fixes

apps/api/internal/processing/normalize.go

@@ -85,6 +85,13 @@ func normalizeValue(key string, v any) any {
 	if v == nil {
 		return nil
 	}
+	// Descriptions must be plain scalars (never leftover ["…"] / HTML arrays).
+	if isDescriptionFieldKey(key) {
+		if s := PlainDescriptionFromAny(v); s != "" {
+			return SanitizeText(s)
+		}
+		return nil
+	}
 	switch t := v.(type) {
 	case string:
 		s := strings.TrimSpace(t)
@@ -124,6 +131,13 @@ func normalizeValue(key string, v any) any {
 		if text, ok := t["text"]; ok {
 			return normalizeValue(key, text)
 		}
+		// Feed/XML category objects often carry unique_id — flatten to a scalar
+		// so StepResult.Category / processed_products.category get the code.
+		if key == "category" {
+			if id := categoryUniqueIDFromAny(t); id != "" {
+				return id
+			}
+		}
 		nested := make(map[string]any, len(t))
 		for nk, nv := range t {
 			if nn := normalizeValue(canonicalizeKey(nk), nv); nn != nil {
@@ -138,6 +152,14 @@ func normalizeValue(key string, v any) any {
 		if len(t) == 0 {
 			return nil
 		}
+		// Scalar-ish fields (name, brand, eprel_id, …): collapse one-element /
+		// joinable arrays so process steps never see []any where a string is expected.
+		if flat := coerceScalarText(t); flat != "" && looksLikeScalarFieldArray(t) {
+			if isDimensionKey(key) && isZeroishString(flat) {
+				return nil
+			}
+			return SanitizeText(flat)
+		}
 		out := make([]any, 0, len(t))
 		for _, item := range t {
 			if nn := normalizeValue(key, item); nn != nil {
@@ -160,6 +182,41 @@ func normalizeValue(key string, v any) any {
 	}
 }
 
+// looksLikeScalarFieldArray is true when every element coerces to a short scalar
+// (string/number/#text) — not nested attribute/spec objects.
+func looksLikeScalarFieldArray(items []any) bool {
+	if len(items) == 0 {
+		return false
+	}
+	for _, item := range items {
+		switch t := item.(type) {
+		case nil:
+			continue
+		case string, float64, float32, int, int64, int32, bool:
+			continue
+		case map[string]any:
+			if _, ok := t["#text"]; ok {
+				continue
+			}
+			if _, ok := t["text"]; ok {
+				continue
+			}
+			if _, ok := t["value"]; ok {
+				continue
+			}
+			return false
+		case []any, []string:
+			return false
+		default:
+			if _, ok := item.(jsonNumberStringer); ok {
+				continue
+			}
+			return false
+		}
+	}
+	return true
+}
+
 func isDimensionKey(key string) bool {
 	switch key {
 	case "width", "height", "depth", "weight", "length", "net_width", "net_height", "net_depth", "net_mass":