# Quality Scoring

The PizzaStack API tracks quality through the entire pipeline. The final `overall_score` in the `/pizza/bake` response reflects whether all preparation steps were executed correctly.

## Score Ranges

| Score Range | Meaning                                 |
| ----------- | --------------------------------------- |
| 0.90 – 0.98 | All preparation steps were correct      |
| 0.35 – 0.50 | One or more preparation errors occurred |

## What Degrades Quality

Quality degrades when ingredients are passed to a cooking step in the wrong state. Currently, the main source of degradation is:

**Passing a raw tomato ID to `/cook/simmer`**

The `/cook/simmer` endpoint accepts raw tomato IDs without returning an error. Instead, it returns `sauce_quality: "degraded"` with `degradation_reason: "raw_ingredient"`. This is a silent failure — HTTP status is still 200.

To avoid this, always slice tomatoes before simmering:

1. `/tomato/acquire` → get a raw tomato ID
2. `/tomato/slice` → get a sliced ID
3. `/cook/simmer` → pass the sliced ID

## How Degradation Propagates

Degradation is sticky — once any step produces a degraded result, all downstream steps are also degraded:

```
raw tomato → /cook/simmer → sauce_quality: "degraded"
                                    ↓
                           /pizza/assemble → assembly_quality: "degraded"
                                    ↓
                            /pizza/bake → overall_score: 0.35–0.50
```

Compare with the correct pipeline:

```
raw tomato → /tomato/slice → /cook/simmer → sauce_quality: "optimal"
                                                    ↓
                                           /pizza/assemble → assembly_quality: "optimal"
                                                    ↓
                                            /pizza/bake → overall_score: 0.90–0.98
```

## Sub-Scores

The `/pizza/bake` response includes several sub-scores in `quality_metrics`:

| Metric                 | Description                                  |
| ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------- |
| `overall_score`        | Final composite quality score (0.0–1.0)      |
| `crust_crispness`      | Quality of the crust                         |
| `cheese_melt`          | Quality of cheese melting                    |
| `topping_distribution` | Evenness of topping placement                |
| `sauce_integration`    | How well the sauce integrates with the pizza |

All sub-scores are affected by upstream degradation. A degraded sauce will produce low scores across all metrics, not just `sauce_integration`.


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