v2-refactor-temp/docs/breaking-changes/2026-08-22-babeldoc-python-managed-by-cherry.md
Installing the BabelDOC PDF engine no longer asks mise for a Python runtime. Cherry provisions the interpreter itself with the bundled uv — from npmmirror's python-build-standalone mirror when the egress IP is in China, from the official source otherwise — and stores it under Toolchain/mise/uv-python in the app data directory. Settings → Dependencies therefore never grows a Python runtime card on a fresh install, and a first BabelDOC install from that page now asks for the exact pinned version instead of latest.
Mainland-China users can install BabelDOC at all: mise fetches its Python from GitHub releases, which is unreachable there, so the install used to die before any package was downloaded. Everyone else sees only that Python has stopped appearing as its own dependency entry — the interpreter still exists, is still managed by Cherry, and is still removed together with the app's data directory.
For users upgrading from an earlier v2 build, the Python that mise installed previously stays on disk; Cherry does not uninstall it. What Cherry does reclaim is the global selection it wrote for itself: after the next successful pipx: install, the python entry is dropped from mise's global config so mise stops resolving a runtime it no longer owns. A Python the user added themselves as a custom tool is left untouched, selection included.
Nothing — automatic. Users upgrading from an earlier v2 build who want the disk space back can remove the old mise-managed Python from Settings → Dependencies, but only after removing the pipx: tools installed by the earlier build: those tools' virtual environments were built against that interpreter and stop working without it. Reinstalling them afterwards rebuilds them against Cherry's own Python.
Pairs with #19102 (PyPI mirror fallback), which this PR is stacked on. The BabelDOC pin moves to 0.6.4.post4 in the same change, so an existing older install is reported as outdated once and updates on the user's next visit to the Translate page.