Match approvals and commands regardless of case and trailing punctuation

A phone keyboard's "Approve" did not match the approval pattern, so it
counted as rejection feedback and threw the plan away; "Stop" did not
reach the cancel flag; other capitalised commands got a hint instead of
acting.

gates.command_form() is how a message reads as a command: case,
surrounding whitespace, inner runs of whitespace and a trailing '.' or
'!' do not matter. The approval gate and every command match in the
orchestrator (stop, status, abandon, use, start milestone, next
milestone, project complete, the restart choices) use it. Only matching
changes: the project name in 'use <name>' keeps its case, and feedback
and answers are recorded and passed on as written. A stale revision is
still refused, and approval still needs the whole message to be the
command.

Closes #64.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE

nisse-dev/src/nisse_dev/control.py

@@ -23,7 +23,14 @@ from typing import Any, Protocol
 
 from nisse_dev.cancel import Cancel
 from nisse_dev.canonical import GateOpened, PlanSubmitted, UserMessage
-from nisse_dev.gates import Approved, Gate, Ignored, PlanRevision, Rejected
+from nisse_dev.gates import (
+    Approved,
+    Gate,
+    Ignored,
+    PlanRevision,
+    Rejected,
+    command_form,
+)
 from nisse_dev.git import GitError
 from nisse_dev.gitea import GiteaError
 from nisse_dev.llm import RoleMap
@@ -165,6 +172,12 @@ class StubAgent:
         return SubmitPlan(f"[stub] {gate} plan for {project}{notes}")
 
 
+def _project_name(text: str) -> str:
+    """The name in 'use <name>', as written: only the command word is
+    case-insensitive."""
+    return text.strip().rstrip(".!")[len("use") :].strip()
+
+
 def _fresh_data() -> dict[str, Any]:
     return {
         "revs": {},
@@ -331,7 +344,7 @@ class Orchestrator:
         if msg.sender not in self._operators:
             return
         text = msg.text.strip()
-        if text == "stop":
+        if command_form(text) == "stop":
             # Straight to the flag, not behind the work in the queue: the
             # work is what it has to reach (A4).
             if self._worker.busy:
@@ -434,9 +447,10 @@ class Orchestrator:
         state = self._store.get_state()
         current = state.state if state else IDLE
         text = msg.text.strip()
-        if text == "status":
+        command = command_form(text)
+        if command == "status":
             self._send_status(current)
-        elif text == "abandon":
+        elif command == "abandon":
             # Like status, a command in every waiting state: it takes
             # precedence over reading the word as an answer or feedback.
             if current == IDLE:
@@ -444,8 +458,8 @@ class Orchestrator:
             else:
                 self._abandon(msg.sender)
         elif current == IDLE:
-            if text.startswith("use "):
+            if command.startswith("use "):
-                self._begin_project(text[4:].strip())
+                self._begin_project(_project_name(text))
             else:
                 self._transport.send_message("no active project; say 'use <project>'")
         elif current in (AWAIT_ARCH_SIGNOFF, AWAIT_MILESTONE_SIGNOFF):
@@ -592,7 +606,7 @@ class Orchestrator:
         name, rev = gate_data["name"], gate_data["rev"]
         milestone = self._data["milestone"]
         if gate_data["approved"]:
-            if text == f"start milestone {milestone}":
+            if command_form(text) == f"start milestone {milestone}":
                 self._transition(
                     EXECUTING, cause=f"operator command: start milestone {milestone}"
                 )
@@ -941,14 +955,15 @@ class Orchestrator:
             )
 
     def _handle_pr_open(self, text: str) -> None:
-        if text == "next milestone":
+        command = command_form(text)
+        if command == "next milestone":
             self._unwatch("review")
             self._data["milestone"] = int(self._data.get("milestone", 1)) + 1
             self._data["gate"] = None
             self._data["pr"] = None
             self._transition(MILESTONE_PLANNING, cause="operator: next milestone")
             self._run_planning_turn(f"milestone-{self._data['milestone']}")
-        elif text == "project complete":
+        elif command == "project complete":
             self.stop_watching()
             self._data = {**_fresh_data()}
             self._project = None
@@ -1022,9 +1037,9 @@ class Orchestrator:
         if pending is None:
             # Reached only if state was forced externally or a pending item
             # was lost; starting over must still work from here.
-            if text.startswith("use "):
+            if command_form(text).startswith("use "):
                 self.stop_watching()
-                self._begin_project(text[4:].strip())
+                self._begin_project(_project_name(text))
                 return
             self._transport.send_message(
                 "waiting for direction, but I have no pending item to resume; "
@@ -1061,7 +1076,7 @@ class Orchestrator:
         """Answer to the question a restart asks (A3 step 7). Never a blind
         resume: 'continue' re-runs the interrupted planning turn, or returns
         an interrupted milestone to its approved plan to be started again."""
-        choice = text.strip().rstrip(".!").lower()
+        choice = command_form(text)
         if choice not in ("continue", "re-plan", "replan"):
             self._data["pending"] = pending
             self._transport.ask_question(_BOOT_CHOICES)

nisse-dev/src/nisse_dev/gates.py

@@ -50,6 +50,14 @@ class Ignored:
 _APPROVE_RE = re.compile(r"^approve(?:\s+(rev-\d+))?$")
 
 
+def command_form(text: str) -> str:
+    """How a message reads as a command: case, surrounding whitespace, runs
+    of inner whitespace and trailing '.' or '!' do not matter, so a phone's
+    "Approve." is still an approval. Only for matching; what the operator
+    wrote is what gets recorded and passed on."""
+    return " ".join(text.strip().rstrip(".!").split()).lower()
+
+
 class Gate:
     def __init__(self, revision: PlanRevision, operators: AbstractSet[str]) -> None:
         self._revision = revision
@@ -61,7 +69,7 @@ class Gate:
         if sender not in self._operators:
             return Ignored(notice=None)
         text = text.strip()
-        match = _APPROVE_RE.match(text)
+        match = _APPROVE_RE.match(command_form(text))
         if match is None:
             return Rejected(feedback=text, approver=sender, channel=channel)
         named = match.group(1)

nisse-dev/tests/test_control.py

@@ -269,3 +269,17 @@ def test_use_starts_over_when_nothing_is_pending(h: Harness) -> None:
     h.store.transition(AWAIT_INPUT, cause="forced", project="demo", data={})
     h.transport.receive("don", "use demo")
     assert h.state == AWAIT_ARCH_SIGNOFF
+
+
+def test_commands_ignore_case_but_the_project_name_keeps_it(h: Harness) -> None:
+    h.transport.receive("don", "Use Demo.")
+    assert h.state == AWAIT_ARCH_SIGNOFF
+    assert h.store.get_state().project == "Demo"
+    h.transport.receive("don", "Status")
+    assert "AWAIT_ARCH_SIGNOFF" in h.outbound_texts()[-1]
+    h.transport.receive("don", "Approve")
+    h.transport.receive("don", "Approve.")
+    h.transport.receive("don", "Start Milestone 1")
+    assert h.state == PR_OPEN
+    h.transport.receive("don", "Project Complete!")
+    assert h.state == IDLE

nisse-dev/tests/test_gates.py

@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+import pytest
+
 from nisse_dev.gates import Approved, Gate, Ignored, PlanRevision, Rejected
 
 REVISION = PlanRevision(gate="arch", rev=2, content="the plan")
@@ -46,3 +48,22 @@ def test_approve_with_trailing_words_is_rejection() -> None:
     # typed word approve, nothing else).
     result = gate().evaluate("don", "approve, but rename the module", "transport")
     assert isinstance(result, Rejected)
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    "text", ["Approve", "APPROVE", "Approve.", "approve!", "  Approve  rev-2 "]
+)
+def test_approval_ignores_case_and_trailing_punctuation(text: str) -> None:
+    # A phone keyboard's "Approve" used to count as rejection feedback (#64).
+    assert isinstance(gate().evaluate("don", text, channel="transport"), Approved)
+
+
+def test_a_capitalised_stale_approval_is_still_refused() -> None:
+    result = gate().evaluate("don", "Approve REV-1", channel="transport")
+    assert isinstance(result, Ignored)
+
+
+def test_a_sentence_containing_approve_is_still_feedback() -> None:
+    result = gate().evaluate("don", "I approve of most of it", channel="transport")
+    assert isinstance(result, Rejected)
+    assert result.feedback == "I approve of most of it"

nisse-dev/tests/test_stop.py

@@ -5,6 +5,8 @@ import threading
 from pathlib import Path
 from typing import Any
 
+import pytest
+
 from nisse_dev.cancel import STOPPED_RESULT, Cancel
 from nisse_dev.canonical import AssistantText, ToolCall, ToolResult, UserMessage
 from nisse_dev.control import (
@@ -207,7 +209,8 @@ class BlocksUntilStopped:
         return ExecutorOutcome("completed", "never stopped")
 
 
-def test_stop_reaches_work_running_on_the_worker(tmp_path: Path) -> None:
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("word", ["stop", "Stop!", " STOP "])
+def test_stop_reaches_work_running_on_the_worker(tmp_path: Path, word: str) -> None:
     # The bug this design fixes: the work used to run on the transport's own
     # thread, so no message, stop included, was read until it finished.
     worker = SerialWorker()
@@ -231,7 +234,7 @@ def test_stop_reaches_work_running_on_the_worker(tmp_path: Path) -> None:
     assert executor.running.wait(5)
 
     transport.receive("don", "status")  # delivered while the milestone runs
-    transport.receive("don", "stop")
+    transport.receive("don", word)  # a phone may capitalise it (#64)
     worker.call(lambda: None)  # wait for the stop to be recorded
 
     texts = [m.text for m in transport.outbound]