Rank object spans ahead of array spans in JSON extraction

README.md

@@ -493,7 +493,7 @@ Re-derived on 2026-07-28 by running each item, not by reading the commit log.
 - **`run_command` is not confined.** Argv-only and never a shell, but the child is an ordinary process with your privileges.
 - *Closed:* a `max_seconds` past the platform's `time_t` — `float("inf")`, or a plausible "effectively unlimited" like `1e10` — used to **disable the deadline guard for the rest of the process**. `setitimer` raised *after* the SIGALRM handler was installed and the process-wide slot taken, leaking both, so every later run silently fell back to the mechanism that cannot unwind a blocking syscall: a 0.3s ceiling then took a 5s sleep to notice. Arming is undone on failure now, and the armed delay is clamped to what both mechanisms accept.
 - *Closed:* every `async def` node **double-charged** its token re-reports. The re-report ledger was keyed by thread ident, but `on_llm_end` is sync — under `ainvoke` LangChain dispatches it to a worker thread while the body stays on the event loop — so the automatic charge found no ledger and the node's named re-report was charged again. Any node using the shipped `charge_usage`, `AgentNode._charge_tokens` or `planner.proposal._charge` reported double its real spend and hit `max_tokens` at half its declared allowance. The ledger is a `contextvars` scope now, which also fixes an inner scope discarding the enclosing node's.
-- *Closed:* a bracket anywhere in a model's **prose** hijacked JSON extraction, because only the first `{`/`[` was ever tried. `Based on the context [lines 3-5]: {…}` was rejected as unparseable, and — worse — `Analysis (note [1]): {"supported": false}` returned a perfectly valid `[1]`, substituting a fabricated value for the verifier's actual answer. Every opener is tried now, longest parse wins; junk still returns `None`, so fail-closed is unchanged.
+- *Closed:* a bracket anywhere in a model's **prose** hijacked JSON extraction, because only the first `{`/`[` was ever tried. `Based on the context [lines 3-5]: {…}` was rejected as unparseable, and — worse — `Analysis (note [1]): {"supported": false}` returned a perfectly valid `[1]`, substituting a fabricated value for the verifier's actual answer. Every opener is tried now, and length alone turned out not to be a safe rank — a citation list like `[101, 205, 309, …]` *longer* than the verdict still won — so object spans are tried before array spans, each longest-first; junk still returns `None`, so fail-closed is unchanged.
 - **`interrupt()` suspends but cannot be resumed.** LangGraph's native interrupt stops the graph and shows on `get_state`, and there is no supported resume path — resuming means passing a `Command` as *input*, which is closed by design. Use the session layer's approval gate for human-in-the-loop.
 - **Still unwrapped from LangGraph:** `retry_policy`, `cache_policy`, `durability`, subgraphs. `.inner` reaches them, but execution entry points there fail closed, so `.inner` is an inspection escape hatch and not a way to run the graph.
 - **Cost is recorded when a backend reports one, estimated when it does not.** Both gateways publish the provider's `cost_usd` through the same `llm_output` envelope, the runtime's usage callback writes it onto the node's `end` event, and an agent's `model` events carry the per-call breakdown. A backend that reports no price still falls back to a `RateCard` estimate, and the two figures stay apart — `recorded_cost_usd` is never a guess. Still missing: no tenant on a trace event, so per-tenant attribution is not offered.

grapharc/runtime/parsing.py

@@ -50,7 +50,8 @@ def _span_from(text: str, start: int) -> str | None:
 
 
 def _balanced_spans(text: str) -> list[str]:
-    """Every balanced {...} or [...] region, longest first.
+    """Every balanced {...} or [...] region: objects longest-first, then arrays
+    longest-first.
 
     Every opener is tried, not just the first one in the text. Taking only the
     first meant any bracket in the model's *prose* hijacked the span and the real
@@ -59,17 +60,23 @@ def _balanced_spans(text: str) -> list[str]:
     `Analysis (note [1]): {"supported": false}` yielded a perfectly valid `[1]`,
     substituting a fabricated value for the model's actual answer.
 
-    Longest first is what makes the ranking safe. It prefers a complete structure
-    over both a prose fragment that happens to parse and a nested piece of the
-    answer itself, so `{"claims": [{...}]}` returns the whole object rather than
-    the inner list.
+    Length alone was not sufficient to make the ranking safe. It does prefer a
+    complete structure over a nested piece of the answer itself — `{"claims":
+    [{...}]}` returns the whole object rather than the inner list — but a prose
+    fragment *longer* than the answer still won: a citation list like
+    `[101, 205, 309, ...]` outranked the real `{"supported": false}` verdict.
+    Prose brackets are square (`[1]`, `[lines 3-5]`, citation lists) while the
+    model's answer is a top-level object for every shipped caller, so object
+    spans rank ahead of array spans, each group longest-first. An array-only
+    reply still parses whole or fenced before any span is tried, so top-level
+    arrays remain reachable.
     """
     spans = [
         span
         for i, ch in enumerate(text)
         if ch in "{[" and (span := _span_from(text, i)) is not None
     ]
-    return sorted(spans, key=len, reverse=True)
+    return sorted(spans, key=lambda span: (span[0] != "{", -len(span)))
 
 
 def extract_json(content: Any) -> Any | None:

tests/test_parsing.py

@@ -67,6 +67,26 @@ def test_a_prose_bracket_is_never_substituted_for_the_answer():
     assert extract_json(reply) == {"supported": False, "reason": "negated"}
 
 
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("supported", [False, True])
+def test_a_long_prose_bracket_does_not_outrank_the_answer(supported):
+    """Length-only ranking let a citation list *longer* than the verdict win, so
+    the model's actual answer was never returned. Objects rank ahead of arrays:
+    prose brackets are square, and every shipped caller expects an object."""
+    verdict = "false" if supported is False else "true"
+    reply = (
+        "Verified against source lines [101, 205, 309, 412, 518, 622, 733, 848]: "
+        f'{{"supported": {verdict}}}'
+    )
+    assert extract_json(reply) == {"supported": supported}
+
+
+def test_an_array_answer_survives_a_brace_in_the_prose():
+    """Ranking objects first must not strand array answers: `figure{2}` does not
+    parse, so the balanced-span fallback still reaches the unfenced array."""
+    reply = "Matching ids, see figure{2}: [101, 205, 309]"
+    assert extract_json(reply) == [101, 205, 309]
+
+
 def test_the_outermost_structure_wins_over_a_nested_piece_of_it():
     reply = 'Verdict: {"claims": [{"text": "a"}], "n": 1}'
     assert extract_json(reply) == {"claims": [{"text": "a"}], "n": 1}