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/meal_plans.py: /regenerate now passes exclude_recipe_ids into generate_meal_plan
- planner/generate.py: filter recipe_dicts by exclude_recipe_ids set
- image_generation.py: OpenAI gpt-image-1 client with prompt building, b64_json handling
- main.py: StaticFiles mount at /static for generated images
- admin.py: POST /api/admin/trigger-images endpoint for batch generation
- scripts/generate_images.py: CLI for batch image generation
- docker-compose.yml + nginx: volume mounts for static/images persistence
- Verify MealPlanItem.votes ↔ MealPlanVote relationship is correct; no model bug exists
- Add UnitConverter (normalization, within-family, density tables)
- Update cost.py to convert recipe qty to grocery price unit
- Update generate.py _load_match_index to fetch ingredient name + unit
- Fix orchestrator email/shopping-list cost loops to use conversion
- Fix missing Ingredient import in generate.py
- Add 19 unit tests
- /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.
MealPlanner
admin