Prerelease quirks

September 2, 2026 · View on GitHub

This file lists everything that changed or broke since the last stable release, 8.0.0. It is version-stamped and newest first. If you install an alpha of ovos-workshop, read this before you file a bug: the behavior you are seeing may be documented here already.

This file resets at the next stable release. At that point its contents become upgrade notes for the 8.0.0 -> next-stable jump, and a new, empty quirks log starts.

9.6.2a4 — `intent_files` decorator registrations now carry context gates

A decorated handler's intent_files entries reach register_intent_file with its requires_context/excludes_context declarations attached; the intents branch of _register_decorated already forwarded them, but the intent_files branch silently dropped them, so a decorated skill gating an .intent-file handler had its OVOS-CONTEXT-1 §6/§6.1 declaration lost before it ever reached the wire.

9.6.2a1 — common-query pong carries the ratified fields

The ovos.common_query.pong a common-query skill emits now includes the ARCHITECTURE common-query.md §6.2 fields — utterance (echoed from the ping) and can_answer — alongside the pre-spec skill_id/is_classic_cq keys, which are kept for one stable cycle and removed at the next major. ovos-common-query-pipeline-plugin's OVOSCommonQAPipeline.handle_skill_pong still only reads skill_id/is_classic_cq at registration time, so the new keys are additive and change nothing for that consumer today. can_answer is always True here: the pong the workshop fires is a registration-time announcement ("this skill has a common-query handler"), not a per-utterance verdict — the classic protocol's real accept/decline happens later, per phrase, via question:query/question:query.response. latency_ms is omitted; no synchronous timing estimate is available at this point in the flow.

9.6.0a4 — skill teardown (`shutdown` + `default_shutdown`) is re-entrant

BaseSkill now guards its whole teardown pair with a lock and a _shutdown_done flag, set only by default_shutdown(). __del__ only checks the flag, never sets it, before calling the skill-authored shutdown(). This covers both races without breaking the common case: if SkillManager.unload_skill() already ran skill.shutdown() then default_shutdown() explicitly, a later GC-triggered __del__() sees the flag set and returns immediately instead of re-running the skill's own cleanup (closing sockets, unsubscribing callbacks, stopping threads) and settings.store()/gui.shutdown()/event_scheduler.shutdown() a second time; if GC alone drops the last reference with no prior explicit unload, the flag is still unset, so __del__ runs the full teardown pair exactly once and default_shutdown() sets the flag on its way through.

9.5.5a3 — intent registration carries OVOS-CONTEXT-1 gating

@intent_handler accepts requires_context/excludes_context kwargs — OVOS-CONTEXT-1 §6/§6.1 gating declarations, each entry a bare key string or a {"key": ..., "scope": "private"|"shared"} mapping. They ride the ovos.intent.register.template / legacy padatious:register_intent payloads for .intent file handlers, and the ovos.intent.register.keyword / legacy register_intent payloads for IntentBuilder (Adapt) handlers, as additional fields (INTENT-4 §5.3/§5's unknown-field tolerance), defaulting to an empty list when undeclared. Adapt has no OVOS-CONTEXT-1-aware matcher, so the declaration currently has no effect on Adapt's own matching, but per CONTEXT-1 §6 "an engine that does not implement OVOS-CONTEXT-1 ignores them and matches as if absent" — the field still reaches the wire rather than being stripped at the producer. Enforcement is engine-side; workshop only carries the declaration.

9.5.0a3 — spec template registration carries slot_blacklist

The ovos.intent.register.template emission now includes the slot_blacklist dict, matching the legacy padatious:register_intent payload. It was omitted, so the §4.3 slot-value exclusion feature only worked through the legacy emit and would have silently died with the legacy path's planned removal. Engines already read the field.

9.5.0a3 — blacklist files expand bare template syntax

BlacklistFile.load now enumerates alternation and optional groups written without a <vocab> reference — (it|this|that) becomes three entries instead of one verbatim string that could never match (the blacklist was silently inert). Any loaded entry still carrying unexpanded template syntax logs a warning naming the source file.

9.5.0a1 (#541)

Every .entity file a skill ships is now auto-registered for its locale on first resource load, with no filtering by whether an .intent file declares a matching slot. Files in subdirectories are registered too.

Disable via config: {"skills": {"auto_register_entity_files": false}}.
Padatious closed-vocabulary hazard: on ovos-padatious <= 2.0.2a1, a registered entity can make a previously-unconstrained wildcard slot reject inputs it used to accept. Pin ovos-padatious >= 2.0.3a1 alongside this release, or disable the config gate.
A bare # placeholder line (old mycroft-core digit-wildcard convention) is dead: read_resource_file already strips it as a comment before samples is built, so it was never a wildcard. It now logs a deprecation warning instead of silently doing nothing.

9.4.0a1 (#534)

ConversationalSkill now answers the converse broadcast poll (OVOS-CONVERSE-1 §4.2).

9.3.14a1 (#542)

Hotfix. The #538 import swap in converse.py moved to ovos_spec_tools.standardize_lang but missed the call site inside _handle_converse_request, which kept calling the no-longer-imported standardize_lang_tag. Every live converse request raised NameError, silently swallowed by the handler's own except-clause into a {result: False, error: ...} wire response — converse never actually ran. Fixed with a regression test that drives the real handler over the bus.

9.3.13a2 (#538, #537)

Closed out a completed deprecation-warnings survey: OVOSSkill.set_context and remove_context now delegate to a private, non-warning path on IntentServiceInterface instead of tripping their own deprecation warning on every call from inside the base class. Suites that deliberately exercise the legacy register_adapt_*/register_padatious_* facade get scoped filterwarnings so their expected warnings don't pollute the rest of the run.

9.3.13a1 (#535)

set_context/remove_context now delegate to the session API instead of racing skill-reply forwards against the legacy add_context/ remove_context bus topic (finding 29). A registry write for a positive timeout carries a real expires_at timestamp; an immortal entry (no timeout) carries none.

9.3.11a2 - 9.3.12a1

Canonical intent-topic registration moved to ovos-spec-tools, with compat left in place (#500). register_entity_file emits the clean entity name, not the raw filename (#528).

9.3.9a1 - 9.3.11a1

FallbackSkill is now abstract: a skill without can_answer cannot load (#523). Language matching routed through ovos-spec-tools (#512). Context-only requires no longer leaks into the INTENT-4 keyword emit (#525). set_context carries the original context key through so CONTEXT-1 gating stays reachable (#527).

9.3.4a1 - 9.3.8a1

enable_intent rebinds the handler after disable_intent (#508). killable_intent/killable_event no longer leak a thread or bus listener on natural completion (#513). OVOSSkill._wait_response is now bounded so get_response cannot hang forever (#514). A change to silently disable fallback skills predating can_answer was reverted (#515, #517) — see 9.3.9a1 above for the final (abstract-class) approach.

9.3.0a1 - 9.3.2a2

Intent dispatch handlers bind to canonical INTENT-4 intent names (#497). Padacioso floor bumped so dangling <name> template refs raise MalformedTemplate instead of silently matching nothing (#493).

9.2.10a1 (#431, dual-emit landed 9.3.0a1)

OVOS-INTENT-4 registration topics are emitted dual with the legacy ones.

9.2.0a1 - 9.2.9a1

ovos.utterance.handled is now gated in converse/fallback so it fires only when core owns the emit (PIPELINE-1 §9.5, #486). Inline <voc> references are expanded before intents register to the engine, and re-registration is deduped (#470). .blacklist locale resource support added for intents (#450), with the OVOS-INTENT-2 §4.3 entity/slot blacklist emitted on registration (#454).