[Artifact Forest 8/9] Add a creative conversion toolchain profile and doctor surface #429

Current checkpoint — 2026-10-13

PR #447 merged at 1853824, following #446's recovery merge. Recovery/doctor reconciliation and manual setup guidance are now on main.

• The creative profile has ten tool records, thirteen route rows and five separate asset/configuration requirements. The schema now matches the ten-tool report.
• Plain doctor keeps its previous scope: five optional external creative tools and the virtual recovery provider are excluded.
• Updated recovery/OCR and provider documentation; corrected the stale FFmpeg speech graph note; regenerated the general tool registry reference.
• Added manual Linux/macOS/Windows/container setup guidance and a qualification record separating exact policy declarations from observed toolchains. Two regression cases are authored and unrun.

Source review found no blocker, and published Git contents match the reviewed tree. Tests, compiler/build, lint/formatting, schema validation, native probes/conversions, installers/downloads and CI remain deferred. No Actions were dispatched or polled.

Remaining here: run authored coverage and qualify actual provider/platform/asset combinations; record the exact toolchains used by fixtures and releases. No installed toolchain or reproducibility claim is invented. The discovery fingerprint does not attest executable/model bytes. All acceptance criteria remain unchecked and this issue stays open.

Next implementation: #430 multi-family artifact forest / Flow contract integration, then #406. #412/#413 fixture expansion and #419 verified release align with the later testing pass.

Current records: handoff, setup, qualification.

Historical checkpoints (superseded by the current status above)

2026-10-12 — implementation merged; deep testing deferred

PR #441 merged with explicit maintainer authorization at f7df86b.

The creative doctor checkpoint and screenplay reconciliation are merged. Registry IDs are deduplicated; doctor reports the authored import/PDF routes and actual pin requirements. Global Node/afterwriting discovery stays unprobed and explicit configured adapter preflight remains authoritative. Nineteen doctor tests are authored and unrun. Remaining implementation: integrate #426 recovery once authored; later qualify exact tools/assets/platforms.

All four current PRs (#441–#444) are now merged. Source-level conflicts, registry duplication and stale route descriptions were reconciled; the final main tree matches the authored integration tree. Tests, builds, linting, native qualification and CI were not run for this merge. No Actions were dispatched or polled.

This issue retains its existing acceptance/qualification record. The maintainer plans a deep testing session after the implementation sprint and will create any new follow-up issues from actual findings then. No new audit issues were created during this merge.

Next implementation order in ROADMAP.md: #422 → #426 → remaining #429 integration → #430, with #406 as the subsequent layered/localized composition lane.

Earlier checkpoint record

2026-10-12 — doctor checkpoint authored

Draft PR #441 adds the optional creative-publishing doctor profile, independent tool observations, separate route/configuration status, and a machine-readable observation fingerprint. Four discovery-only candidates add no conversion edges; Afterwriting stays explicitly not_probed because its reviewed CLI has no version-only query. Plain doctor keeps its prior scope.

The full report is written before strict discovery failure; explicitly unprobed candidates do not fail strict and do not qualify workflow readiness. Seventeen tests are authored but unrun. Independent source review found no blocker. Tests, compilation/builds, schema validation, formatting/linting, native qualification, and CI remain deferred by maintainer instruction.

This issue remains open. Screenplay model/adapters (#423–#426), Afterwriting package/discovery identity, actual fixture/release version records, reproducible supported-platform setup, and runtime qualification remain outstanding. Source pins document inspected upstream code, not qualified installed releases. See the handoff.

Parent: #421
Coordinates with: #424, #425, #426, #427, #428

Outcome

Make the optional creative/script/transcript provider stack discoverable and reproducible without making every tool a global Renderflow dependency.

Candidate provider set

• scripttool
• Node.js + afterwriting
• Poppler/pdftotext
• Tesseract
• FFmpeg + FFprobe
• local speech-transcription provider/model

Deliverables

• Add stable tool/provider registry entries and capability IDs.
• Define an optional creative-publishing / equivalent doctor profile.
• Report installed/missing/incompatible tools independently.
• Document install strategy per supported platform and devcontainer where practical.
• Pin or record exact versions used by fixtures and releases.
• Separate executable licensing from model/font licensing.
• Ensure planner selects only available compatible providers.
• Produce machine-readable toolchain fingerprint for a full creative artifact forest.

Acceptance criteria

• Core Renderflow still works without optional creative providers.
• One doctor/capability command explains exactly which screenplay/transcript routes are available on the host.
• Missing one provider prunes only its capabilities rather than invalidating unrelated conversions.
• Tool/model/license evidence is represented without bundling incompatible software into Renderflow core.
• Devcontainer/local setup can reproduce the supported fixture toolchain where licensing permits.

Non-goals

A universal package manager or automatic installation of third-party binaries without user intent.

Audit-to-roadmap reconciliation — 2026-10-21

Audit: https://github.com/egohygiene/renderflow/blob/audit/flow-suite-20261021T025401Z/audits/flow-suite-20261021T025401Z.md · Complete roadmap: #367

Optional doctor/profile source reconciled; discovery fingerprint does not attest executable/model bytes or prove reproducibility.

Bounded preparation: Review setup/qualification table and choose exact finite fixture combinations.

Remaining acceptance (common qualification deferral; no dependency star): Actual observed provider/platform/asset combinations and deferred doctor/schema/native qualification.

The maintainer's implementation-sprint qualification deferral remains in force. This audit ran no Renderflow tests, compiler/build/Cargo resolution, product lint/format/schema qualification, native/CLI/provider/visual execution, installers or new CI. Reading existing exact-source provider records is not a qualification rerun. Source implementation and authored tests are not passing-test, native-fidelity, release or downstream-consumer evidence.

This is an additive planning note. The full original issue, acceptance criteria, scope, parent references and historical checkpoints remain authoritative and unchanged. No acceptance box or issue is closed by this audit. Recommended ledger parent: #421.