feat(chat): suggest matching slash commands from natural language

[sukria-koan0]

Replace intent-routing/confirmation with simpler zero-cost approach.

Closes #1799

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Quality Report

Changes: 24 files changed, 1504 insertions(+), 2011 deletions(-)

Code scan: clean

Tests: passed (403
tests)

Branch hygiene: clean

Generated by Kōan

[Koan-Bot]

PR Review — feat(chat): suggest matching slash commands from natural language

Clean feature design, but the prompt template has two issues that should be fixed before merge.

• The example command /resume_recurring doesn't exist — will teach the LLM to hallucinate compound command names
• The instruction block ("Available slash commands…", "suggest when…") stays in the prompt even when the catalog is empty/disabled, wasting tokens and risking hallucinated suggestions
• Test assertion for catalog injection is vacuously true due to or with template text
• Alphabetical top-5-per-group is arbitrary — not the "top" commands by usefulness

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🟡 Important

1. Phantom command in prompt example (`koan/system-prompts/chat.md`, L21-26)

/resume_recurring doesn't exist. The actual command is /recurring resume <n> (subcommand syntax). An LLM seeing this example may hallucinate compound slash-command names that aren't in the catalog.

Use a real, simple command from the catalog — e.g. /review or /status.

suggest it in your reply — e.g. "That sounds like a job for `/resume_recurring` — want me to queue it?"

2. Instruction block leaks when catalog is empty (`koan/system-prompts/chat.md`, L21-26)

When suggestions are disabled or in lite mode, {SKILLS_CATALOG} is substituted with "" but the surrounding 5 lines ("Available slash commands…", "When the human's message clearly maps…") remain in the prompt. This wastes tokens and — worse — instructs the LLM to suggest commands from an empty list, which may cause hallucinated suggestions from training data.

Fix: move the entire block (header + catalog + instructions) into _build_command_catalog() so it returns the complete section when enabled, empty string when not. Then chat.md has just {SKILLS_CATALOG} on a line by itself.

Available slash commands (suggest when the human's message maps to one):
{SKILLS_CATALOG}

When the human's message clearly maps to a slash command from the list above...

3. Weak assertion — always passes via template text (`koan/tests/test_awake.py`, L3603-3607)

"Available slash commands" is hardcoded in the chat.md template, so the or branch always passes regardless of whether catalog injection works.

Assert on the actual injected content instead:

assert "/status" in prompt, "Catalog content should appear in prompt"

assert "/status" in prompt or "Available slash commands" in prompt, \
    "Non-lite prompt should have catalog"

🟢 Suggestions

1. Alphabetical sort != "top" commands (`koan/app/awake.py`, L207-210)

The docstring says "selects the top ~20 by group" but sorted(groups_dict[group])[:5] picks the first 5 alphabetically — /abort, /add_project, /ai… not necessarily the most useful.

Consider explicit priority ordering or at least sort by group relevance. Alternatively, add a suggest_priority field to SKILL.md frontmatter so operators can curate which commands surface.

for line in sorted(groups_dict[group])[:5]

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Checklist

• No hardcoded secrets
• Input validation at boundaries
• No bare except swallowing errors silently
• Error handling returns safe fallback
• No mutable default arguments
• Tests verify observable behavior not implementation
• No private skill/project names leaked — warning ＃1
• Prompt template correctness — warning ＃1, warning ＃2
• Test assertions are meaningful — warning ＃4
• Documentation updated

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To rebase specific severity levels, mention me: @Koan-Bot rebase critical (fixes 🔴 only), @Koan-Bot rebase important (fixes 🔴 + 🟡), or just @Koan-Bot rebase for all.

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Silent Failure Analysis

🟡 **MEDIUM** — catch-all masks registry bugs (`koan/app/awake.py:213-216`)

Risk: The broad except Exception returns the same empty string as the feature-disabled path, so a persistent bug in the skill registry (e.g. a SKILL.md with a None description hitting [:70]) silently degrades the feature with no way for callers or users to distinguish 'disabled' from 'broken'.

    except Exception as e:
        log("warn", f"[chat] catalog builder failed: {e}")
        return ""

Fix: Narrow the catch to expected failures (e.g. FileNotFoundError, KeyError) or log at error level with the traceback so persistent registry issues surface in normal log monitoring.

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Automated review by Kōan (Claude · model claude-opus-4-6) HEAD=8c0be44 4 min 37s

[Koan-Bot]

Blocking issues found — see the review comment above.

[sukria-koan0]

Review comments addressed:

• Phantom command: replaced /resume_recurring (non-existent) with /status in the suggestion example
• Instruction block leak: moved the entire Available slash commands… + suggestion instruction into _build_command_catalog() — when disabled/empty, the section is completely absent from the prompt, not just the list
• Weak test assertion: dropped the or "Available slash commands" branch that made the test pass vacuously via template text; now asserts on actual injected content (/status in prompt)

All 8 catalog/chat tests pass.

[sukria]

@sukria-koan0 review

[sukria-koan0]

Previous review — superseded by a newer review below.

[sukria]

To fix :

• /resume_recurring as been promoted to a sub command : /reccuring resume - change accordingly in user-manual.md and config.yaml example.
• Fix the Important issue spotted (Narrow the catch to expected failures, or
  Log at error level with the traceback so persistent issues surface in normal monitoring.)

@sukria-koan0 rebase

[sukria-koan0]

Rebase with requested adjustments

Branch koan0/implement-1799 was rebased onto main and review feedback was applied.

Changes applied

• Done.
• Changes:
• awake.py — narrowed silent failure: replaced broad except Exception returning the same empty string as the disabled path with log("error", ...) plus full traceback.format_exc(), so persistent registry bugs surface in monitoring instead of silently degrading to 'disabled'. Added import traceback. (Reviewer 🟡 Important Fix Python 3.8 compat, journal path, BACKLOG status #1)
• awake.py — None-description guard: changed desc = cmd.description[:70] if cmd.description else skill.description[:70] to fall back through cmd.description or skill.description or "" before slicing, eliminating the TypeError when both are None. (Reviewer 🟡 Important Fix Python 3.8 compat, journal path, BACKLOG status #1)
• user-manual.md + config.yaml example: replaced phantom /resume_recurring with the promoted sub-command /recurring resume. (Reviewer request)

Stats

8 files changed, 276 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

Actions performed

• Already-solved check: negative (confidence=high, reasoning=No commit on main implements natural-language chat slash-command suggestions or the chat.suggest_com)
• Rebased koan0/implement-1799 onto origin/main
• Applied review feedback
• Pre-push CI check: previous run passed
• Force-pushed koan0/implement-1799 to origin
• CI check enqueued in ## CI (async)

CI status

CI will be checked asynchronously.

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Automated by Kōan

[sukria]

By reading the diff, I see that we lost the "queuing" mechanic here, koan will just spot the matching command and say "want me to queue it" whereas it will not.

This is misleading.

Queuing the command was a nice idea, but led to security concerns.

Advise on the best solution here: KISS would argue to just rephrase the comment : "Seems you want to run ." and stop here (enhanced, dynamic documentation, in a way, which is good). Or, really queue the command, ask for confirmation, and if user confirms, trigger the command → I would really like koan to be able to do that, but that must go through the natural workflow/gates/security of existing code paths.

@sukria-koan0

[sukria]

Tested locally. Works.

[sukria]

@sukria-koan0 review

[sukria-koan0]

@sukria: By reading the diff, I see that we lost the "queuing" mechanic here, koan will just spot the matchin...

Now implemented as confirm-to-run, not queue. Chat offers via SUGGEST_COMMAND: marker; footer shows literal command. A tight "yes" replays that exact string through handle_command — every existing gate applies, no LLM at execution time. Per-skill opt-in (chat_confirmable: true); destructive commands excluded. Footer wording is "Reply yes to run", not "queue", so no longer misleading.

[sukria-koan0]

PR Review — feat(chat): suggest matching slash commands from natural language

Solid confirm-to-run design; addresses prior feedback and the queuing concern. Merge-ready.

• Security boundary is clean: command_confirm.py only validates + holds a pending offer; execution replays the literal command through the existing handle_command path, so all gates still apply.
• Eligibility is correctly opt-in per skill (chat_confirmable: true), and destructive commands stay excluded.
• Earlier review points resolved: narrowed catch now logs full traceback at error level; None-description fallback fixed; docs/config use the promoted /recurring resume.
• Pending offer is channel-bound, single-use, TTL'd, and cleared on any non-affirmative — good defense in depth.
• One micro edge case (peek/take race) noted as a suggestion, not blocking.

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Checklist

• No hardcoded secrets
• Command replay validated against registry + opt-in flag
• No bare except swallowing errors silently
• Error handling returns safe fallback
• Documentation consistent with code
• Tests verify observable behavior not implementation

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Silent Failure Analysis

🟡 **MEDIUM** — fallback value re-leaks marker on error (`koan/app/awake.py:478-481`)

Risk: On any failure during suggestion processing the raw, unstripped reply is returned, so a stray SUGGEST_COMMAND: marker leaks verbatim to the human instead of being scrubbed.

    except Exception:
        log("error", f"[chat] command-suggestion processing failed:\n{traceback.format_exc()}")
        return response

Fix: On exception, fall back to a marker-stripped reply (e.g. _MARKER_RE.sub("", response or "")) rather than the raw response.

🟡 **MEDIUM** — fallback value hides empty-strip result (`koan/app/awake.py:465-467`)

Risk: When the stripped reply is empty/whitespace, the or response fallback returns the original text including the SUGGEST_COMMAND: marker, defeating the strip that this disabled-path is meant to guarantee.

from app.command_confirm import _MARKER_RE
return _MARKER_RE.sub("", response or "").strip() or response

Fix: Drop the or response fallback (return the stripped string even if empty) so a stray marker can never reach the human when confirmation is disabled.

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Automated review by Kōan (Claude · model opus) HEAD=17baab3 1 min 17s

[atoomic]

Note: Would be nice to also support telegram group for such interactions and be able to reply