phase: 172_thinking_level

All verification complete. Final report:

**Phase 172 final verification pass — all tasks (01–05) were already complete; verified the whole phase, no code fixes needed.**

- **Verified implementation:** `Settings.llm_thinking_level: str = "low"` + `CATALOG` row (`LLM (aipi)` / "Thinking level", plain: not secret/restart/overridable-exempt) + `.env.example` line under `BOR_LLM_CHAT_MODEL` + README table row; `_thinking_extra_body()` → `reasoning_effort` via `extra_body` on `chat()` + `chat_stream()` when trimmed-non-empty, key absent (byte-identical) when empty, embeddings untouched; per-turn line gains `thinking=<value>` (`-` when empty) before `thinking_chars`.
- **Tests/lint/coverage (all green):** `uv run pytest` → 4084 passed · `uv run pytest --cov=app --cov-report=term-missing` → 4084 passed, `app/` **99%** (>90%) · `uv run ruff check .` → All checks passed · `uv run pyright` → 0 errors, 0 warnings.
- **Completion criteria:** (1) `pytest -k "config and thinking"` 4 passed + `.env.example` grep ✓ (2) live `GET /api/admin/settings` curl shows the row (str, `low`, `default`) + integration PUT/DELETE round-trip ✓ (3) 9 mocked-client unit tests assert `extra_body` present/absent ✓ (4) log-line tests assert `low`/`high`/`-`/whitespace ✓ (5) suite + coverage + lint ✓ (6) `test_thinking_level.py` 3/3 in isolation; `test_admin_settings_panel.py` 12/12; `test_admin_settings_layout.py` 5/5 ✓ (7) atomic commit + phase move = the harness's job (task files already in `complete/`; I ran no git index/history commands).
- **Documentation:** README.md reviewed in full — verified consistent (env table complete vs `.env.example`, catalog restart/non-overridable claims re-verified at runtime); AGENTS.md reviewed in full — verified consistent (no rule affected, A5 = no UI change). No changes needed. **Flag (not fixable here):** PLAN.md §9's per-turn-line spec predates the phase-172 `thinking=` field; PLAN.md is off-limits per protocol.
- **Next pending phase:** none — `todo/` contains only phase 172 (the harness moves it on this pass's success).

tests/unit/test_config.py

@@ -105,6 +105,34 @@ def test_llm_summary_model_env_override(monkeypatch) -> None:
     assert s.llm_summary_model == "mini"
 
 
+def test_llm_thinking_level_default_is_low(monkeypatch: pytest.MonkeyPatch) -> None:
+    """Phase 172: the model's thinking level defaults to ``low``
+    (``BOR_LLM_THINKING_LEVEL`` unset)."""
+    monkeypatch.delenv("BOR_LLM_THINKING_LEVEL", raising=False)
+    s = _settings()
+    assert s.llm_thinking_level == "low"
+
+
+def test_llm_thinking_level_env_override(monkeypatch) -> None:
+    """Phase 172 (A4): free-form like ``llm_chat_model`` —
+    ``BOR_LLM_THINKING_LEVEL=high`` resolves to ``"high"`` (no
+    allowlist, no validator)."""
+    monkeypatch.setenv("BOR_LLM_THINKING_LEVEL", "high")
+    s = _settings()
+    assert s.llm_thinking_level == "high"
+
+
+def test_llm_thinking_level_empty_env_value_stays_empty(
+    monkeypatch: pytest.MonkeyPatch,
+) -> None:
+    """Phase 172 (A2): the EMPTY value is the off switch — it must not
+    be coerced back to the default (trimming happens only at the wire,
+    task 03; no normalization at load)."""
+    monkeypatch.setenv("BOR_LLM_THINKING_LEVEL", "")
+    s = _settings()
+    assert s.llm_thinking_level == ""
+
+
 def test_summary_max_chars_default_and_env_override(monkeypatch: pytest.MonkeyPatch) -> None:
     """Phase 30: document content sent to the ``lite`` model is capped at
     ``BOR_SUMMARY_MAX_CHARS`` (default 12 000 chars per call)."""