fix: address review — enrich block reasons, clean up tests

- Add parenthetical hints to block reasons so AI knows what each tool
  saves (session summary, quotes/decisions/code)
- Remove dead config file creation from test_stop_hook_disabled_by_config
- Add missing test for MEMPALACE_HOOKS_AUTO_SAVE=no env var
- Replace bare except: with except Exception: in shell scripts

hooks/mempal_precompact_hook.sh

@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ import json, sys
 try:
     cfg = json.load(open(sys.argv[1]))
     print(str(cfg.get('hooks', {}).get('auto_save', True)).lower())
-except: print('true')
+except Exception: print('true')
 " "$CONFIG_FILE" 2>/dev/null)
         if [ "$AUTO_SAVE" = "false" ]; then
             echo "{}"

hooks/mempal_save_hook.sh

@@ -96,7 +96,7 @@ import json, sys
 try:
     cfg = json.load(open(sys.argv[1]))
     print(str(cfg.get('hooks', {}).get('auto_save', True)).lower())
-except: print('true')
+except Exception: print('true')
 " "$CONFIG_FILE" 2>/dev/null)
         if [ "$AUTO_SAVE" = "false" ]; then
             echo "{}"

mempalace/hooks_cli.py

@@ -102,14 +102,16 @@ _RECENT_MSG_COUNT = 30  # how many recent user messages to summarize
 
 STOP_BLOCK_REASON = (
     "MemPalace auto-save checkpoint. "
-    "Use mempalace_diary_write and mempalace_add_drawer to save session content. "
+    "Use mempalace_diary_write (session summary) and mempalace_add_drawer "
+    "(quotes, decisions, code) to save session content. "
     "Do NOT use native auto-memory files."
 )
 
 PRECOMPACT_BLOCK_REASON = (
     "MemPalace emergency save — compaction imminent. "
-    "Use mempalace_diary_write and mempalace_add_drawer to save ALL content "
-    "before context is lost. Do NOT use native auto-memory files."
+    "Use mempalace_diary_write (thorough summary) and mempalace_add_drawer "
+    "(ALL quotes, decisions, code, context) to save ALL content before context is lost. "
+    "Do NOT use native auto-memory files."
 )
 
 

tests/test_config.py

@@ -598,6 +598,15 @@ def test_hooks_auto_save_env_override_zero():
         del os.environ["MEMPALACE_HOOKS_AUTO_SAVE"]
 
 
+def test_hooks_auto_save_env_override_no():
+    os.environ["MEMPALACE_HOOKS_AUTO_SAVE"] = "no"
+    try:
+        cfg = MempalaceConfig(config_dir=tempfile.mkdtemp())
+        assert cfg.hooks_auto_save is False
+    finally:
+        del os.environ["MEMPALACE_HOOKS_AUTO_SAVE"]
+
+
 def test_hooks_auto_save_env_override_true():
     """Env var set to 'true' overrides config file even if config says false."""
     tmpdir = tempfile.mkdtemp()

tests/test_hooks_cli.py

@@ -1487,10 +1487,6 @@ def test_run_hook_dispatches_precompact(tmp_path):
 
 def test_stop_hook_disabled_by_config(tmp_path):
     """When hooks.auto_save is false in config, stop hook passes through."""
-    config_dir = tmp_path / "config"
-    config_dir.mkdir()
-    (config_dir / "config.json").write_text(json.dumps({"hooks": {"auto_save": False}}))
-
     transcript = tmp_path / "t.jsonl"
     _write_transcript(
         transcript,