The xAI Responses API for x_search returns 200 OK with a
synthesized fluff answer in two failure modes that callers currently
cannot distinguish from a real, citation-backed result:
1. Any narrowing filter (allowed_x_handles, excluded_x_handles,
from_date, to_date) was active, but the X index returned no
matching posts. The model then answers from training data.
2. The date range is malformed, inverted, or pure-future (e.g.
from_date=2030-01-01). The API call burns quota and Grok
responds with a generic answer.
Mitigations, both client-side:
* Validate from_date / to_date before the HTTP call:
- Strict YYYY-MM-DD.
- from_date <= to_date when both set.
- from_date <= today UTC (no posts in a window that hasn't
started). to_date in the future remains allowed so callers
can request 'from yesterday to tomorrow'.
* Add 'degraded' + 'degraded_reason' to successful responses.
degraded=True iff any narrowing filter was active AND both the
top-level 'citations' array and inline 'url_citation'
annotations came back empty. A broad query with no filters that
returns no citations is *not* flagged degraded — that case is
just an unsourced answer, not a filter miss.
Tests cover all four validation paths plus six degraded-flag
scenarios (each filter type, inline vs top-level citation
recovery, broad query baseline). All existing tests continue to
pass; the additions are purely additive on the success-path
response shape.
Discovered while testing the x_search toolset end-to-end:
queries scoped to @Teknium1 returned confident-sounding generic
text about Nous Research with zero citations, and from_date in
2030 produced sassy non-answers. Both are now detectable by the
caller.
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