The Windows-footgun check is red on current main, not just on this branch:
a2c42be93c added `encoding="utf-8"` to one `write_text` in this file and
missed the other two.
Line 190 is what the checker reports. Line 211 has the same defect but the
call is split across lines, so the single-line regex never flagged it —
fixing only the reported site would have left the same bug in the file and
re-armed it for the next reader.
Both now pass an explicit encoding, matching line 68.
Deferred MCP/plugin tools become invisible once the tool_search bridge
activates — live benchmarking (48 runs, Claude Haiku 4.5) showed models
substituting visible core tools (terminal/web_search/browser) for deferred
capabilities or declaring them nonexistent instead of searching: 16/24
task success vs 24/24 with eager loading.
Skills never had this failure mode because every skill keeps a ~21-token
name+description listing line in the system prompt. This ports that exact
pattern to the tool bridge: when tool_search activates, a grouped manifest
of every deferred tool (name + first sentence of description, clipped to
60 chars, grouped per MCP server / toolset) is embedded in the tool_search
bridge description.
- tools/tool_search.py: build_catalog_listing() with deterministic
ordering (byte-stable across assemblies -> prompt prefix stays
cacheable); token-budget fallbacks full -> names-only -> legacy bare
count; bridge_tool_schemas(listing=...) embeds it and instructs the
model to skip tool_search when the exact name is visible (one fewer
round-trip per use)
- config: tools.tool_search.listing auto|on|off (default auto),
listing_max_tokens (default 4000, clamped 200..20000); legacy bool
shapes keep working
- tests: 8 new tests (config parsing/clamps, short-desc clipping,
deterministic rendering, budget fallbacks, bridge embedding, assembly
on/off paths); full file green (47 passed)
- docs: tool-search.md config table + rationale
- scripts/tool_search_livetest2.py: benchmark harness v2 with real
per-call token accounting (normalize_usage spy) and a third 'listing'
mode for A/B/C comparison
