fix: generate inline taxonomy slugs server-side

[ascorbic]

What does this PR do?

Moves automatic taxonomy-term slug generation to the server for inline creation. When callers omit a slug, the API uses the shared Unicode slug utility from #2505 and resolves collisions against the database with locale-scoped numeric suffixes. Manually supplied slugs remain unchanged and still return a conflict when already taken.

The entry-editor taxonomy sidebar now sends only the label (plus locale), while the taxonomy manager omits the slug only while its slug field remains auto-generated.

Depends on #2505.

Closes #2355

Type of change

• Bug fix
• Feature (requires maintainer-approved Discussion)
• Refactor (no behavior change)
• Translation
• Documentation
• Performance improvement
• Tests
• Chore (dependencies, CI, tooling)

Checklist

• I have read CONTRIBUTING.md
• pnpm typecheck passes
• pnpm lint passes
• pnpm test passes (or targeted tests for my change)
• pnpm format has been run
• I have added/updated tests for my changes (if applicable)
• User-visible strings in the admin UI are wrapped for translation (if applicable). Do not include messages.po changes except in translation PRs — a workflow extracts catalogs on merge to main. N/A: no new user-visible admin strings.
• I have added a changeset (if this PR changes a published package)
• New features link to an approved Discussion: N/A — this fixes Admin slugifier strips all non-ASCII, so inline taxonomy-term creation 400s for CJK-only labels (slug: "") #2355 using the maintainer-approved slug policy in Content can be published with no slug — live view link disappears, sitemap advertises the ULID #2271.

AI-generated code disclosure

• This PR includes AI-generated code — model/tool: OpenAI Codex (GPT-5)

Screenshots / test output

• pnpm --filter @emdash-cms/admin --filter emdash build
• pnpm typecheck
• pnpm lint
• pnpm lint:json | jq '.diagnostics | length' → 0
• pnpm --filter emdash exec vitest run tests/unit/taxonomies/term-slug-generation.test.ts tests/unit/taxonomies/taxonomy-crud.test.ts tests/unit/taxonomies/term-reorder.test.ts tests/integration/taxonomies/taxonomy-locale-terms.test.ts tests/integration/mcp/taxonomy.test.ts → 122 passed.
• pnpm --filter @emdash-cms/admin exec vitest run tests/components/TaxonomySidebar.test.tsx tests/components/TaxonomyManager.test.tsx → 31 passed.

---

Try this PR

Open a fresh playground →

A full working EmDash site, deployed from this branch. Each visit gets its own session-scoped sandbox: no login needed and no shared state. Try the admin, edit content, hit the public site.

_{Tracks codex/taxonomy-unicode-slugs-2355. Updated automatically when the playground redeploys.}

[changeset-bot]

🦋 Changeset detected

Latest commit: 0de54d1

The changes in this PR will be included in the next version bump.

This PR includes changesets to release 17 packages

Name	Type
emdash	Patch
@emdash-cms/admin	Patch
@emdash-cms/cloudflare	Patch
@emdash-cms/sandbox-workerd	Patch
@emdash-cms/plugin-mcp-smoke	Patch
@emdash-cms/fixture-perf-site	Patch
@emdash-cms/perf-demo-site	Patch
@emdash-cms/cache-demo-site	Patch
@emdash-cms/do-demo-site	Patch
@emdash-cms/do-solo-demo-site	Patch
@emdash-cms/auth	Patch
@emdash-cms/blocks	Patch
@emdash-cms/gutenberg-to-portable-text	Patch
@emdash-cms/x402	Patch
create-emdash	Patch
@emdash-cms/auth-atproto	Patch
@emdash-cms/plugin-embeds	Patch

Not sure what this means? Click here to learn what changesets are.

Click here if you're a maintainer who wants to add another changeset to this PR

[cloudflare-workers-and-pages]

Deploying with    Cloudflare Workers

The latest updates on your project. Learn more about integrating Git with Workers.

Status	Name	Latest Commit	Updated (UTC)
🔵 In progress View logs	emdash-playground	31eb04c	Aug 16 2026, 10:23 PM

[cloudflare-workers-and-pages]

Deploying with    Cloudflare Workers

The latest updates on your project. Learn more about integrating Git with Workers.

Status	Name	Latest Commit	Updated (UTC)
🔵 In progress View logs	emdash-demo-do	31eb04c	Aug 16 2026, 10:23 PM

[cloudflare-workers-and-pages]

Deploying with    Cloudflare Workers

The latest updates on your project. Learn more about integrating Git with Workers.

Status	Name	Latest Commit	Updated (UTC)
🔵 In progress View logs	emdash-demo-cache	31eb04c	Aug 16 2026, 10:23 PM

[emdashbot]

This PR correctly moves taxonomy-term slug generation to the server so Unicode labels and inline creation work with the shared Unicode slug utility. The approach matches the architecture: the schema makes slug optional, the handler derives it, and the admin components omit the slug only when it is auto-generated. I checked the changed handler, repository, schemas, MCP tool, admin components, tests, and changeset.

Main concern: handleTermCreate is not atomic between choosing a generated slug and inserting it. Two concurrent requests can pick the same slug; the top-level catch then returns a generic TERM_CREATE_ERROR instead of a structured conflict or a recovered suffix. That's a real robustness gap in the new default path.

Secondary: the new schema-only unit test is tautological; the dialect-aware handler tests already cover the real behavior.

Everything else looks good: Kysely is used safely, locale filtering is present, the changeset follows conventions, there are no logged-out hot-path changes, and no new user-facing untranslated strings.

---

Findings

• [needs fixing] packages/core/src/api/handlers/taxonomies.ts:910-914

  generateUniqueSlug probes the database and then the handler inserts, so two concurrent requests can both choose the same generated slug. This catch block then turns the resulting unique-constraint failure into an opaque TERM_CREATE_ERROR, meaning the new default create path can fail with a generic message instead of a structured CONFLICT or a recovered suffix.

  At minimum, detect the unique-constraint violation and return a structured conflict; better, retry generation a bounded number of times so the auto-generator can recover from its own race.

  	} catch (error) {
  		if (error instanceof Error && error.message.includes("UNIQUE constraint failed")) {
  			return {
  				success: false,
  				error: {
  					code: "CONFLICT",
  					message: `Term with slug '${slug}' already exists in taxonomy '${taxonomyName}'`,
  				},
  			};
  		}
  		return {
  			success: false,
  			error: { code: "TERM_CREATE_ERROR", message: "Failed to create term" },
  		};
  	}
  

• [suggestion] packages/core/tests/unit/taxonomies/term-slug-generation.test.ts:13-15

  This test asserts that the Zod schema accepts a label-only object, which mostly restates the schema definition rather than validating behavior. The dialect-aware handler tests below already cover the real behavior (server derives slug from label). Drop this standalone schema-only test or fold it into a handler-level assertion.

[ascorbic]

Addressed both automated-review findings in 4c5dd49.

• Generated term creation now retries slug selection/insertion up to 16 times only when the database reports a slug-specific unique violation. If contention persists, the handler returns a structured CONFLICT instead of TERM_CREATE_ERROR; explicit-slug behavior is unchanged.
• Replaced the schema-only assertion with a real six-request concurrent-create regression. It failed before the fix and now verifies all requests succeed with 同時 through 同時-5.

Verified with the 122-test taxonomy/MCP suite, pnpm typecheck, pnpm lint, and pnpm lint:json | jq '.diagnostics | length' (0).

[emdashbot]

This re-review looks good. The server-side slug generation for inline taxonomy terms correctly moves Unicode slug derivation into handleTermCreate while preserving explicit-slug conflict behavior.

I re-checked the handler, repository, schemas, MCP tool, admin components, and tests. The previous race condition is now handled by a bounded retry loop around generateUniqueSlug, plus structured CONFLICT responses for unique-constraint failures. The tautological schema-only unit test was replaced with dialect-aware handler tests covering Unicode slugs, numeric suffix collisions, concurrent recovery, locale scoping, and explicit-slug conflicts.

Kysely usage remains safe, locale filtering is present where the term will be inserted, the changeset follows conventions, no logged-out hot paths are affected, and no untranslated admin UI strings were added. No remaining blockers.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Warning

Copilot couldn't run its full agentic review because it didn't start before the timeout. Make sure your repository has a runner available, or add a copilot-code-review.yml file specifying one with the runs-on attribute. See the docs for more details.

Moves inline taxonomy term slug generation from the admin client to the core server/API (and MCP tool), deriving Unicode slugs when omitted and resolving collisions with locale-scoped numeric suffixes.

Changes:

• Make term slug optional across API/MCP schemas and admin client types; server derives slug when omitted.
• Add server-side unique-slug generation + retry-on-collision logic for concurrent creates.
• Add unit/integration/admin tests covering Unicode slugs, collisions, and “omit slug” client behavior.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 12 out of 12 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
packages/core/tests/unit/taxonomies/term-slug-generation.test.ts	Adds unit coverage for Unicode slug derivation, collisions, locale scoping, and concurrency.
packages/core/tests/integration/mcp/taxonomy.test.ts	Verifies the MCP tool derives a Unicode slug when slug is omitted.
packages/core/src/mcp/server.ts	Makes MCP taxonomy_create_term slug optional and documents omission behavior.
packages/core/src/database/repositories/taxonomy.ts	Introduces generateUniqueSlug backed by DB collision checks and numeric suffixing.
packages/core/src/api/schemas/taxonomies.ts	Makes REST createTerm slug optional with description metadata.
packages/core/src/api/handlers/taxonomies.ts	Implements server-side slug derivation, retry loop, and unique-violation handling.
packages/admin/tests/components/TaxonomySidebar.test.tsx	Ensures sidebar inline create omits slug and lets server derive it.
packages/admin/tests/components/TaxonomyManager.test.tsx	Ensures manager omits slug when auto-generated, and sends slug when manually edited.
packages/admin/src/lib/api/taxonomies.ts	Updates CreateTermInput to allow optional slug.
packages/admin/src/components/TaxonomySidebar.tsx	Stops client-side slugification for inline creation.
packages/admin/src/components/TaxonomyManager.tsx	Omits slug on create when still auto-generated.
.changeset/fix-inline-unicode-taxonomies.md	Adds a changeset describing the fix and collision behavior.

---

💡 Add a code-review agent skill or configure MCP servers for context-aware, tailored reviews. Learn more in the docs.

[pkg-pr-new]

Open in StackBlitz

@emdash-cms/admin

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/admin@2506

@emdash-cms/auth

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/auth@2506

@emdash-cms/auth-atproto

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/auth-atproto@2506

@emdash-cms/blocks

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/blocks@2506

@emdash-cms/cloudflare

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/cloudflare@2506

@emdash-cms/contentful-to-portable-text

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/contentful-to-portable-text@2506

emdash

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/emdash@2506

create-emdash

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/create-emdash@2506

@emdash-cms/gutenberg-to-portable-text

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/gutenberg-to-portable-text@2506

@emdash-cms/plugin-cli

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/plugin-cli@2506

@emdash-cms/plugin-types

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/plugin-types@2506

@emdash-cms/registry-client

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/registry-client@2506

@emdash-cms/registry-lexicons

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/registry-lexicons@2506

@emdash-cms/registry-verification

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/registry-verification@2506

@emdash-cms/sandbox-workerd

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/sandbox-workerd@2506

@emdash-cms/x402

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/x402@2506

@emdash-cms/plugin-ai-moderation

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/plugin-ai-moderation@2506

@emdash-cms/plugin-atproto

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/plugin-atproto@2506

@emdash-cms/plugin-audit-log

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/plugin-audit-log@2506

@emdash-cms/plugin-color

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/plugin-color@2506

@emdash-cms/plugin-embeds

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/plugin-embeds@2506

@emdash-cms/plugin-field-kit

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/plugin-field-kit@2506

@emdash-cms/plugin-forms

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/plugin-forms@2506

@emdash-cms/plugin-webhook-notifier

npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@emdash-cms/plugin-webhook-notifier@2506

commit: 0de54d1

[github-actions]

Overlapping PRs

This PR modifies files that are also changed by other open PRs:

• fix: preserve taxonomy assignments across locale fallbacks #2508 (5 shared files)
• fix(taxonomies): respect active locale in admin surfaces #2342 (3 shared files)

This may cause merge conflicts or duplicated work. A maintainer will coordinate.

[emdashbot]

This PR makes the right change: automatic slug generation for taxonomy terms now happens server-side in handleTermCreate, using the shared Unicode slugify utility, locale-scoped collision detection, and a bounded retry loop for concurrent races. Explicit slugs still get the existing per-locale conflict behavior. This is the minimal, architecturally correct fix for #2355.

I re-reviewed the changed files and the surrounding code paths:

• API contract: createTermBody now makes slug optional, matching the handler change; the REST term-create route and the MCP taxonomy_create_term tool both pass the new shape through unchanged.
• Slug generation: TaxonomyRepository.generateUniqueSlug uses a parameterized Kysely query scoped to (name, locale), with a safe LIKE prefix and numeric suffix logic. No SQL interpolation issues.
• Race handling: handleTermCreate retries generated slug inserts on unique-constraint violations and surfaces any final conflict as a structured CONFLICT response. The error-message heuristic checks for both SQLite and Postgres unique-violation phrases and requires the column name slug to be present.
• Admin callers: TaxonomySidebar no longer sends a slug; TaxonomyManager only sends a slug when autoSlug is false. Both call sites still pass the entry/admin locale so the server scopes the term correctly.
• Tests: The new dialect-aware handler tests cover Unicode scripts, emoji fallback, numeric suffix collisions, concurrent recovery, locale scoping, and explicit-slug conflicts. Admin component tests verify the request body shape. No tautological/assert-the-implementation tests were added.
• AGENTS.md conventions: All admin strings remain Lingui-wrapped (no new user-visible strings). No changes to logged-out routes. A correct changeset is present. Comments are minimal and describe invariants, not reviewers.

No remaining blockers. This is a clean, focused bug fix that does what it says.