JSON first crews (#6131)

* feat(cli): introduce JSON crew project support and TUI enhancements

- Added support for creating and running JSON-defined crew projects, allowing users to scaffold projects with a new `create_json_crew.py` file.
- Implemented a full-screen Textual TUI for crew execution in `crew_run_tui.py`, enhancing user interaction with a two-column layout.
- Updated `run_crew.py` to prioritize JSON crew projects and added daemon mode for running without TUI.
- Introduced interactive pickers in `tui_picker.py` for improved CLI prompts.
- Enhanced validation for JSON crew files in `validate.py` to ensure proper structure and agent definitions.
- Updated `.gitignore` to exclude demo and crewai directories.

* feat: update LLM model references to gpt-5.4-mini

- Changed default LLM model from gpt-4o-mini to gpt-5.4-mini across various files, including CLI options, JSON crew configurations, and agent definitions.
- Enhanced benchmark and human feedback functionalities to utilize the new model.
- Improved user interface elements in the TUI for better interaction and feedback during execution.
- Added support for new skills directory in JSON crew project creation.

* feat(benchmark): add crew-level benchmarking functionality

- Introduced a new `benchmark` command in the CLI for crew-level benchmarking, allowing users to specify agents, models, and timeout settings.
- Implemented `CrewBenchmarkCase` to handle crew-level benchmark cases with inputs and criteria.
- Enhanced the benchmark runner to support progress tracking and detailed reporting of results for multiple models.
- Added tests for loading crew benchmark cases and validating their structure.
- Updated existing benchmark functions to accommodate the new crew-level execution model.

* feat(cli): enhance JSON crew project functionality and TUI improvements

- Added optional agent-level guardrails and advanced options in JSON crew configurations to improve output validation and flexibility.
- Updated the TUI to better handle plan step statuses, including visual indicators for task completion and failure.
- Introduced methods for parsing and managing step observation events, ensuring accurate updates to task statuses during execution.
- Enhanced validation for JSON crew projects, ensuring proper structure and error handling for agent and task definitions.
- Added comprehensive tests for new features and validation logic, ensuring robustness in JSON crew project handling.

* refactor(cli): streamline JSON crew project handling and improve validation

- Refactored JSON crew project loading and validation logic to enhance clarity and maintainability.
- Introduced utility functions for finding JSON crew files, improving code reuse across modules.
- Removed deprecated benchmark functionality and associated tests to simplify the codebase.
- Updated CLI commands to utilize the new JSON project structure, ensuring compatibility with recent changes.
- Enhanced test coverage for JSON crew project features, ensuring robust validation and error handling.

* feat(cli): enhance activity log navigation and focus management

- Added functionality to focus on the activity log when navigating through log entries.
- Implemented refresh logic for the log panel to ensure updates are displayed correctly during navigation.
- Improved keyboard navigation for log entries, allowing users to expand and scroll through logs seamlessly.
- Added tests to verify the correct behavior of log navigation and focus management in the TUI.

* feat(cli): enhance JSON crew project interaction and input handling

- Introduced a new function to enable prompt line editing for better user experience during input prompts.
- Updated the JSON crew project wizards to show interpolation hints for dynamic values, improving user guidance.
- Enhanced the handling of missing input placeholders by prompting users for required values during crew setup.
- Refactored the crew run logic to ensure proper loading and preparation of JSON-defined crews, including runtime input management.
- Added tests to verify the correct behavior of new input handling features and JSON crew project interactions.

* feat(cli): improve crew project input prompts and event handling

- Enhanced the `_prompt_text` function to allow for configurable spacing before prompts, improving user experience during input collection.
- Updated the wizards for agent and task creation to utilize the new prompt configuration, ensuring a more compact and streamlined interaction.
- Introduced new plan step lifecycle events (`PlanStepStartedEvent`, `PlanStepCompletedEvent`) to better track the execution status of plan steps.
- Refactored the step executor to emit these events during the execution of tasks, improving observability and debugging capabilities.
- Added tests to verify the correct behavior of new prompt handling and event emissions during crew project execution.

* fix: refine json-first crew interactions

* fix: prioritize common json crew tools

* fix: make json crew more tools expandable

* fix: show json crew tools by category

* feat(memory): update default embedder to OpenAI text-embedding-3-large and enhance memory compatibility

- Changed the default embedding model for Memory to OpenAI text-embedding-3-large, which uses 3072-dimensional vectors.
- Added warnings regarding compatibility issues with existing local memory stores created with 1536-dimensional embeddings.
- Updated documentation to reflect the new default embedder and its configuration options.
- Enhanced the CLI and codebase to support the new embedding model across various components, ensuring a seamless transition for users.

* fix: address PR review feedback for JSON-first crews

Review blockers:
- Forward trained_agents_file to JSON crews: crewai run -f now exports
  CREWAI_TRAINED_AGENTS_FILE for the in-process JSON crew path
- Wizard agent picker: Esc/cancel now reprompts instead of silently
  assigning the first agent
- JSON tool resolution hard-fails: unknown tool names, missing custom
  tool files, and invalid custom tool modules raise JSONProjectError
  with actionable messages instead of warn-and-continue
- Embedding dimension mismatch: LanceDB and Qdrant Edge storages raise
  EmbeddingDimensionMismatchError with reset/pin guidance instead of
  silently zero-filling vectors or returning empty search results
- Custom tool code execution documented in loader docstring and the
  scaffolded project README

CI fixes:
- ruff format across lib/
- All 133 PR-introduced mypy errors fixed (llm.py lazy-litellm and
  cli.py lazy command shims now use TYPE_CHECKING imports; textual
  is_mounted misuse fixed; pick_many overloads; misc annotations)

Bot review comments:
- Empty except blocks now have explanatory comments or debug logging
- Removed unused _C_BG/_C_PANEL/_C_BORDER globals and redundant
  import re; tests use a single import style for create_json_crew

Tests: trained-agents propagation, wizard cancel, tool resolution
failures, and dimension mismatch guidance.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: address second round of PR review comments

Cursor Bugbot:
- Wizard agent slugs: strip to [a-z0-9_] and fall back to agent_<n> so
  symbol-only roles can't produce an empty agents/.jsonc filename
- Wizard task names: dedupe against prior task names and fall back to
  task_<n> for symbol-only descriptions

CodeRabbit:
- Agent.message(): import Task explicitly at runtime instead of relying
  on the namespace injection done by crewai/__init__
- Async executor: move the native-tools-unsupported fallback from
  _ainvoke_loop_react (self-recursion) to _ainvoke_loop_native_tools,
  mirroring the sync implementation
- StepExecutor downgrade: keep the in-step conversation and append the
  text-tooling instructions instead of rebuilding messages, so completed
  native tool calls are not re-executed
- crewai-files: extension-based MIME lookup now runs before byte
  sniffing so csv/xml types are not degraded to text/plain
- Memory storages: validate every record in a save() batch against a
  consistent embedding dimension (LanceDB previously checked only the
  first record); added mixed-batch tests
- _print_post_tui_summary now typed against CrewRunApp
- Docs: Azure OpenAI default embedder change called out in the memory
  migration warning and provider table

Code quality bots:
- Removed unused _C_YELLOW/_C_CYAN (crew_run_tui) and _GREEN (tui_picker)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat(cli): accordion tool picker in JSON crew wizard

The flat tool list had grown to ~90 rows. The picker now shows:
- Common tools always visible at the top
- Every other category as a single expandable row with tool and
  selection counts (e.g. "Search & Research  (27 tools, 2 selected)")
- Expanding a category collapses the previously expanded one
- Selections persist across expand/collapse via new preselected
  support in pick_many; cursor follows the toggled category row

tui_picker gains preselected + initial_cursor options on pick_many,
and Esc in multi-select now confirms the current selection instead of
discarding it (required so collapsing can't silently drop choices).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* refactor(cli): remove --daemon flag from crewai run

The flag only affected JSON crew projects — classic and flow projects
ignored it entirely, which made the behavior inconsistent. Removed the
option, the daemon code path (_run_json_crew_daemon), and its helper
(_load_json_crew_with_inputs).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* test: update run command tests after --daemon removal

lib/crewai/tests/cli/test_run_crew.py still asserted the old
run_crew(trained_agents_file=..., daemon=False) call signature.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix(cli): exit codes, mid-run quit, async statuses, hyphen placeholders

Addresses the latest Bugbot review round:

- Failed JSON crew runs now exit non-zero (SystemExit(1)) so scripts
  and CI don't treat failures as success, mirroring the classic path
- Quitting the TUI mid-run now ends the process (os._exit(130));
  kickoff runs in a thread worker that cannot be force-cancelled, so
  letting the CLI return would leave LLM/tool work burning tokens in
  the background
- Sidebar task statuses are now async-safe: completion/failure events
  resolve the task's own row via identity instead of assuming the most
  recently started task, and starting a task no longer blanket-marks
  earlier active rows as done
- The runtime-input prompt regex now accepts hyphenated placeholder
  names ({my-topic}), matching kickoff's interpolation pattern

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: validation safety, custom tool sandboxing, TUI log integrity, memory error surfacing

- Deploy validation no longer executes project code: validation mode
  checks tool declarations structurally (well-formed entries, custom
  tool file exists) without importing or instantiating anything.
  custom:<name> resolution only happens on the actual run path.
- custom:<name> is constrained to [A-Za-z_][A-Za-z0-9_]* and the
  resolved path must stay inside the project's tools/ directory, so
  custom:../foo or absolute-path names cannot execute code outside it.
  Tool paths resolve relative to the crew project root, not cwd.
- TUI task logs are built from per-task state captured at task start
  (idx, description, agent, start time); an out-of-order completion
  takes its output from the event and no longer steals or resets the
  current task's streamed steps/output.
- EmbeddingDimensionMismatchError now inherits ValueError instead of
  RuntimeError so background saves surface it through
  MemorySaveFailedEvent instead of silently dropping the save; the
  shutdown catch in _background_encode_batch is narrowed to the
  "cannot schedule new futures" case.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix(cli): declared project type wins over crew.json presence

A flow project that also contains a crew.json(c) file now runs and
validates as the flow it declares in pyproject.toml instead of being
hijacked by the JSON crew path. Both crewai run (_has_json_crew) and
deploy validation (_is_json_crew) check tool.crewai.type; a missing or
unreadable pyproject still means a bare JSON crew project.

Also documents why StepObservationFailedEvent intentionally marks the
plan step "done": the event signals an observer failure, not a step
failure, and the executor continues past it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix(cli): type the declared_type locals so mypy stays clean

Comparing an Any-typed .get() chain returns Any, which tripped
no-any-return on the previous commit.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

lib/cli/src/crewai_cli/deploy/validate.py

@@ -38,6 +38,12 @@ import subprocess
 import sys
 from typing import Any
 
+from crewai.project.json_loader import (
+    JSONProjectValidationError,
+    find_crew_json_file,
+    find_json_project_file,
+    validate_crew_project,
+)
 from rich.console import Console
 
 from crewai_cli.utils import parse_toml
@@ -151,9 +157,33 @@ class DeployValidator:
     def ok(self) -> bool:
         return not self.errors
 
+    @property
+    def _is_json_crew(self) -> bool:
+        """True for JSON crew projects, deferring to the declared type.
+
+        A flow project that also contains a crew.json(c) file validates as
+        the flow it declares in pyproject.toml, not as a JSON crew.
+        """
+        if find_crew_json_file(self.project_root) is None:
+            return False
+        pyproject_path = self.project_root / "pyproject.toml"
+        if not pyproject_path.exists():
+            return True
+        try:
+            data = parse_toml(pyproject_path.read_text())
+        except Exception:
+            return True
+        declared_type: str | None = (
+            (data.get("tool") or {}).get("crewai", {}).get("type")
+        )
+        return declared_type != "flow"
+
     def run(self) -> list[ValidationResult]:
         """Run all checks. Later checks are skipped when earlier ones make
         them impossible (e.g. no pyproject.toml → no lockfile check)."""
+        if self._is_json_crew:
+            return self._run_json_checks()
+
         if not self._check_pyproject():
             return self.results
 
@@ -176,6 +206,110 @@ class DeployValidator:
 
         return self.results
 
+    def _run_json_checks(self) -> list[ValidationResult]:
+        """Validation suite for JSON-defined crew projects."""
+        crew_path = find_crew_json_file(self.project_root)
+        if crew_path is None:
+            return self.results
+
+        try:
+            project = validate_crew_project(crew_path, self.project_root / "agents")
+        except JSONProjectValidationError as e:
+            self._add(
+                Severity.ERROR,
+                "invalid_crew_json",
+                f"{crew_path.name} has invalid JSON crew configuration",
+                detail="\n".join(e.errors),
+                hint="Fix the JSON crew, agent, and task references before deploying.",
+            )
+            return self.results
+        except Exception as e:
+            self._add(
+                Severity.ERROR,
+                "invalid_crew_json",
+                f"Cannot parse {crew_path.name}",
+                detail=str(e),
+            )
+            return self.results
+
+        agents_dir = self.project_root / "agents"
+
+        self._check_pyproject()
+        self._check_lockfile()
+        self._check_env_vars_json(crew_path, agents_dir, project.agent_names)
+        self._check_version_vs_lockfile()
+
+        return self.results
+
+    def _check_env_vars_json(
+        self, crew_path: Path, agents_dir: Path, agent_names: list[str]
+    ) -> None:
+        """Check for env var references in JSON crew files."""
+        referenced: set[str] = set()
+        pattern = re.compile(r"\$\{?([A-Z][A-Z0-9_]+)\}?")
+
+        try:
+            referenced.update(pattern.findall(crew_path.read_text(errors="ignore")))
+        except OSError as exc:
+            logger.debug("Skipping unreadable crew file %s: %s", crew_path, exc)
+
+        for name in agent_names:
+            agent_path = find_json_project_file(agents_dir, name)
+            if agent_path is None:
+                continue
+            try:
+                referenced.update(
+                    pattern.findall(agent_path.read_text(errors="ignore"))
+                )
+            except OSError as exc:
+                logger.debug("Skipping unreadable agent file %s: %s", agent_path, exc)
+
+        for py_path in self.project_root.rglob("*.py"):
+            if ".venv" in py_path.parts:
+                continue
+            try:
+                text = py_path.read_text(encoding="utf-8", errors="ignore")
+            except OSError:
+                continue
+            env_pattern = re.compile(
+                r"""(?x)
+                (?:os\.environ\s*(?:\[\s*|\.get\s*\(\s*)
+                  |os\.getenv\s*\(\s*
+                  |getenv\s*\(\s*)
+                ['"]([A-Z][A-Z0-9_]*)['"]
+                """
+            )
+            referenced.update(env_pattern.findall(text))
+
+        env_file = self.project_root / ".env"
+        env_keys: set[str] = set()
+        if env_file.exists():
+            for line in env_file.read_text(errors="ignore").splitlines():
+                line = line.strip()
+                if not line or line.startswith("#") or "=" not in line:
+                    continue
+                env_keys.add(line.split("=", 1)[0].strip())
+
+        missing_known = sorted(
+            var
+            for var in referenced
+            if var in _KNOWN_API_KEY_HINTS
+            and var not in env_keys
+            and var not in os.environ
+        )
+        if missing_known:
+            self._add(
+                Severity.WARNING,
+                "env_vars_not_in_dotenv",
+                f"{len(missing_known)} referenced API key(s) not in .env",
+                detail=(
+                    "These env vars are referenced in your project but not set "
+                    f"locally: {', '.join(missing_known)}. Deploys will fail "
+                    "unless they are added to the deployment's Environment "
+                    "Variables in the CrewAI dashboard."
+                ),
+            )
+
     def _check_pyproject(self) -> bool:
         pyproject_path = self.project_root / "pyproject.toml"
         if not pyproject_path.exists():