_evaluate_simple_expression split on operator keywords using naive str.find/split, so a keyword INSIDE a quoted operand was treated as an operator: `inputs.mode == 'read and write'` split on the inner ' and ' and evaluated as `(inputs.mode == 'read) and (write')`. The literal short-circuit was also too greedy -- `'a' == 'b'` matched startswith("'")/endswith("'") and was stripped to the garbage truthy string `a' == 'b`, so `'done' == 'failed'` evaluated truthy and gated the wrong branch.
Add a quote/bracket-aware _find_top_level helper (mirroring the existing _split_top_level_commas) and use it for the and/or/comparison/in/not-in splits; tighten the literal short-circuit to fire only when the opening quote's match is the final char. The docstring already lists comparisons + and/or/not + in/not-in + string literals as supported, so this restores the documented contract.
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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