--- /SHiREVault/Backup/OSBackups/SHIRE-ACADEMY-ROUND3-AST-SOURCE-REPAIR-20260805T122334Z/before/design_academy_practice_service.py	2026-08-05 20:23:33.781444300 +0800
+++ /SHiREVault/Backup/OSBackups/SHIRE-ACADEMY-ROUND3-AST-SOURCE-REPAIR-20260805T122334Z/staged/design_academy_practice_service.py	2026-08-05 20:23:34.788427200 +0800
@@ -702,22 +702,64 @@
 
     @staticmethod
     def _transient_brain_failure(error: Exception) -> bool:
+        """
+        Treat only transport, timeout and local service availability failures
+        as infrastructure. Contract and learner-content errors are semantic.
+        """
+        payload = (
+            error.payload
+            if isinstance(error, AcademyBrainResponseError)
+            and isinstance(error.payload, dict)
+            else {}
+        )
+
+        if (
+            payload.get("content_format_failure") is True
+            or payload.get("failure_class")
+                == "academy_output_contract_failure"
+            or payload.get("infrastructure_failure") is False
+        ):
+            return False
+
+        if payload.get("infrastructure_failure") is True:
+            return payload.get("retryable") is True
+
+        payload_error = str(
+            payload.get("error") or ""
+        ).lower()
+
+        if any(
+            token in payload_error
+            for token in (
+                "ollama http error",
+                "ollama unavailable",
+                "service unavailable",
+                "out of memory",
+                "oom",
+                "process was killed",
+            )
+        ):
+            return True
+
         text = str(error).lower()
+
         return any(
             token in text
             for token in (
+                "brain api practice request failed",
                 "timed out",
                 "timeout",
                 "connection refused",
                 "temporarily unavailable",
+                "service unavailable",
                 "remote end closed",
                 "connection reset",
-                "academy structured output invalid",
-                "round-specific canonicalisation",
-                "canonical json gate",
-                "response contract guard",
-                "http 502",
-                "http 504",
+                "connection aborted",
+                "broken pipe",
+                "name or service not known",
+                "network is unreachable",
+                "out of memory",
+                "process was killed",
             )
         )