировать нагрузку на сеть, а также уменьшать время ожидания данных при передаче на большие расстояния. Более того, TCP гарантирует, что полученные ...", "source": "search", "trace": "666", "secs": 2.1235475060530007, "day": 0, "n": 1, "utterance": "что такое TCP?"}
+{"reply": "вот что я нашла: Торвальдс, Линус — Википедия — Ли́нус Бенедикт То́рвальдс (встречается написание Ту́рвальдс, швед. Linus Benedict Torvalds МФА: [ˈliːn.ɵs ˈtuːr.valds] о файле; род. 28 декабря 1969, Хельсинки) — финско-американский программист, создатель ядра Linux.", "source": "search", "trace": "667", "secs": 0.7689587379572913, "day": 0, "n": 2, "utterance": "кто такой Линус Торвальдс?"}
+{"reply": "нашла вот это: Фотосинтез — Фотосинтез\nСхематическое изображение процесса фотосинтеза, происходящего в растениях\nУпрощённое уравнение фотосинтеза, происходящего в растениях\nУпрощённая схема фотосинтеза\nФотоси́нтез (от др.-греч. φῶς  — « свет » и σύνθεσις  — «соединённый», «складной», «связывание», « синтез ») — сл…", "source": "kiwix", "trace": "668", "secs": 0.575586927938275, "day": 0, "n": 3, "utterance": "что такое фотосинтез"}
+{"reply": "вот что я нашла: Война и мир — Война и мир\nВойна и мир\nВойна и миръ\nОбложка издания 1873 года\nЖанр\nроман-эпопея\nАвтор\nЛев Николаевич Толстой\nЯзык оригинала\nрусский, фрагменты на французском и немецком языках\nДата написания\n1863—1869, 1873\nДата первой публикации\n1865—1869\nПредыдущее\nКазаки\nСледующее\nАнна Каренина\nТек…", "source": "kiwix", "trace": "669", "secs": 12.44599153404124, "day": 0, "n": 4, "utterance": "кто написал Войну и мир"}

v668b-transcript.md

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+# Raw transcript, two weeks of usage
+
+YOU:   столица Франции
+MAVEN: вот что я нашла: Франция — Википедия — Она отличается ... реками. На Сене в 145 км от пролива Ла-Манш расположена столица Франции Париж....
+       [2.3s src=search t=670]
+
+YOU:   что такое фотосинтез
+MAVEN: есть такое: Фотосинтез: процесс, фазы, функции и значение фотосинтеза — Бестселлеры Фоксфорда: собрали всё, что полюбили тысячи школьников и родителей 🧡 · Фотосинтез происходит в тканях, содержащих хлоропласты, — преимущественно в листе, на который приходится большая часть процессов фотосинтеза. Такая ткань наз…
+       [0.8s src=search t=671]
+
+YOU:   что такое TCP?
+MAVEN: нашла вот это: TCP — TCP
+TCP
+Название
+Transmission Control Protocol
+Уровень (по модели OSI )
+Транспортный
+Семейство
+TCP/IP
+Спецификация
+RFC 793 (сентябрь 1981 года) / STD 7
+Основные реализации
+UNIX , Linux , BSD , Windows
+Расширяемость
+Опции
+Медиафайлы на Викискладе
+TCP ( англ.   Transmission Control Protocol  — п…
+       [0.3s src=kiwix t=672]
+
+```

v668b.jsonl

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+{"reply": "вот что я нашла: Франция — Википедия — Она отличается ... реками. На Сене в 145 км от пролива Ла-Манш расположена столица Франции Париж....", "source": "search", "trace": "670", "secs": 2.295847482047975, "day": 0, "n": 1, "utterance": "столица Франции"}
+{"reply": "есть такое: Фотосинтез: процесс, фазы, функции и значение фотосинтеза — Бестселлеры Фоксфорда: собрали всё, что полюбили тысячи школьников и родителей 🧡 · Фотосинтез происходит в тканях, содержащих хлоропласты, — преимущественно в листе, на который приходится большая часть процессов фотосинтеза. Такая ткань наз…", "source": "search", "trace": "671", "secs": 0.8353607719764113, "day": 0, "n": 2, "utterance": "что такое фотосинтез"}
+{"reply": "нашла вот это: TCP — TCP\nTCP\nНазвание\nTransmission Control Protocol\nУровень (по модели OSI )\nТранспортный\nСемейство\nTCP/IP\nСпецификация\nRFC 793 (сентябрь 1981 года) / STD 7\nОсновные реализации\nUNIX , Linux , BSD , Windows\nРасширяемость\nОпции\nМедиафайлы на Викискладе\nTCP ( англ.   Transmission Control Protocol  — п…", "source": "kiwix", "trace": "672", "secs": 0.29547085403464735, "day": 0, "n": 3, "utterance": "что такое TCP?"}

v668c-transcript.md

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+# Raw transcript, two weeks of usage
+
+YOU:   что такое TCP?
+MAVEN: Вот что я нашла: TCP, или Transmission Control Protocol, — это один из основных протоколов передачи данных в интернете. Он работает на транспортном уровне модели OSI и предоставляет поток данных с установкой соединения, гарантируя целостность данных, повторно запрашивая потерянные данные и устраняя дублирование.
+       [2.3s src=kiwix t=673]
+
+YOU:   кто такой Линус Торвальдс?
+MAVEN: Вот что я нашла: Линус Торвальдс — финно-американский программист, который является создателем ядра Linux. Он швед по имени Linus Benedict Torvalds, родился 28 декабря 1969 года в Хельсинки, Финляндия, и его род деятельности включает программирование, разработку программного обеспечения, писательство, изобретательство, ведение блога, а также он инженер, бизнесмен и специалист в области информатики.
+       [2.4s src=kiwix t=674]
+
+YOU:   столица Франции
+MAVEN: Вот что я нашла: Столица Франции — Париж.
+       [2.0s src=kiwix t=675]
+
+YOU:   почему небо голубое
+MAVEN: Я не нашла в источниках ответа на твой вопрос, почему небо голубое.
+       [1.3s src=kiwix t=676]
+
+```

v668c.jsonl

@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+{"reply": "Вот что я нашла: TCP, или Transmission Control Protocol, — это один из основных протоколов передачи данных в интернете. Он работает на транспортном уровне модели OSI и предоставляет поток данных с установкой соединения, гарантируя целостность данных, повторно запрашивая потерянные данные и устраняя дублирование.", "source": "kiwix", "trace": "673", "secs": 2.3279738989658654, "day": 0, "n": 1, "utterance": "что такое TCP?"}
+{"reply": "Вот что я нашла: Линус Торвальдс — финно-американский программист, который является создателем ядра Linux. Он швед по имени Linus Benedict Torvalds, родился 28 декабря 1969 года в Хельсинки, Финляндия, и его род деятельности включает программирование, разработку программного обеспечения, писательство, изобретательство, ведение блога, а также он инженер, бизнесмен и специалист в области информатики.", "source": "kiwix", "trace": "674", "secs": 2.42521625792142, "day": 0, "n": 2, "utterance": "кто такой Линус Торвальдс?"}
+{"reply": "Вот что я нашла: Столица Франции — Париж.", "source": "kiwix", "trace": "675", "secs": 1.9803519028937444, "day": 0, "n": 3, "utterance": "столица Франции"}
+{"reply": "Я не нашла в источниках ответа на твой вопрос, почему небо голубое.", "source": "kiwix", "trace": "676", "secs": 1.2865088270045817, "day": 0, "n": 4, "utterance": "почему небо голубое"}