[Paul Lizer (paullizer)]

Summary

• Native source information was being lost or flattened before reaching chat, and answers could invent unsupported source bindings. Preserve absent, present-empty, present-value and inaccessible states, plus PDF/Excel/PPTX content and object associations, while retaining working Word review comments.
• Inspect retained authorized active PDF/PPTX sources locally with bounded, source/revision/schema-bound continuations. Preserve native supplements through screened publication and prevent stale original metadata from describing a different sanitized active representation.
• Validate source-only native-audit fact references and render factual values server-side instead of accepting model substitutions. Add verified synthetic fixtures and parser, persistence, HTTP and saved-answer regressions; update documentation/release notes and application version to 0.261.424.
• No deployment or bulk re-ingestion is performed. Existing indexed Search content still needs explicit processing to acquire new evidence. Unsupported structures remain qualified; these reports are not accessibility certification.

Linked issue

N/A. No linked issue; the user explicitly requested no issue creation.

Release Notes & Latest Features

• New Feature
• Bug Fix
• UI Enhancement
• Breaking Change
• Internal only

Is this visible to end users?

• Yes
• No

Is this admin-facing (Admin Settings, governance, deployment, config)?

• Yes
• No

Should this become a Latest Feature card?

• Yes
• No
• Already added

Screenshot needed for the card?

• Yes
• No
• Attached

Version bump

• application/single_app/config.py VERSION third segment bumped, or not needed because this is docs-only
• deployers/version.txt bumped, or not needed because deployers/ was not changed

Application: 0.261.423 -> 0.261.424. Deployer files were not changed. Native Excel inspection schema 3.0 is independent of the cell/table reader schema; old native inventories/cursors cannot certify the new evidence contract.

Testing / validation

• Final committed-branch regression selection: 243 passed.
• Optimized native/schema-cursor selection: 51 passed.
• Core Cosmos contracts and affected real-owner SDK regression: 246 passed.
• python .\scripts\check_cosmos_response_boundaries.py: passed, 1,094 owners, 425 doubles, zero review gaps.
• python .\functional_tests\test_docs_app_surface_coverage.py: passed, 7/7; generated inventory remains current.
• python .\functional_tests\test_docs_site_quality.py: passed, 6/6.
• git -c core.whitespace=blank-at-eol,blank-at-eof,space-before-tab,cr-at-eol --no-pager diff --check: passed.
• python .\scripts\check_cosmos_response_boundaries.py --run-contracts: the full registry-wide 225-target sweep was stopped without completion, not claimed passed. Core and affected-owner checks were executed separately.

External blob/model I/O is isolated and Python network access blocked. Existing dependency, Swagger and older test-return deprecation warnings remain. No live beta deployment/retest, real-provider evaluation, or customer re-ingestion was performed.

Exact regression and optimized commands

$env:PYTHONPATH="$PWD\application\single_app;$PWD\functional_tests"
$env:PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE='1'

# Passed: 243 tests
python -m pytest -q --tb=short --disable-warnings -p no:cacheprovider -p test_support.cosmos_network_guard .\functional_tests\test_native_document_fidelity.py .\functional_tests\test_native_document_fidelity_pipeline.py .\functional_tests\test_native_document_fidelity_http.py .\functional_tests\test_document_accessibility_extraction.py .\functional_tests\test_document_style_extraction.py .\functional_tests\test_document_accessibility_report_action.py .\functional_tests\test_excel_document_accessibility_extraction.py .\functional_tests\test_excel_native_inspection_chat_evidence.py .\functional_tests\test_excel_inventory_persistence.py .\functional_tests\test_word_comment_extraction.py .\functional_tests\test_orchestration_attachment_native_evidence.py .\functional_tests\test_orchestration_native_citation_delivery.py .\functional_tests\test_orchestration_document_action_binding.py .\functional_tests\test_orchestration_document_action_lineage.py .\functional_tests\test_orchestration_document_action_end_to_end.py .\functional_tests\test_publication_native_processing.py

# Passed: 51 tests
python -O -m pytest -q --tb=short --disable-warnings -p no:cacheprovider -p test_support.cosmos_network_guard .\functional_tests\test_native_document_fidelity.py .\functional_tests\test_native_document_fidelity_pipeline.py .\functional_tests\test_native_document_fidelity_http.py .\functional_tests\test_excel_inventory_persistence.py::test_source_and_section_bound_cursors_cannot_be_replayed

Exact core Cosmos and affected-owner command

$env:PYTHONPATH="$PWD\application\single_app;$PWD\functional_tests"
$env:PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE='1'

# Passed: 246 tests
python -m pytest -q --tb=short --disable-warnings -p no:cacheprovider -p test_support.cosmos_network_guard -o faulthandler_timeout=90 .\functional_tests\test_workflow_chat_delivery_save_guard.py .\functional_tests\test_orchestration_failure_telemetry.py .\functional_tests\test_orchestration_result_imports.py .\functional_tests\test_cosmos_document_boundaries.py .\functional_tests\test_workflow_chat_delivery_concurrency.py .\functional_tests\test_orchestration_operation_imports.py .\functional_tests\test_orchestration_operation_runtime.py .\functional_tests\test_m365_pending_authorization.py .\functional_tests\test_m365_cosmos_sdk_contract.py .\functional_tests\test_cosmos_contract_runner.py .\functional_tests\test_orchestration_harness_execution.py::test_catalog_and_scheduler_fixtures_share_current_transport_types .\functional_tests\test_orchestration_cosmos_response_contract.py .\functional_tests\test_orchestration_email_review_flow.py .\functional_tests\test_workflow_authoring_sdk_boundaries.py::test_search_upload_owners_consume_real_sdk_point_documents

Documentation

• Release notes updated, or not needed
• Feature documentation updated, or not needed
• Fix documentation updated, or not needed

Updated the document-accessibility and Excel-native-inspection feature docs, Document Search reference, v0.261.424 release notes, and docs/explanation/fixes/NATIVE_DOCUMENT_FIDELITY_FIX.md, including migration behavior and unsupported/partial coverage.

Security checklist

• New Flask routes include @swagger_route(security=get_auth_security()) (N/A: no new routes)
• Settings sent to non-admin frontends use sanitize_settings_for_user() (N/A: no new settings payloads)
• Browser JavaScript is served from local SimpleChat static assets only; no CDN-hosted JS (no browser assets added)
• No secrets, keys, connection strings, or local-only artifacts are included

The fixture ZIP contains only nine verified synthetic source documents. Private conversation exports/account metadata and session artifacts are not included. Native reads retain current source authorization and active-representation checks; no reviewer-only original fallback is added.