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+# Phase 4: PDF Processor with Layered Metadata Extraction
+
+**Executed:** 2026-04-14T16:40Z UTC
+
+---
+
+## Backup
+
+| Item | Location | MD5 Hash |
+|------|----------|----------|
+| recon.db (pre-Phase 4) | CT 130: `/tmp/recon.db.phase4.20260414.bak` | `1d76f8ba0f169f9a77666af56707f71d` |
+| Test row SQL backup | CT 130: `/tmp/recon_phase4_test_93aad72f.sql` | — |
+
+---
+
+## Schema Change
+
+Added `metadata_provenance TEXT` column to `documents` table. Stores JSON with voted metadata fields, per-field provenance (which source won), and raw source data from all three extraction sources.
+
+---
+
+## What Was Created
+
+### `lib/processors/pdf_processor.py` — `pre_flight()`
+
+Handles PDF content from `acquired/pdf/`. Implements a 17-step pipeline:
+
+1. **Hash** — MD5 of PDF content via `content_hash()`
+2. **Stale cleanup** — removes pre-existing `processing/{hash}/` and `concepts/{hash}/` directories
+3. **Hash dedupe** — exact content match against catalogue; removes pair if duplicate
+4. **Size check** — rejects PDFs exceeding `processing.max_pdf_size_mb` (default 200MB)
+5. **Open PDF** — PyPDF2 `PdfReader` with pdfinfo fallback for page count
+6. **Source A** — PDF info dictionary metadata (title, author, edition, year)
+7. **Source B** — Filename parsing via `clean_filename_to_title()` + regex patterns
+8. **Extract first 3 pages** — for Source C input, using existing `extract_text_from_page()` fallback chain
+9. **Source C** — Gemini LLM metadata extraction from first 3 pages (retries 3x with 30s backoff)
+10. **Vote** — per-field voting across sources; 2+ agreement wins, else priority C > A > B
+11. **Level-4 dedupe** — strict check requiring ALL FOUR fields (title, author, edition, year) present and matching an existing document
+12. **Move to processing** — PDF → `processing/{hash}/source.pdf`, sidecar → `sidecar.meta.json`
+13. **Full text extraction** — all pages via `extract_text_from_page()` (PyPDF2 → pdftotext → Tesseract → Gemini Vision)
+14. **Write meta.json** — extraction stats, voted metadata, provenance record
+15. **Register in DB** — `add_to_catalogue()` + `queue_document()`
+16. **Update documents row** — sets `text_dir`, `page_count`, `book_title`, `book_author`, `metadata_provenance`
+17. **Status = extracted** — advances to next pipeline stage
+
+### Failure Modes
+
+| Type | Behavior |
+|------|----------|
+| **Hash duplicate** | Removes pair from acquired/, returns `action='duplicate'` |
+| **Content failure** (unreadable PDF) | Moves to `/mnt/library/_review/rejected_pdfs/`, returns `action='content_failure'` |
+| **Level-4 duplicate** | Moves to `/mnt/library/_review/duplicate_quarantine/`, queues for human review, returns `action='level4_duplicate'` |
+| **Gemini API transient** | Retries 3x with 30s backoff; continues without Source C if exhausted |
+| **Oversized PDF** | Moves to rejected_pdfs, returns `action='content_failure'` |
+
+### Metadata Voting Example
+
+From the end-to-end test (`93aad72f` — hydro-electric installation):
+
+| Field | Source A (PDF dict) | Source B (Filename) | Source C (Gemini) | Winner |
+|-------|---------------------|---------------------|-------------------|--------|
+| Title | `ew-FinishHydro70g.PDF` | `Finalizing A Hydro Electric Installation Hackleman` | `Finalizing a hydro-electric installation` | gemini |
+| Author | `Dave` | — | `Michael Hackleman` | gemini |
+| Edition | — | — | — | null |
+| Year | `2001` | — | `2001` | agreed(pdf_dict,gemini) |
+
+---
+
+## Phase 3 Cleanup Fixes (also committed in this phase)
+
+### Fix 1.1: Extension preservation in `filing.py`
+
+`_build_target_path()` calls `sanitize_filename()` which defaults to `.pdf`. For transcripts (`.txt` files), this caused incorrect extensions. Fix: after `_build_target_path()`, replace the target extension with the source file's actual extension.
+
+### Fix 1.2: Back-fix soldering transcript
+
+One-off script renamed the filed soldering transcript from `.pdf` to `.txt` in filesystem, catalogue, documents, and Qdrant (5 points).
+
+### Fix 1.3: Dispatcher log noise
+
+`_load_processor()` now catches `ModuleNotFoundError` at DEBUG level (not ERROR). Only actual `ImportError` from broken modules logs as ERROR.
+
+### Fix 1.4: Stale state cleanup in transcript processor
+
+`pre_flight()` now removes pre-existing `processing/{hash}/` and `concepts/{hash}/` directories before processing, preventing stale concept JSONs from interfering with re-enrichment.
+
+### Fix 1.5: Solo content files in dispatcher
+
+`_find_pairs()` now has a second pass that picks up content files without a `.meta.json` sidecar, passing `meta_path=None` to the processor.
+
+---
+
+## Directories Created
+
+| Path | Purpose |
+|------|---------|
+| `/mnt/library/_review/rejected_pdfs/` | Unreadable PDFs (0 pages, corrupt) |
+| `/mnt/library/_review/duplicate_quarantine/` | Level-4 metadata-duplicate PDFs for human review |
+| `/opt/recon/data/acquired/pdf/` | Intake directory for PDF dispatcher |
+
+---
+
+## End-to-End Test
+
+**Test document:** `93aad72f49207f72af77b90aa7e62016` — "Finalizing a hydro-electric installation" by Michael Hackleman (12 pages, 468KB)
+
+### Pipeline Execution
+
+| Stage | Result |
+|-------|--------|
+| Dispatch + pre_flight | `action='extracted'`, 12/12 pages, metadata voted |
+| Enrich | 26 concepts from 3 windows |
+| Embed | 26 vectors inserted into Qdrant |
+| File | Filed to `/mnt/library/Power-Systems/Hydroelectric-Systems/`, 35 Qdrant points updated |
+
+### Comparison to Baseline
+
+| Metric | Baseline | Phase 4 |
+|--------|----------|---------|
+| Status | complete | complete |
+| Pages extracted | 12 | 12 |
+| Concepts | 20 | 26 |
+| Vectors | 20 | 26 |
+| Title | Finalizing a hydro-electric installation | Finalizing a hydro-electric installation |
+| Author | Michael Hackleman | Michael Hackleman |
+| DB totals | 29812 | 29812 |
+
+Concept count difference (20 → 26) is expected — enrichment is non-deterministic. Domain classification changed from "Off-grid Systems" to "Power Systems" due to fresh concept extraction.
+
+---
+
+## Commits
+
+| Hash | Message |
+|------|---------|
+| `9fe6a0a` | Phase 4: Phase 3 cleanup fixes |
+| `96e1e64` | Phase 4: PDF processor with layered metadata extraction |
+
+Branch: `refactor` on `forge.echo6.co/matt/recon`