Three related changes that take the rating pipeline from heuristic-only
to type-safe at the source.
1) Research Manager prompt now uses the same 5-tier scale (Buy /
Overweight / Hold / Underweight / Sell) as the Portfolio Manager,
signal_processing, and the memory log. The prior 3-tier wording
(Buy / Sell / Hold) was the only remaining inconsistency in the
pipeline.
2) Centralise the 5-tier vocabulary and the heuristic prose-rating
parser into tradingagents/agents/utils/rating.py. Both the memory
log and the signal processor now share the same parser instead of
duplicating regex and word-walker logic.
3) Make structured output a first-class part of the Portfolio Manager's
primary call. The PM uses llm.with_structured_output(PortfolioDecision)
so each provider's native structured-output mode (json_schema for
OpenAI/xAI, response_schema for Gemini, tool-use for Anthropic,
function_calling for OpenAI-compatible providers) yields a typed
Pydantic instance directly. A render helper turns that instance back
into the same markdown shape downstream consumers (memory log, CLI
display, saved reports) already expect, so no other code has to know
the PM now produces structured output. Providers without structured
support fall back gracefully to free-text + the deterministic
heuristic.
The previous SignalProcessor had been making a second LLM call to
re-extract the rating from the PM's prose; that round-trip is now
eliminated. SignalProcessor is a thin adapter over parse_rating(),
makes zero LLM calls, and stays for backwards compatibility with
process_signal() callers.
Schema (PortfolioDecision) captures rating + executive_summary +
investment_thesis + optional price_target + time_horizon, with field
descriptions doubling as output instructions. Agent prose remains the
primary artifact; structured output is layered onto the PM only because
it is the one agent whose output has machine-readable downstream
consumers.
15 new tests cover the heuristic parser (markdown-bold edge cases that
had no coverage before), the structured PM happy path, the free-text
fallback path, and that SignalProcessor never invokes the LLM. Full
suite: 77 tests pass in ~2s without API keys.
