---

kind: infra

eval/capability.py carries the same narrow PackageNotFoundError catch that breaks on the announced importlib.metadata KeyError

Provenance: found by the Codex code-review twin during #2360 round 1 ("Bug-class sweep: metadata-corruption exceptions escaping structured reports"), which named it as a secondary site to consider while widening the primary. #2360's implementer correctly DECLINED to fix it — it is outside that task's approved change surface — and flagged it for separate filing.

The gap

src/explore_persona_space/eval/capability.py:852-856 (_safe_version) catches only importlib.metadata.PackageNotFoundError and relies on the implicit None return for a package whose *.dist-info directory exists but whose METADATA file is missing.

Python has announced that behavior away. Running on 3.12.13 emits, from importlib/metadata/__init__.py:467:

DeprecationWarning: Implicit None on return values is deprecated
and will raise KeyErrors.

The project's requires-python = ">=3.11", so a supported future interpreter raises KeyError where this code expects None.

Why it is lower severity than the #2360 primary — but still worth fixing

This site does informational version reporting only; it does not feed a preflight verdict or any gate, so the failure direction is a confusing traceback rather than a wrong pass. That is exactly why #2360 fixed its own tier-1 site (preflight.py, where the escape would have destroyed structured verdict/JSON routing and the named repair guidance) and left this one alone.

The reason to close it anyway: the half-installed-package shape that motivated #2360 is now known to occur on real pods, and this helper runs during capability eval. An uncaught KeyError there would surface as an unexplained eval crash — the same misleading-error class #2360 exists to eliminate, just one layer out.

Fix

Mirror the #2360 resolution: normalize BOTH the None return and the missing-Version KeyError onto the same "version unavailable" path, and add an interpreter-version-INDEPENDENT regression that monkeypatches importlib.metadata.version to raise KeyError("Version"). #2360's preflight.py tier-1 handler and its accompanying test are the reference implementation to copy.

Worth a repo-wide sweep in the same round for any other except PackageNotFoundError / importlib.metadata.version consumer relying on the implicit-None contract.

Acceptance

• The helper returns its "unavailable" sentinel for both broken-metadata shapes (absent dist-info, and present dist-info with missing METADATA), on both today's interpreter and a simulated future one.
• A regression pins the KeyError form without depending on the running Python version.
• Any other in-repo consumer relying on the implicit-None contract is either fixed in the same round or named as out of scope with a reason.