cameronrye/openzim-mcp

Three-pass beta-test of v2.0.0a12 against the same 118 GB Wikipedia
ZIM (Feb 2026 snapshot) the a8 → a12 cuts targeted, via the simple-
mode zim_query MCP surface. The pattern across the alpha series
continues to diminish (a10: 22+6+3, a11: 11+3+1, a12: ~6+2+0 split
across the same three-pass shape — first pass surfaced six defects,
second pass two structural gaps, third pass zero new).

The single most user-visible defect was search for Berlin in namespace C rendering List_of_songs_about_Berlin at rank #1 with
the canonical Berlin article absent. The H2 canonical-splice gate
short-circuited to the legacy search_with_filters whenever the top
BM25 hit token-prefix-matched the topic — is_strong_title_match
returns True for any candidate that extends the topic
(Berlin_(disambiguation) extends Berlin), so the splice never
fired for new-scheme archives that have a disambig page for the
topic. Tightening the gate to require exact path equality fixes the
H2/H3 surface end-to-end for every shape, not just the case the a12
third-pass self-audit addressed.

The recurring infobox-cell concatenation bug (5th in Europe1st in Germany) got its final user-visible fix this cycle: the a10/a11
sweep added a space separator between block-level cell children, but
a downstream small LLM still tokenised 5th in Europe 1st in Germany as one phrase. The block-cell joiner now emits "; "
between block boundaries so each value reads as a distinct item.

Net: 1513 tests pass (+20 over v2.0.0a12), 50 skipped, 38
deselected. black / isort / flake8 / mypy all clean.

Fixed — High (post-a12 beta sweep)

• D1: orphan-bullet sub-rows chained the previous row's full label
  as their parent. tell me about France rendered
  **Government — • President:** Macron (correct) but then
  **• President — • Prime Minister:** Lecornu,
  **• Prime Minister — • President of the Senate:** Larcher
  (wrong — the parent kept shifting). Same shape in the USA infobox.
  Berlin's Government sub-rows happened to render correctly because
  Wikipedia marked them differently in HTML. Root cause: the
  virtual-parent extractor for orphan-bullet rows used
  prev_label.split(" — ", 1)[-1] (trailing segment) instead of
  [0] (original parent). Each bullet row's parent inherited the
  PREVIOUS bullet's label rather than the constant section parent.
  Fixed by taking the original parent.
• D2: list_namespaces reports M=13 while walk namespace M /
  metadata for report 12. The a12 M1 fix plumbed the shared
  is_human_readable_metadata_key predicate to two of three
  reporting surfaces but missed _add_new_scheme_metadata_namespace
  in the namespace walker. list_namespaces reported the raw libzim
  count (13, including the Illustration_48x48@1 binary entry)
  while the other two filtered. Added the predicate to the third
  site so all three surfaces agree on 12.
• D3 / D4: chained-intent splitter missed two recurring-set
  shapes. Biology; Chemistry (bare topics, ; connector) fell
  through to topic-fetch and resolved to Computational_Biology_&_ Chemistry (a journal). tell me about Photosynthesis and then about DNA (single-imperative-prefix continuation, right side is
  about DNA) fell through to full-text search on the literal
  phrase. The splitter required an operation verb on BOTH sides of
  the connector. D3 adds a bare-topic-chain branch that wraps both
  halves with tell me about when the connector is unambiguous
  (; / then / and then / after that / , then) AND both
  halves are topic-shaped (≤6 tokens, no internal connectors). D4
  adds a continuation-prefix branch that re-prefixes the right half
  with the left's verb when the right starts with
  about / of / for / with / on / in / into / to. A
  negative-case guard prevents the bare-topic branch from
  over-triggering when a half is JUST an operation verb prefix with
  no topic content (tell me about then and now — the connector
  was inside the topic name, not a chain marker).
• D5: H2 canonical-splice early-return fired on any token-prefix
  strong match. The gate at the top of the populated-results
  branch invoked is_strong_title_match(query, top.path, top.title)
  to decide whether to short-circuit to the legacy
  search_with_filters path (avoiding canonical duplication when
  BM25 already returned a strong hit). But the matcher returns True
  for any candidate that extends the topic via prefix
  (Berlin_(disambiguation) extends Berlin,
  Apollo_(disambiguation) extends Apollo,
  List_of_…_named_after_X extends X). For new-scheme Wikipedia
  archives — where a disambig page nearly always sits next to the
  canonical — the gate fired on the disambig and the splice never
  ran. Tightened to top_path == canonical_path so the splice's
  reorder logic handles canonical promotion in every other shape.
  As a side effect this also unblocks H3's list-article demote,
  which lives inside the same splice block.

Fixed — Medium (post-a12 beta sweep)

• D6: L2 trailing-punctuation trim only stripped one category per
  call. tell me about DNA, and then tell me about Photosynthesis
  split on then to left=tell me about DNA, and (after
  trimming) → only the orphan and got stripped, the trailing ,
  stayed. The for/else shape entered the punctuation branch only
  when no connector matched. Reworked to loop until stable so the
  trim handles any combination of orphan connector word + trailing
  ;/, in any order.
• D7: block-level cell separator was a bare space — final fix.
  The a10/a11 fix turned 5th in Europe1st in Germany into
  5th in Europe 1st in Germany (space separator at block
  boundaries) so cells with <br>/<li>/<p> children no longer
  concatenated without a separator. But downstream LLMs still
  tokenised the space-separated form as a single phrase. Upgraded
  the block-cell joiner to emit "; " between block boundaries so a
  population-rank cell like <td>5th in Europe<br>1st in Germany</td> renders as 5th in Europe; 1st in Germany — two
  distinct values, same row label. Inline span groups (number
  formatting 3,913,644, coordinates 52°31′N) still concatenate
  directly per the a11 second-pass invariant.

Fixed — Low (post-a12 beta sweep)

• D8: legacy unstructured **Error Processing Query** template
  on four not-found surfaces. show structure of nonexistent_x,
  summary of nonexistent_x, get article nonexistent_x, and
  links in nonexistent_x all let their backend exception
  propagate to the top-level handle_zim_query except block,
  which emitted a generic template with: no intent telemetry
  comment (<!-- intent=... cert=... --> was added in a12 L1 but
  only for the structured early-return paths), Python helper-name
  leakage (Try using search_zim_file() / browse_namespace() —
  none of which are MCP-surface commands), and unhelpful
  troubleshooting refs (Check server logs — not accessible from
  the MCP surface). articles related to nonexistent_x was
  already modernised in a10 F3. Added a
  _render_not_found_recovery helper that returns the modernised
  shape (**Article not found: \path`**+suggestions for/find article titled/search forrecovery) and wrapped the four handler delegations withtry/except. The outer handle_zim_query` now layers the intent telemetry on success
  because the handlers return a string instead of raising.

Wire-format / surface changes (alpha-line clean breaks)

• tell me about France renders consecutive bullet sub-rows
  consistently anchored to the section parent. Pre-fix every
  Wikipedia country article showed a chained sequence like
  **• President — • Prime Minister:** ... /
  **• Prime Minister — • President of the Senate:** .... Post-fix
  each row reads **Government — • Prime Minister:** ....
• list_namespaces reports M=12 (matching walk namespace M and
  metadata for) for archives whose only non-human-readable M
  entry is Illustration_*. Pre-fix M=13.
• Biology; Chemistry is detected as a chained query. Pre-fix
  it silently resolved to Computational_Biology_&_Chemistry.
  Other bare-topic chains (DNA then Photosynthesis, Berlin and then Munich) likewise.
• tell me about X and then about Y is detected as a chained
  query. Pre-fix the right half (about Y) wasn't recognised as
  an op verb continuation; the query fell through to full-text
  search on the literal phrase.
• tell me about then and now (a topic whose name contains
  then) passes through unchanged. The bare-topic chain branch
  guards against incomplete-verb halves so connector-in-topic
  queries aren't mis-classified.
• search for Berlin in namespace C returns the canonical
  Berlin at rank #1. Pre-fix it returned
  [List_of_songs_about_Berlin, Berlin_(disambiguation), Timeline_of_Berlin] with the canonical absent. Similar shape on
  every namespace-C archive that has a disambig page for the topic.
• L2 chained-intent trim handles both orphan connectors and
  trailing punctuation. tell me about DNA, and then … renders
  the left op as tell me about DNA (no trailing , or and).
• Wikipedia infobox cells with <br>-separated values render with
  a "; " separator between values. **Rank:** 5th in Europe; 1st in Germany instead of 5th in Europe 1st in Germany. Inline
  span groups (number formatting, coordinates) unchanged.
• show structure of / summary of / get article / links in
  not-found responses are structured guidance with intent telemetry
  and concrete recovery commands. Same shape articles related to has carried since a10. Pre-fix these four used a legacy
  template with no telemetry and Python helper-name leakage.