[lacksfish]

This PR fixes AI post-processing that could leave the original note unchanged while adding two AI comments. It makes each processing mode perform its selected action and adds an explicit Smart Edit + Tags option.

This PR builds on the changes in #1245. It is a follow-up to that work and should be reviewed and merged after it. Until #1245 is merged, a comparison against main also includes those earlier changes.

The intended workflow is straightforward: record a voice note, transcribe it, replace the note text with the cleaned-up version, keep the audio, and add real tags; without additional AI comments.

Why “Both” produced two comments

The Git history explains how this behavior developed:

• c76381e2 — automated AI tagging, March 17, 2025, introduced Comment, Tags and Both. At that point, Both meant Comment + Tags. Smart Edit did not exist yet.
• 1d12409e — AI post-processing features, March 28, 2025, added Smart Edit and also ran it when Both was selected. Both therefore performed three actions: Comment, Tags and Smart Edit. The new Smart Edit step additionally saved its response as a comment, even if a tool had already edited the note. This introduced a second source of AI comments.
• 2b40078e — transcription coordination, included in Fix #989: Audio transcription coordination and AI post-processing reliability #1245, carried those three actions into the ordered background processing workflow. It saved a plain-text Smart Edit response as a comment when no editing tool was called. It also converted an update into an “AI suggestion” if the replacement did not contain the complete original transcript.

As a result, a model could return a perfectly usable rewritten note, but Blinko would leave the transcript in the main note and display the rewrite as another comment. Even a successful editing-tool call could become a suggestion because of the transcript-preservation rule.

The historical commits establish the original meaning of Both. They do not explain why Smart Edit was later added to it. This PR restores the original Comment + Tags combination and gives editing plus tagging its own clearly named option.

Changes to the processing options

Option	Behavior after this change
Comment	Continues to create one AI comment without replacing the note. Empty responses leave the step available for retry.
Automatic Tags	Saves real tag relationships without appending a hashtag line to the note text. Existing spelling is preferred. Custom prompts are no longer cut off at five tags; the default remains five.
Smart Edit	Replaces the current note text. An editing-tool result or an ordinary text response can supply the replacement. Neither becomes a fallback comment.
Both	Renamed Comment + Tags in the UI. Creates one comment and applies tags. It no longer runs the additional Smart Edit step. The stored both setting remains compatible.
Custom	Adds an explicit result-action choice: replace the note, create a comment, or use tools. Existing configurations default to tools. In that setting, a response without an action leaves the step available for retry instead of silently creating a comment.
Smart Edit + Tags — new	Replaces the note text, then applies real tags, with no AI comments.

For automatic editing and tagging, select the new Smart Edit + Tags option and put the editing instructions in the Smart Edit prompt field. The existing Comment prompt is not silently reused for editing.

Preserving the note and its attachments

Smart Edit now uses editing instructions rather than the Comment Assistant's emoji and length guidelines. It offers only the current-note update tool and also accepts a normal text response as the replacement, so success does not depend on the model choosing a tool call.

Audio attachments, metadata and existing tags remain attached to the same note. The previous text is saved in revision history; the source transcript does not have to be copied into the visible note. Independent tags remain intact after later text edits and are displayed separately from the note body.

AI updates do not start another round of post-processing. Completed steps are not repeated on retry, and a concurrent manual edit prevents an outdated AI result from overwriting it. This follow-up requires no additional database migration beyond the changes in #1245.

Validation

Added pipeline regression tests and OpenAI-compatible response tests, and extended the existing tag tests. The focused suite passes 36 tests, including existing hashtag-parsing coverage:

• Smart Edit with an actual update-tool call or a plain-text response.
• One note update and no comment, including multiple tool responses.
• Comment-only, tags-only, Comment + Tags, and Smart Edit + Tags behavior.
• Audio retention, original-text history, and preservation of existing tags.
• Transcription before editing, completed-step retries, expired workers and concurrent manual edits.
• Custom editing and comment actions, plus responses without a requested tool action.
• Real Mastra/OpenAI SDK handling of both ordinary content and tool-call responses using controlled responses.

Run the focused suite from server with bun run test:note-processing. Existing LiteLLM provider, audio-recorder and file-upload checks also passed. Changed TypeScript files passed syntax/transpilation checks, and git diff --check passed.

I have also manually tested the updated behavior in my self-hosted Blinko instance.