v0.4.4

[0.4.4] - 2026-11-03
Added

maki/test/test_backend_live.py: ten contract checks against a real Ollama server (chat, system/history, streaming, async, usage, the native tool loop, a typed plugin through an Agent, 404 and unreachable-server errors), deselected by default; run with pytest -m network
python -m maki.test.summary_bench: a live benchmark of the summary tier. On gemma4:26b it recalled 4/4 early facts where dropping turns recalled 0/4, with 42% fewer prompt tokens than keeping everything (see docs/user/agent-memory.md)
Shared backend conformance suite (maki/test/backend_conformance.py, run by test_backend_conformance.py): one set of contract tests applied to Ollama, OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, llama.cpp and vLLM through per-backend transport fakes. New backends join by writing an Adapter
Summary memory tier: MemoryPolicy(summarize_older=True, summary_chars=...). Turns evicted from a stateful agent's conversation are folded by the model into a running summary kept at the top of the history (sent as text or as structured history), instead of being dropped. It runs before the next task, counts against token_budget, falls back to the [N earlier turn(s) dropped] note if the summary call fails, can be replaced with agent.summarizer, and is saved by to_dict/from_dict. Also settable under memory: in maki serve YAML
Typed tool schemas: native tool specs are now built from a plugin method's type hints (int, float, bool, list[T], Optional, Literal, Enum) and the Args: section of its docstring, instead of treating every parameter as a string. Unannotated parameters stay strings
Tool-call argument validation: the model's arguments are checked against the method signature on both the native and TOOL: paths ("3" becomes 3, enum values become enum members, also inside lists; unknown, missing or mistyped arguments, and a null for a required parameter, return a message the model can correct and the method is not called; a null for a parameter with a default uses the default)
ToolPolicy and Agent(tool_policy=...): max_rounds, per-tool retries for transient errors with exponential backoff and jitter, and opt-in parallel execution of one turn's tool calls (results keep the model's order). Methods in a plugin's DANGEROUS_METHODS are never retried (unless retry_dangerous=True) and a turn containing one runs sequentially. Serialised by to_dict/from_dict; also settable under tool_policy: in maki serve YAML
Tool descriptions use the docstring's summary paragraph instead of only its first line, and async def plugin methods (e.g. image_classifier.classify_image_async) are now awaited instead of returning a coroutine's repr. Values for unannotated parameters are passed through unchanged. Tokens a plugin spends on helper threads (parallel tools, async tools) count toward the calling thread, so loop token caps see them; nan/inf are rejected as numeric arguments; one unresolvable annotation no longer disables validation of the others
init_backend("provider:model"): build any backend from one string ("ollama:gemma4:26b", "openai:gpt-4o", or a bare provider for its default model), with a temperature= shorthand. Agent YAML accepts the same form in model: when no backend: is given
AgentCallback, LoggingCallback and Agent(callbacks=[...]): task, model and tool events (on_tool_start/end/error/retry, on_model_start/end, on_task_start/end/error). A callback that raises is logged and skipped

Changed

OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, llama.cpp and vLLM now classify HTTP errors exactly as the Connector (and so Ollama) always did, through the new maki.exceptions.error_for_status: 5xx become MakiNetworkError and 408/504 MakiTimeoutError (both retried by execute_task_with_retry, and a maki serve backend failure answers 502/504), while 4xx stay MakiAPIError with status_code. Before, every status from those SDKs was a MakiAPIError: a provider outage was neither retried nor reported as an unavailable backend. 429 (rate limit) is still a MakiAPIError everywhere

Fixed

from maki import * no longer fails when transformers is not installed: HFBackend is still importable by name but no longer listed in __all__
The live Ollama tests no longer contact the server while pytest merely collects them
The HFBackend tests now skip when transformers is missing (they only checked for torch), and the Ollama async error path is tested through the real AsyncConnector