Observed behavior: when the MCP returns Auth required, Codex fell
through to "let me generate the .pptx/.xlsx myself" — probing for
python-pptx/openpyxl/xlsxwriter and then PowerPoint/Excel COM
automation. Any artifact produced that way has fabricated SKUs,
prices, and templates — worse than no artifact.
Previous guardrails forbade reconstructing the KB locally and
inventing SKUs, but did not explicitly forbid local artifact
generation. Add that rule: if the MCP is unreachable, no artifacts
are produced, full stop.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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