Bug: “After Christmas” deferral is being escalated instead of T4 defer

Current behaviour

Conversation is active, stage 12, appointment already booked.

Customer replies: "How about after Christmas".

/api/lia/inbound returns:

mode: "AWAITING_MANAGER"

reply: ""

Make correctly suppresses the empty reply, but the conversation is now flagged as needs human review.

Expected behaviour

This is a clear deferral request, not confusion.

We want:

mode: "T4_DEFER_CUSTOMER_REPLY"

status: "active"

appointment_status: "NONE" (cancel the booked slot)

last_reply_type: "T4_DEFER_CUSTOMER_REPLY"

defer_until set to a sensible date (e.g. early January) based on “after Christmas”.

A T4-style reply, for example:

“No problem at all, [name] – we can pick this up after Christmas. I’ll make a note to get back in touch then, but if you’d like to talk sooner just drop me a message here.”

Implementation sketch

Add a helper like is_clear_defer_request(text, today_date) in lia_ure.py, matching phrases such as:

"after christmas", "after xmas", "after new year", "in the new year", "next year", etc.

In the main URE flow, run this before the needs_human_review / AWAITING_MANAGER early exit:

If is_clear_defer_request(...) is true:

Build a T4 defer response (mode T4_DEFER_CUSTOMER_REPLY).

Cancel any existing appointment (appointment_status = "NONE").

Set defer_until based on the phrase (e.g. 10 Jan if “after Christmas” and current date is pre-Xmas).

Do not set needs_human_review.

This should work both:

In booked flows (appointment already confirmed)

And in general conversations where the customer is just pushing the discussion to after Christmas.

Regression tests

Test 1 – booked appointment → "How about after Christmas"

Expect: mode = "T4_DEFER_CUSTOMER_REPLY", appointment_status = "NONE", non-empty reply, defer_until not null.

Test 2 – cold inbound: "Could you try me after Christmas?"

Expect the same T4 defer behaviour (no AWAITING_MANAGER).

Test 3 – genuine confusion / gibberish still goes to AWAITING_MANAGER as before.

This keeps the escalation path for real confusion/complaints, but treats “after Christmas” as a clean T4 deferral.