Extract chapter draft content-rejection retry into _draft_with_content_retry helper

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The draft step in chapters.py was the only pipeline step with an inline retry loop — 37 lines mixing prompt construction with retry/backoff logic — instead of using the _call_with_content_retry / _safe() pattern used everywhere else.

Changes

• _helpers.py: Adds _draft_with_content_retry(build_prompt_fn, *, action, special_instructions, chapter_num, max_attempts=3) and the _DRAFT_CONTENT_NOTE constant it injects on retry. Unlike _call_with_content_retry (which sanitizes existing chapter text), this helper appends a content-guidance note to special_instructions and rebuilds the prompt from scratch via build_prompt_fn.

• chapters.py: Replaces the inline 37-line retry loop with a single call:

  text = _draft_with_content_retry(
      lambda instr: build_chapter_draft_prompt(..., instr, ...),
      action=f"Chapter {chapter_num}: drafting",
      special_instructions=special_instructions,
      chapter_num=chapter_num,
  )

• __init__.py: Re-exports _draft_with_content_retry and _DRAFT_CONTENT_NOTE.

• test_progress_snapshot.py: Four terminal-state force-write tests were patching chapters.call_llm; draft calls now go through _helpers.call_llm, so patch targets updated accordingly.

• test_draft_with_content_retry.py: New unit tests covering first-attempt success, content-note injection with/without special_instructions, retry exhaustion, exact attempt count, and warning logging.

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Pull request overview

Refactors chapter drafting to use a shared helper for content-rejection retry behavior, aligning the draft step with the retry patterns used elsewhere in the pipeline.

Changes:

• Added _draft_with_content_retry (and _DRAFT_CONTENT_NOTE) to centralize draft-time content rejection retry logic.
• Replaced the inline retry loop in chapters.py with a single helper call that rebuilds prompts on retry.
• Updated and added tests to reflect the new call path and to cover the helper’s retry behavior.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 5 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
novelforge/agents/chapter/_helpers.py	Introduces _DRAFT_CONTENT_NOTE and _draft_with_content_retry to handle draft retries on ContentRejectionError.
novelforge/routes/generation/chapters.py	Uses _draft_with_content_retry instead of an inline retry loop during drafting.
novelforge/agents/chapter/__init__.py	Re-exports _draft_with_content_retry and _DRAFT_CONTENT_NOTE.
tests/test_progress_snapshot.py	Updates patch targets to the new draft call path (_helpers.call_llm).
tests/test_draft_with_content_retry.py	Adds unit coverage for success, retry note injection, exhaustion behavior, and warning logging.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

novelforge/routes/generation/chapters.py:45

• After switching draft calls to _draft_with_content_retry, this module no longer appears to reference call_llm or parse_llm_json directly (no call_llm( / parse_llm_json( usages found). Consider dropping those imports from novelforge.llm.client to avoid unused-import warnings.

from novelforge.agents.chapter import (
    _format_characters,
    _draft_with_content_retry,
    build_chapter_draft_prompt,
    run_continuity_gatekeeper, run_chapter_rhythm_classifier,
    run_character_state_updater, run_per_chapter_compression_check,
    _run_all_chapter_agents, ChapterContext,
)

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Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 5 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

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[Copilot]

max_attempts can be set to 0 (or a negative value) and the loop will perform zero attempts, falling through to the final raise ContentRejectionError(...) with a misleading message and without ever calling the LLM. Add a guard (e.g., raise ValueError) when max_attempts < 1 so the helper’s behavior is well-defined.