fix(reasoning): detect a bare READY marker in text plans

[HumphreySun98]

Problem

With reasoning enabled, the executor asks the model to conclude its plan with READY or NOT READY and loops "refine plan" until ready. But there's a mismatch between what the prompts request and what the parser accepts:

• refine_plan_prompt (and one of the create_plan_prompt variants) say: "Conclude with READY or NOT READY" → models emit a bare READY.
• The text parser only accepted the exact sentence:

  ready = "READY: I am ready to execute the task." in response

So a bare READY is never detected as ready — the agent stays stuck refining until max attempts. This bites text-parsing models (the reporter used Ollama GLM), where the trace clearly shows READY but it's read as not-ready.

Fix

Add a _detect_plan_ready helper and use it at all three text-detection sites:

_READY_MARKER = re.compile(r"NOT\s+READY|READY", re.IGNORECASE)

def _detect_plan_ready(text: str) -> bool:
    markers = _READY_MARKER.findall(text)
    if not markers:
        return False
    return "NOT" not in markers[-1].upper()

• Matches the last marker, so a "not ready" mentioned mid-plan doesn't override a final READY.
• NOT READY wins over the bare READY it contains.
• The old full sentence ("READY: I am ready to execute the task.") still counts as ready — backward compatible.

Only the text-parsing path is affected; the structured/function-calling path already uses a boolean ready field.

Behavior (old → new)

response ends with	old	new
READY	❌ not ready	✅ ready
NOT READY: …	not ready	not ready
READY: I am ready to execute the task.	ready	ready

Tests

Added TestDetectPlanReady (bare/full/none/mid-text/case-insensitive + _parse_planning_response integration). Full test_structured_planning.py (33) green; ruff + mypy clean. Branched off latest main (v1.15.2).

Fixes #6204

---

This PR was authored with Claude Code. Per CONTRIBUTING.md, AI-generated contributions require the llm-generated label — I don't have triage permission to set it, so could a maintainer please add it? 🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[coderabbitai]

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Plan readiness detection in reasoning_handler.py was changed from an exact substring match to a regex-based parser (_READY_MARKER, _detect_plan_ready) that identifies the last READY/NOT READY marker in model output. This detection is applied across function-calling, fallback, and parsing paths, with new unit tests added.

Changes

Plan readiness detection fix

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Readiness marker regex and detection helper lib/crewai/src/crewai/utilities/reasoning_handler.py	Adds import re, a compiled _READY_MARKER regex pattern, and _detect_plan_ready(text) which scans for readiness markers and returns readiness based on the last one found, treating NOT READY as not ready.
Wire detection into planning response paths lib/crewai/src/crewai/utilities/reasoning_handler.py	Replaces prior exact-substring readiness checks in the function-calling success path, fallback text-parsing path, and _parse_planning_response with calls to _detect_plan_ready.
Unit tests for readiness detection lib/crewai/tests/utilities/test_structured_planning.py	Adds TestDetectPlanReady covering bare READY, full sentence markers, NOT READY, last-marker precedence, case-insensitivity, no-marker default, and integration with _parse_planning_response.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately summarizes the main change: detecting a bare READY marker in reasoning plans.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description is clearly related to the changeset and explains the readiness-detection fix.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	The PR satisfies #6204 by recognizing READY in text plan parsing and adding coverage for the expected behavior.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	The added NOT READY, last-marker, and case-insensitive handling are all consistent with the readiness parsing fix and tests.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 1

🧹 Nitpick comments (1)

lib/crewai/tests/utilities/test_structured_planning.py (1)

28-52: 🎯 Functional Correctness | 🔵 Trivial | ⚡ Quick win

Add a false-positive guard test.

The suite covers positive/negative/precedence/case scenarios well. Consider adding a test to verify that common English words containing "ready" (e.g., "already", "readiness") do not trigger a false READY — this directly guards the regex word-boundary concern in the source.

✨ Suggested test

+    def test_word_containing_ready_is_not_a_marker(self):
+        assert _detect_plan_ready("I am already prepared to proceed.") is False
+        assert _detect_plan_ready("The readiness check is complete.") is False

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

In `@lib/crewai/tests/utilities/test_structured_planning.py` around lines 28 - 52,
Add a false-positive guard test in test_structured_planning for
_detect_plan_ready so that ordinary words containing “ready” like “already” or
“readiness” do not match as READY. Update the test suite near the existing
_detect_plan_ready and AgentReasoning._parse_planning_response cases to assert
these inputs return False, protecting the word-boundary behavior.

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@lib/crewai/src/crewai/utilities/reasoning_handler.py`:
- Around line 31-33: The _READY_MARKER regex in reasoning_handler is too broad
because READY matches inside other words like already or readiness. Update the
pattern used by _READY_MARKER to require word boundaries around the READY token
(while keeping the NOT\s+READY alternative) so _detect_plan_ready only returns
true for an actual standalone readiness signal and not embedded substrings.

---

Nitpick comments:
In `@lib/crewai/tests/utilities/test_structured_planning.py`:
- Around line 28-52: Add a false-positive guard test in test_structured_planning
for _detect_plan_ready so that ordinary words containing “ready” like “already”
or “readiness” do not match as READY. Update the test suite near the existing
_detect_plan_ready and AgentReasoning._parse_planning_response cases to assert
these inputs return False, protecting the word-boundary behavior.

🪄 Autofix (Beta)

Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

• Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
• Create a new PR with the fixes

---

ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 289686a and 4b99651.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• lib/crewai/src/crewai/utilities/reasoning_handler.py
• lib/crewai/tests/utilities/test_structured_planning.py

[coderabbitai]

🎯 Functional Correctness | 🟠 Major | ⚡ Quick win

Regex lacks word boundaries — "READY" matches inside words like "already".

The pattern READY without \b will match the "ready" substring in common words such as "already", "readiness", or "readied", producing a false-positive READY marker. This could cause the executor to skip plan refinement when the model never actually signaled readiness.

🐛 Proposed fix: add word boundaries

 _READY_MARKER: Final[re.Pattern[str]] = re.compile(
-    r"NOT\s+READY|READY", re.IGNORECASE
+    r"\bNOT\s+READY\b|\bREADY\b", re.IGNORECASE
 )

A test case like _detect_plan_ready("I am already prepared") is False would guard against regression.

📝 Committable suggestion

‼️ IMPORTANT
Carefully review the code before committing. Ensure that it accurately replaces the highlighted code, contains no missing lines, and has no issues with indentation. Thoroughly test & benchmark the code to ensure it meets the requirements.

Suggested change

	_READY_MARKER: Final[re.Pattern[str]] = re.compile(
	r"NOT\s+READY|READY", re.IGNORECASE
	)
	_READY_MARKER: Final[re.Pattern[str]] = re.compile(
	r"\bNOT\s+READY\b|\bREADY\b", re.IGNORECASE
	)

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

In `@lib/crewai/src/crewai/utilities/reasoning_handler.py` around lines 31 - 33,
The _READY_MARKER regex in reasoning_handler is too broad because READY matches
inside other words like already or readiness. Update the pattern used by
_READY_MARKER to require word boundaries around the READY token (while keeping
the NOT\s+READY alternative) so _detect_plan_ready only returns true for an
actual standalone readiness signal and not embedded substrings.