[TimeToBuildBob]

Problem

Canonical query generation uses JSON's default ASCII escaping, but AQL strings do not decode JSON \uXXXX escapes. A category such as Arbete ä becomes a literal Arbete \u00e4, and astral regexes such as 😀 become surrogate-pair escapes that fail to match. Selected-category filters have the same serialization boundary.

Change

• Emit literal Unicode for rules and category filters with ensure_ascii=False.
• Preserve the existing regex backslash processing and quote handling; no parser or settings-ownership change.
• Exercise real generated AQL against MemoryStorage for desktop, Android and multidevice queries. The multidevice fixture retains both devices in nonoverlapping intervals.

Verification

• Before repair: 9 failed, 9 passed parameterized cases; Unicode labels/astral regexes fail, ASCII/BMP-regex/quote/backslash controls pass.
• After repair: 32 query tests passed, including matching/nonmatching filters for all 18 cases.
• Repository's non-live/noninteractive test slice: 140 passed (same exclusions as make test: client integration, interactive failqueue, platform-dependent auth).
• Black check: both changed files clean; Ruff: test file clean. Changed production module has one pre-existing UP031 at the unrelated always-active % formatter, reproduced from unchanged base; no formatting rewrite included.
• No live ActivityWatch server, user data, release or deployed behavior claim.

This is independent of #160 (selected-instance rule ownership) and #143 (caller parameter immutability).

[greptile-apps]

Confidence Score: 5/5

[Medium impact] The PR appears safe to merge; no actionable issues were found.

Summary

Preserves Unicode in generated AQL by adding ensure_ascii=False when serializing category rules and selected-category filters.

• Generated queries keep Unicode category names and filters intact.

No actionable issues found. Tests were inspected but not run during this review.

_{Reviews (1) · Last reviewed commit: "fix(queries): preserve Unicode categorie..." · Reviewed by Greptile}

[TimeToBuildBob]

Fixed the CI setup failure in edc3847: ubuntu-latest now resolves to Ubuntu 26.04, where setup-python cannot install Python 3.9. Pinned only the Linux Build leg to ubuntu-24.04, matching the verified repair on #154. Python 3.9 and the Windows/macOS legs are unchanged.

Verified locally with Python 3.9.25: 140 tests passed, mypy clean across 30 source files, and workflow YAML/matrix validation passed. The Unicode fix is unchanged. Hosted checks on the new head are still the acceptance gate; no CI-green claim yet.

[TimeToBuildBob]

CI-green and mergeable (Greptile 5/5) — waiting only on a maintainer click.

This PR is ready to merge, but the bot has pull-only access to this repo and can't self-merge — surfacing it here so it isn't lost. The monitoring loop will stop re-flagging it now that this note is posted.