The anydoc path from #79781 passed every covered file straight to
to_markdown with no pre-check. anydoc loads the whole document through
its Rust core and the read_file char budget only applies after
conversion, so one large PDF or deck could pin a tool turn and spike
RAM.
_extract_anydoc now rejects inputs over MAX_ANYDOC_BYTES (50 MB) with
ExtractionError before calling the converter, which routes them to the
existing read_file fallthrough instead of converting. No timeout is
added: the conversion is a synchronous Rust call that cannot be
cancelled from Python, so a thread-based deadline would bound the wait
but leave the RAM burn running in the background.
The first _anydoc() load cached None on any failure (network blip,
missing wheel, pip race), so one bad first try disabled document
extraction for the rest of the process. Long-lived gateway and desktop
workers never recovered.
Failed loads now cool down for ANYDOC_RETRY_SECONDS and retry instead
of sticking, and a lock serializes first use so parallel readers cannot
double-install or race a failure into the cache. Successful loads are
still cached for the process lifetime.
read_file's auto-extraction covered only the stdlib trio (.ipynb/.docx/
.xlsx). firecrawl-anydoc (MIT, Rust core, imports as `anydoc`) converts
Word, PowerPoint, Excel — including legacy .doc/.ppt/.xls — OpenDocument,
RTF, EPUB, and PDF to clean Markdown through one shared document model.
Wiring follows the footprint ladder: no new tool, no hard dependency.
- tools/read_extract.py gains an ANYDOC_EXTENSIONS set that is active
only when the converter imports; the stdlib extractors remain
authoritative for their three formats so behavior is identical with
or without the package.
- tools/lazy_deps.py adds tool.doc_extract (firecrawl-anydoc==0.1.6),
installed on first read of such a file with prompt=False so read_file
can never block. Lazy-only for now: the package's first release was
2026-08-04, inside uv's 14-day exclude-newer quarantine, so the
mirrored pyproject extra lands after it clears.
- Any anydoc ConvertError maps to ExtractionError, falling back to the
existing path/binary handling instead of erroring the tool.
Tests: real-binding suite skips cleanly when the wheel is absent
(verified: 15 passed/3 skipped without it, 18 passed with it), plus an
absent-dep contract class that pins the fallback regardless of local
install state.
Second, deeper pass over tools/gateway/hermes_cli plus first pass over
the trees wave 1 missed (acp, acp_adapter, skills, computer_use, docker,
dashboard, conformance, monitoring, secret_sources, hermes_state,
providers). Same rubric as wave 1 (AGENTS.md test policy); security,
alternation/caching invariants, issue-number regressions, and E2E kept.
Real test-quality fixes found and rooted out along the way:
- tests/tools/test_command_guards.py made real auxiliary-LLM HTTPS calls
(DEFAULT_CONFIG smart-approval leaked in) — pinned approval
mode=manual via autouse fixture: 17.4s → 0.4s.
- test_model_switch_custom_providers.py / test_user_providers_model_switch.py
silently probed live provider catalogs (~2s/test) — stubbed
cached_provider_model_ids/provider_model_ids/fetch_api_models.
- test_telegram_noise_filter.py: 15-platform copy-paste matrix over
shared gateway.run logic → 3 representative platforms (55s → 3.9s).
- test_gateway_shutdown.py: stop()'s 5s interrupt-deadline loop spun on
MagicMock agents — interrupt.side_effect now clears _running_agents
(22s → 1.0s).
- test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py poll-harness timings shrunk 3-5x
(24s → 1.1s); test_mcp_stability.py backoff/SIGTERM-grace sleeps
patched (15.4s → 2.5s); test_async_delegation.py negative-drain wait
5s → 0.5s.
- test_telegram_init_deadline.py: loop-block margin restored to 1.0s
with rationale comment — the watchdog-dump assertion needs the loop
blocked well past deadline+grace under parallel load (flaked once in
the 40-worker verification run at a 0.2s margin).
Verification: full hermetic suite via scripts/run_tests.sh —
2,438 files, 21,718 tests passed, 0 failed, 293.9s wall.
Suite totals vs original baseline: 46,820 → 19,757 test functions
(−57.8%), wall 583.5s → 293.9s (−50%), subprocess CPU 13,564s → 11,623s.