Codex's two non-blocking hardening items, folded in before cutover:
- _candidate_articles() now excludes paywalled sources IN-QUERY (before LIMIT 50),
so flagged stories can't consume candidate slots and leave a full brief thin.
Dropped the now-redundant post-fetch filter in build_daily_brief.
- Regressions: history retains a viewed paywalled article; sitemap omits a
paywalled source AND restores it under override="free".
- Aligned test_brief_paywall to the source-level model (paywalled sources carry a
paywalled homepage, as in production) — it had relied on article-URL detection.
425 backend tests green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
queries.feed was the main chokepoint, but several discovery paths have their own
SQL. Apply the shared source exclusion to all of them so "no paywalls" is truly
site-wide:
- briefs.build_daily_brief: EXCLUDE paywalled candidates (was: demote) — never
stored in a new brief.
- queries.brief: stored-brief retrieval (covers /today + /api/brief) filters the
paywalled source.
- digest.digest_items + followed_digest_items: the morning email + "from what you
follow" omit paywalled sources.
- sitemap(): paywalled article pages excluded from the sitemap.
All reuse queries.paywalled_source_ids (admin override still wins).
Regression tests (test_paywall_exclusion.py): never stored in a new brief; /today
+ digest omit it; followed-source email omits it; Saved retains it; 'free'
override restores eligibility. 423 backend tests green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
thejayman77