fix: judge an unreadable page by evidence, not by length alone

contentFailure called every render under 25 tokens a failure, which
made exit 2 claim a terse page was JavaScript-only, gated, or
challenged when it had simply arrived terse. The verdict now needs
evidence: nothing extracted is empty whatever the page weighed, and a
short render is only a failure when the markup behind it was far too
big to have carried only that. A status endpoint or a one-line answer
now exits 0, script-only shells and consent walls still exit 2, and
raw applies the same rule before refusing. The --json empty field
follows the same policy, so callers keep a machine-stable distinction
between empty and merely short.

Fixes #29

src/cli.js

@@ -182,8 +182,12 @@ async function main() {
         // Only the blank case here. `raw` is the fallback the compact view's
         // failure line names, so it must not fail on the same pages: a page
         // whose only text is its menu still has markup, and printing it is the
-        // whole point of `raw`.
-        if (outTokens < MIN_CONTENT) noContent(finalUrl, `~${outTokens} tokens of markdown`, '');
+        // whole point of `raw`. And a short page that arrived short is not
+        // blank, so the verdict needs the same evidence the compact view asks
+        // for: near-nothing distilled out of markup that promised more.
+        if (outTokens < MIN_CONTENT && contentFailure(outTokens, htmlTokens)) {
+          noContent(finalUrl, `~${outTokens} tokens of markdown`, '');
+        }
         return;
       }
       const page = distill(html, finalUrl);

src/render.js

@@ -35,8 +35,9 @@ const num = (v) => v.toLocaleString('en-US');
 // which is what tells a link-list page (Hacker News, search results) from a
 // page whose only links are its own menu.
 const CONTENT_LABEL = 25;
-// Below this there is nothing to read whatever the page is, so how much markup
-// it arrived in does not matter.
+// Below this a render is suspiciously thin, but thin is only a verdict when
+// the page's own size says there should have been more. A terse page that
+// arrived terse (a status endpoint, a one-line answer) distilled fine.
 export const MIN_CONTENT = 25;
 // Below this, with markup that large behind it, the fetch worked and the render
 // did not: a real page of that weight always distills to more. A genuinely
@@ -65,7 +66,11 @@ export const contentTokens = (page) =>
  * @returns {string|null}
  */
 export function contentFailure(content, htmlTokens) {
-  if (content < MIN_CONTENT) return `~${content} tokens of text on the whole page`;
+  // Nothing extracted is empty whatever the page weighed. Anything more is
+  // only a failure with evidence: a small page that renders small is not
+  // gated, it is small, and exit 2 on it would send an agent to a browser
+  // for a page it was already holding.
+  if (content === 0) return 'no text on the whole page';
   if (content < THIN_CONTENT && htmlTokens > THIN_HTML) {
     return `~${content} tokens of text out of ~${htmlTokens} of HTML`;
   }

tests/distill.test.js

@@ -490,13 +490,13 @@ test('a page that arrives with no readable text is reported as a failure', () =>
   };
 
   // Nothing at all, whatever the page weighed.
-  assert.match(verdict('<div id="root"></div>', 0), /~0 tokens of text on the whole page/);
+  assert.match(verdict('<div id="root"></div>', 0), /no text on the whole page/);
 
   // Menu links only: short labels are furniture, so this page has no content
   // either, however much markup came with it.
   const chrome = ['Help', 'Log in', 'Content Policy', 'About', 'Careers', 'Press']
     .map((t) => `<a href="/${t}">${t}</a>`).join('');
-  assert.match(verdict(chrome, 60_000), /~0 tokens of text on the whole page/);
+  assert.match(verdict(chrome, 60_000), /no text on the whole page/);
 
   // A consent wall or a login gate: a sentence or two of real text, out of
   // markup far too big to have carried only that.
@@ -508,6 +508,17 @@ test('a page that arrives with no readable text is reported as a failure', () =>
   assert.equal(verdict(gate, 0), null);
 });
 
+test('a terse page that arrived terse is content, not a failed render', () => {
+  // A status endpoint or a one-line answer distills fine and has to exit 0:
+  // calling it gated would send an agent to a browser for a page it was
+  // already holding. Only weight it never rendered is evidence of a gate.
+  const html = '<html><head><title>status</title></head><body><p>All systems operational.</p></body></html>';
+  const page = distill(html, 'https://fixture.test/status');
+  assert.equal(contentFailure(contentTokens(page), estimateTokens(html)), null);
+  const json = distill('{"status":"ok"}', 'https://fixture.test/health');
+  assert.equal(contentFailure(contentTokens(json), 4), null);
+});
+
 test('a link-list page counts as content even with no prose on it', () => {
   // Hacker News and search results are links and nothing else, so a rule that
   // counted only prose would call the tool's best pages empty.