fix(work-mcp): harden pillar keyword loading and repair QMD import flag

[stevegranshaw]

Linked Issue

• N/A — community contribution. Full bug analysis is in this description; happy to open a tracking issue if you'd prefer one.

What Changed

Two root-cause fixes in core/mcp/work_server.py:

1. Pillar keyword crash. An unquoted YAML token like 1:1 in a user's System/pillars.yaml parses as a base-60 int (61), so guess_pillar()'s keyword in item_lower (work_server.py:313) raises 'in <string>' requires string as left operand, not int. That takes down every pillar-inferring tool — list_tasks, create_task, get_work_summary, get_week_progress. Fix: coerce keywords to str at load (load_pillars_from_yaml), so the loader is robust to any non-string value regardless of how a user's pillars file was written.

2. create_task NameError. Two HAS_QMD assignments guard different imports:

   • The qmd_query import (is_qmd_available, vault_search) used the wrong path (utils.qmd_query rather than core.utils.qmd_query) and ran before sys.path.insert(..., <vault root>), so it always failed → is_qmd_available never defined.
   • The later qmd_indexer import succeeds (it runs after the sys.path insert) and set HAS_QMD = True, clobbering the earlier False.

   Result: HAS_QMD is True while is_qmd_available is undefined, so find_similar_tasks (:2140) and the meeting-context path (:2613) raise NameError: name 'is_qmd_available' is not defined. (Side note: because the qmd_query import never resolved, QMD semantic de-duplication has effectively been dead code.) Fix: move the qmd_query import to after the sys.path insert with the correct path, and stop the qmd_indexer block from touching HAS_QMD (it has a no-op fallback and one unguarded call site, so it never needed the flag).

Test Plan

• Verified in a clean Python process (independent of any long-running MCP server):
  • All pillar keywords load as str; guess_pillar returns the right pillar for 1:1, 121, and multi-word titles with no crash.
  • is_qmd_available, vault_search, refresh_search_index all resolve; HAS_QMD == True.
  • With QMD not indexed, is_qmd_available() returns False → find_similar_tasks falls back to keyword matching (the existing try/except), so there's no behavior change beyond removing the crash.
• Negative path: confirmed graceful degradation when QMD isn't installed (import guarded; no-op refresh_search_index intact).
• Regression test: not included yet. Suggested unit tests: (a) load_pillars_from_yaml returns all-str keywords given an unquoted 1:1; (b) guess_pillar('1:1 sync') does not raise. Glad to add before merge if you'd like.

Risk & Rollback

• Risk: low. No public API or tool-signature changes. The keyword coercion is a pure boundary normalization; the QMD path stays guarded by is_qmd_available() plus a try/except keyword fallback, so it can't crash task creation. The one behavioral change: on machines where QMD is installed, semantic de-dup now actually runs (its intended, previously-dead behavior).
• Rollback: revert this commit (four small hunks in one file).

Docs Impact

• None required. Suggest a CHANGELOG.md entry (e.g. v1.20.2): task tools crashed on certain pillar keywords, and create_task hit a hidden semantic-search error — both fixed.

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Found while using Dex; fix written with Claude Code's help and verified before submitting, per CONTRIBUTING.md.