DO NOT MERGE until local validation passes on 3+ golden topics.
Problem: the magic footer (✅ All agents reported back!, emoji tree,
Top voices, Raw results saved) was composed by the synthesizer model
following a "Copy this EXACTLY" template buried 1150 lines into SKILL.md.
Under context pressure, Opus 4.7 dropped it. Three recent /last30days
runs (Opus 4.7, programming language for AI agents, Kanye West)
produced clean prose with no footer and used AI-slop section headers
(## The launch, ## Where it disappoints) instead of flowing paragraphs.
Fix:
1. render.py: new _render_emoji_footer() emits the deterministic footer
as the final block of every compact output. Zero-count sources are
omitted. Tree characters (├─ / └─) computed from populated-line
count. The model no longer assembles the tree from text instructions.
2. render.py: new _site_name_for_url() and _format_web_line_sources()
map URLs to clean publication names (Later, Buffer, CNN, etc.) so
the 🌐 Web line is pre-assembled by Python.
3. last30days.py: compute_save_path_display() turns the save path into
a ~/-relative string that the engine puts in the footer. Signature
change: emit_output() and render_compact() both accept save_path.
4. SKILL.md synthesis contract rewritten:
- Footer template DELETED. Replaced with instruction to include the
engine footer block verbatim.
- URL-to-site-name sub-block DELETED. Engine does this.
- "Calculate actual totals" paragraph DELETED. Engine does this.
- All em-dashes in the synthesis section replaced with ` - ` (single
hyphen with spaces). Em-dashes are the most reliable AI-slop tell.
- New rules: no ## markdown section headers in response body, no
invented title line like "{Topic}: last 30 days", no bold section
labels acting as headers. Bold-lead-in paragraph shape stays.
- SELF-CHECK updated to verify footer presence, no em-dashes, no
body-level headers.
Tests: 15 new tests covering footer emission, zero-source omission,
tree character placement, save-path threading, URL-to-name helper,
Web line formatting, Top voices combination, Polymarket line.
All 127 tests pass across render, rerank, cluster, briefing, CLI,
internals, fun-scoring.
Plan: docs/plans/2026-04-17-003-feat-deterministic-footer-plan.md
Local validation protocol (blocks merge):
- Run /last30days in a fresh Claude Code window on 5 golden topics
- Verify each output contains the footer block verbatim
- Verify zero ## body headers, zero em-dashes/en-dashes, zero invented
title lines
- Report 5x8 pass/fail matrix; all 40 cells must be green before merge
🤖 Generated with Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) via [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code) + Compound Engineering v2.63.1
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Matt Van Horn
6acfc9017e