User policy decision (2026-06-05, exact): 'Hard filter. If it is denied
this week twice, it should be considered denied for good.'
The planner had no cross-week memory of denials: a denial on
meal_plan_item.approval_status was never consulted by the planner,
and NeverSuggest (the per-family permanent blocklist) was empty for
the user. The 'Roasted Sweet Potato and Chickpea Bowl' the user
denied on 2026-05-15 was still in the planner's pool 3 weeks
later.
Implements C + Z (explicit two-button model + soft-decay +
hard-filter escalation):
- Approve: untouched.
- Deny this week (1st in 90d): denial_expires_at = now() + 90d.
- Deny this week (2nd in 90d, server-side auto-escalation):
denial_expires_at = NULL + a NeverSuggest row written.
- Never again (explicit): same as the 2nd-time auto-escalation.
Both soft and permanent denials are hard filters in the planner
(per user). A denied recipe never reappears until either the 90d
window expires or the user un-blocks via the NeverSuggest API.
Changes:
- Migration 0016: meal_plan_item.denial_expires_at (partial index)
and meal_plan_vote.denial_scope.
- 3 backend helpers (_apply_denial, _ensure_never_suggest_recipe,
_has_prior_active_soft_denial) — single source of truth for the
deny path.
- POST /api/meals/items/{id}/deny?scope=this_week|never_again
(default this_week). Returns promoted_to_permanent.
- POST /api/meals/vote/{id} extended: vote=approve|deny|never_again.
Returns denial_scope + promoted_to_permanent.
- GET /api/meals/vote/{id} HTML page renders 3 buttons; supports
one-click ?scope=... for email direct-action links.
- Email template (step_email): 3 direct-action links per recipe
plus a secondary 'open vote page' link.
- Planner: _load_blocklists returns 3 sets; soft_denied_recipes
is hard-filtered (union with blocked_recipes at the call site).
- Frontend: MealCard renders 3 buttons (Approve / Deny this week
/ Never again) for pending items. handleDeny is scope-aware;
toast reflects promoted_to_permanent. window.confirm on
'Never again' prevents accidental permanent blocks.
Verification:
- npm run build green.
- 21/21 planner tests pass (1 pre-existing test_filter_blocks_by_cost
failure is NOT introduced by Sprint 8 — verified via git stash).
- Review/sprint8-verification.md: 11-step browser smoke + 4 API
curls + email-render procedure + rollback.
Files:
- backend/alembic/versions/0016_denial_decay_and_scope.py (new)
- backend/app/models/__init__.py:221-242, 250-269
- backend/app/schemas/__init__.py:204-219, 248-269
- backend/app/api/meals.py:30-138 (helpers), 240-330 (HTML page),
380-455 (submit_vote), 486-552 (deny_meal_item)
- backend/app/services/orchestrator/steps.py:283-300
- backend/app/services/planner/generate.py:59-99, 150-194
- frontend/src/api/index.ts:48-58
- frontend/src/pages/Dashboard.tsx:38-50, 385-410
- Review/{sprint8-verification,ui-nielsen-audit,handoff-ui-audit}.md
- fix-ui-audit.md
- docs/HANDOFF.md
- .agent/{plan,context}.md
Deploy (user runs on deployment host):
cd ~/MealPlanner && git pull
docker compose exec backend alembic upgrade head
docker compose -f docker-compose.yml up -d --build backend frontend
- Migration 0012 adds score (float) and components (jsonb) to meal_plan_item
- generate.py: populates score and components at create time
- schemas/MealPlanItemResponse: include score + components fields
- GET /api/meal-plans/{id}: returns persisted values instead of zeros
- /api/admin/test-email now calls get_email_backend().send() instead of only logging.
- /api/meals/vote/{id} GET now queries MealPlanVote and renders 'already voted' confirmation if found.
- api/meals.py: fix remaining uppercase MealPlanItemStatus enum ref (DENIED, APPROVED, PENDING).
- Fixes the 'all meals show as pending' status regression and the 'Error: Already voted' bug.
Matcher improvements (matcher.py):
- Plural normalization: 'tortillas'→'tortilla', 'thighs'→'thigh' so
subset recall check works without stemmer
- Precision floor lowered 0.45→0.30: allows 'Bacon'→'Wright Brand Bacon'
(1/3=0.33) while exclusion words still block category contaminants
- _EXCLUSION_WORDS now normalized through same singularizer for consistency
LLM second-pass (llm_matcher.py):
- run_llm_match_job(): for each still-unmatched ingredient, collects top-12
candidates from grocery catalog ranked by fuzzy×precision (same metric as
AUTO matcher), then asks Ollama to pick the best match
- Candidate scoring: combined = (partial_token_sort_ratio/100) × precision
ensures "McCormick Black Pepper" outranks "Dr Pepper" for 'Black Pepper'
- Stores picks as source='auto_llm' (confidence=0.750)
- Ollama Cloud endpoint: https://ollama.com/v1, model: kimi-k2.6:cloud
Migration 0010: adds 'auto_llm' to ingredient_match_source_enum
Config: OLLAMA_BASE_URL / OLLAMA_API_KEY / OLLAMA_MODEL settings
Docker-compose: wires all three Ollama + Spoonacular env vars to backend/scheduler
Scraper service: calls run_llm_match_job after run_match_job on every scrape
Results: AUTO matcher went from 36→25 unmatched (plural normalization fix),
LLM added 3 more (Black Pepper, Zucchini, Chicken Thighs).
Remaining 22 are genuine Lucky CA catalog gaps (standalone olive oil,
dried spices, etc. not in Swiftly weekly ad).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Backend (FastAPI):
- docker-compose with all 4 services
- FastAPI app with health endpoints
- SQLAlchemy models for all tables
- Placeholder API endpoints for all routes
- Config and database modules
- requirements.txt with all dependencies
Frontend (React):
- package.json with React, Tailwind, React Query, React Router
- Vite config with API proxy
- Tailwind and TypeScript configs
- Basic App with routing skeleton
- Placeholder pages (Dashboard, MealDetail, Pantry)
Infrastructure:
- nginx config for reverse proxy
- Dockerfile for backend and frontend
MealPlanner
admin