# 02: Root Cause Analysis

## 5-Why Analysis

| Level | Why? |
|-------|------|
| **1** | No `elif` branch for `type == "audio"` in message conversion |
| **2** | Method was implemented for vision-first support only |
| **3** | AudioField and TranscriptionAgent use separate Whisper path |
| **4** | Original design assumed audio = transcription, not multimodal LLM input |
| **5** | Historical: Whisper was the only audio model; Gemini native audio is newer |

## Architecture Disconnect

```
          AudioField (complete)
               ↓
    ┌──────────┴──────────┐
    ↓                     ↓
TranscriptionAgent    GoogleGeminiProvider.chat()
(Whisper path)        (_convert_messages_to_contents)
    ↓                     ↓
    WORKS              AUDIO DROPPED
```

## Failure Points Identified

### Primary Failure Point (CRITICAL)

**Location**: `kaizen/nodes/ai/ai_providers.py:3086-3129`

```python
for item in content:
    if item.get("type") == "text":
        parts.append(types.Part.from_text(text=item.get("text", "")))
    elif item.get("type") == "image":
        # ... image handling ...
    elif item.get("type") == "image_url":
        # ... image_url handling ...
    # ❌ NO "audio" type handling - silently skipped
```

### Secondary Failure Points

| Provider | Location | Status |
|----------|----------|--------|
| `GoogleGeminiProvider` | `ai_providers.py:3086-3129` | **SILENT DROP** |
| `OpenAIProvider` | `ai_providers.py:723-774` | **SILENT DROP** |
| `AnthropicProvider` | `ai_providers.py:1278-1312` | **SILENT DROP** |
| `AzureProvider` | `ai_providers.py:2154-2206` | **SILENT DROP** |
| `OllamaProvider` | `ai_providers.py:475-507` | **SILENT DROP** |

### MultiModalSignature.format_for_ollama()

**Location**: `multi_modal.py:448-465`

```python
for field_name, value in inputs.items():
    if isinstance(value, ImageField):
        images.append(value.to_base64())
    elif isinstance(value, str):
        text_parts.append(f"{field_name}: {value}")
    # ❌ AudioField NOT processed - silently skipped
```

## Evidence of Planned Audio Support

1. **AudioField Class** exists (`multi_modal.py:269-395`) with full implementation
2. **MultiModalAdapter.supports_audio()** abstract method defined
3. **TranscriptionSignature** with AudioField input
4. **Agent Type Preset** for "audio" agents

## Key Insight

Audio infrastructure exists at the **signature level** but was never connected to the **provider level** for native multimodal processing. The Whisper transcription path works, but native LLM audio understanding (Gemini 2.0, GPT-4o) is broken.
