[ajianaz]

What

Last step of #1515. uteke-mcp used to open the store with the built-in defaults and ignore uteke.toml for recall, tier, graph rerank, dream, lifecycle and the embedding fallback. It now loads EngineSettings (EngineSettings::load: global file, project file with its untrusted keys stripped, then UTEKE_RECALL_* / UTEKE_GRAPH_* / UTEKE_EMBED_FALLBACK_*) and applies it. Uteke::apply_settings also sets tier and graph rerank and keeps the sanitized [recall] settings; uteke_recall uses min_score, min_score_strict and default_strategy when a call gives none, as POST /recall does (a call's own floor or strategy wins). MCP over HTTP gets the same from the server's settings. uteke-serve now also honours UTEKE_RECALL_* and UTEKE_GRAPH_* (it ignored them), and one shared layering helper replaces the copy in the privacy loader. The server builds one engine value up front (env, sanitized strategy, fallback) and its two small resolver functions go away.

Why

The same store answered uteke_recall differently over MCP than over POST /recall or uteke recall once [recall] was changed. With no [recall] section and no variable nothing changes (the defaults equal the built-ins).

Contract: uteke-cloud#248 is answered (2026-10-22): no objection, nothing to change in cloud. Refs #1515, closes #1355 when merged.

Testing

• clippy -D warnings, fmt, cargo test --workspace pass; cargo run -p docgen changes nothing
• core: 8 new tests (sanitized, tier/graph/recall defaults applied, default recall settings, layers then env order); MCP: 3 tests (no section changes nothing, configured floor filters and a call floor wins, configured strategy and sanitizing)
• side by side with the real model: the MCP binary from develop ignores [recall] min_score and UTEKE_RECALL_MIN_SCORE (3 results), this branch applies them (1 result); no configuration gives identical output. Server: toml-only configs identical to develop, only the env case changes as documented
• reviewed locally with the Cora MCP agent reviewer before pushing: no blocking finding. One minor finding of mine: MCP now also reads the project-local file for [lifecycle] and [dream], which the CLI and the server already did; whether those belong in the untrusted keys is tracked in a separate issue

[github-actions]

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✅ No issues found. Code looks good!

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