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[Bugfix][Parser] DeepSeek V4: drop orphan DSML structural closers in content - #57051

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erans:fix/deepseek-v4-absorb-stray-dsml
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erans:fix/deepseek-v4-absorb-stray-dsml

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@erans

@erans erans commented Sep 15, 2026

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Purpose

Reported on a DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash deployment: responses intermittently end with a stray closing tag (for example </|DSML|parameter>) appended to the completed answer. It reproduces only under long-context / degenerate generation, which is exactly when the model emits orphan DSML fragments.

Root cause is in the engine's no-transition fallback:

  • StreamingParserEngine._on_terminal calls _emit_for_state(value, ...) whenever (state, terminal) has no transition. In CONTENT/REASONING that echoes the raw terminal text as a TEXT_CHUNK / REASONING_CHUNK.
  • deepseek_v4_config defines transitions only for the TOOL_* states, so an orphan structural closer that arrives in a plain content state is emitted verbatim into the client-visible content.

Fix

  • Add a declarative absorb_terminals set to ParserEngineConfig.
  • In _on_terminal, drop a declared terminal that reaches a plain content state (CONTENT/REASONING) with no transition.
  • Guard the drop with not self.skip_tool_parsing, and declare PARAM_CLOSE, INVOKE_END, TOOL_END in deepseek_v4_config.

The skip_tool_parsing guard is essential. In the delegating architecture the reasoning pass runs with skip_tool_parsing=True and must pass tool markup through verbatim so the downstream tool adapter can parse it. Absorbing there starves the tool parser.

Why not state-machine transitions

The obvious alternative — adding (CONTENT, "PARAM_CLOSE")-style transitions - is unsafe here. Those transitions also fire in the reasoning pass, which then drops the closers from the reasoning-stripped content handed to the tool adapter. On the real engine that reproduces as test_registered_adapters_parse_complete_output losing every parameter after the first ({"city": ...} instead of {"city": ..., "count": ...}) and TestDelegatingParserLargeDelta failing. The engine-level rule with the skip-pass guard keeps the reasoning pass untouched.

Only the tool-owning pass absorbs; reasoning-channel orphans keep their existing behaviour.

Tests

  • tests/parser/engine/test_deepseek_v4.py::TestOrphanStructuralCloserAbsorption - non-streaming and streaming, all three closers, plus a normal-tool-call regression.
  • tests/parser/engine/test_deepseek_v41.py::test_orphan_structural_closer_is_absorbed - spaced V4.1 dialect, thinking on and off.

Verification

Ran both test modules against a real DeepSeek-V4.1 serving engine (vLLM dev build, --tool-call-parser deepseek_v41 --reasoning-parser deepseek_v41):

  • every new test passes;
  • the delegating reasoning + tool-adapter tests still parse all parameters and remain byte-for-byte unchanged;
  • the only remaining failure in the module is a pre-existing engine-version drift unrelated to this change.

Related

#51914, #52645 and #49117 cover missing or malformed DSML start wrappers / orphan-invoke recovery. This change is complementary and addresses the orphan closer leak into content, which those do not.

Long-context degeneration makes DeepSeek V4/V4.1 emit an orphan structural
closer (a bare </|DSML|parameter>, </|DSML|invoke> or </|DSML|tool_calls>) while no
tool call is open. The engine's no-transition fallback in
StreamingParserEngine._on_terminal echoed that terminal verbatim into the
client-visible TEXT chunk, so a response could end with a stray
'</|DSML|parameter>'.

Add a declarative absorb_terminals set to ParserEngineConfig and drop those
terminals when they reach a plain content state with no transition. The
absorb only applies in the tool-owning pass (not skip_tool_parsing), so the
reasoning pass keeps passing the markup through for the downstream tool
adapter to parse.

Verified against the DeepSeek V4.1 serving engine (chunked and non-streaming):
the orphan closer no longer reaches content, and the delegating reasoning +
tool adapter path still parses every parameter.

Signed-off-by: Eran Sandler <eran@sandler.co.il>

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