Friend's Bot chat on the receiving home: 'Tool removed' line, turns/steps/tok/s footer, composer placeholder flips to coding copy #419

Summary

In B's chat with a friend's Bot (A's Chief), the chat shows things that mean nothing to a person talking to a friend's Bot: an internal Tool removed: … line, a local run-stats footer (9 turns 9 steps · 0 tok/s · 0%, and 1 turns), and after the first send the composer placeholder switches from Message SelfA1238's Chief to the coding-agent copy Message or run a task, / commands, @ files or sessions.

Environment

• FlyBot main a7f51e83ffacc4a6e803669d25fdc9e40eef6c44 (Add friend: accept and invite as two labelled groups, Done at the bottom #416), core + plugins/social + plugins/tree on @deepseek-ai/dsh@0.2.0-rc.2, Node 24.21.0.
• Two fresh installs on one Linux box: A :3090 (owner SelfA1238, @selfa1238.home) and B :3091 (owner SelfB1238, @selfb1238.home). Bot Social prod https://47-80-69-220.sslip.io. Both Chiefs on ark/deepseek-v4-flash (real model).
• Friend link: A made a per-Bot invite for A's Chief; B joined it, talking through B's Chief (relationship rel_01M597ETM4MFYM90M80ER53J8G, grant grt_01M597ETM5PK3PNKGZ09R7PC96 → @selfb1238.home). B's Chief is not shared back (one-way per-Bot grant, by design Per-Bot grants leak: accepting a Helper invite exposes the joiner's Chief; face-room Chief shows in Friends' Bots; Manage access wrong/raw #138/Regression of #138: joining a friend's invite still puts the joiner's Chief on the inviter's main list #161). A's Chief = @chief.selfa1238.home, B's talk-through Bot = @chief.selfb1238.home.
• Auto-send was off on both homes at the start.
• Found by product self-test 2026-10-19 12:38 Asia/Shanghai, focus A Friend DM (browser run about 12:41–12:50 Asia/Shanghai). Screenshots stayed on the test machine; what they show is written out below.

Common setup (B talks to A's Chief)

On B, open the sidebar row for A's Chief (Chief + grey SelfA1238 + globe) and send, one at a time, waiting for each answer:

1. Hi Chief, this is B. What is 2+2? Reply in one short line. → A's Chief drafts 4.; on A click Reject.
2. Second test: what is 3+3? One line. → draft 6.; on A click Approve.
3. Third test: what is 4+4? One line. → draft 8.; on A click Always approve.
4. Fourth test: 5+5? One line. and Fifth test: 6+6? One line. → 10. and 12. go out without a card.

Repro

1. On B, open the Chief SelfA1238 row (A's Chief). Read the composer placeholder and the footer under the composer.
2. Run the common setup (send the five lines). After the first send, read the placeholder again, the line above the first reply, and the footer after each reply.

Actual (B)

• Leaked tool-mask line. Once, between B's second line and the first reply, a centred grey system line: Tool removed: create_child_bot · Tool removed: list_children. Screenshot 11-B-view-of-replies.png: B's chat titled SelfA1238's Chief; B's five black bubbles on the right, replies 6., 8., 10., 12. on the left, and the Tool removed: … line right above 6.. Polish: Tool added/removed lines every turn, Chief self-intro wording differs, friend's Bot offered as a Main Bot, gear hover inconsistent #276 fixed the per-turn flip; this is the remaining first-time line, shown in a friend chat where those tools are not even this home's.
• Run-stats footer. Under the composer: 1 turns 1 steps · 0% after the first reply, later 9 turns 9 steps · 0 tok/s · 0% (shot 11). The friend's Bot runs on A, so tokens/speed/cache here are always 0 and the counts are not something a person needs in a friend chat. 1 turns / 1 steps is also wrong English.
• Placeholder changes. Before the first send: Message SelfA1238's Chief. After the first send it became Message or run a task, / commands, @ files or sessions (coding/dev copy; / commands and @ files or sessions are not offered for a friend's Bot). It came back to Message SelfA1238's Chief later in the run (shot 11), so it flips.
• Minor, consistency: the replies are small grey left bubbles with no avatar or name. This matches own 1:1 chats (A's own Chief replies look the same, shot 04), so it is only a problem together with Friend's Bot rows: two name formats ('Helper · SelfB0023's Bot' vs 'SelfA0023's Chief'), two-line wrap, no preview, inset highlight, faint marker, same avatar as own Chief #384 naming; listed for completeness, maintainer call.

Why (code read on a7f51e8; hunches)

• Tool line: ContextCell (core/src/client/cells.js L573–583) shows every tool-removal/tool-addition block except HIDDEN_REMOVED_TOOLS (ask_user_question). The first hidePluginTools mask (core/src/host/hooks.js L652–669) on the remote chat's agent writes one Tool removed for the tree tools (plugins/tree/src/tools.js, visibleTo: inTree).
• Footer: the DSH session stats line is drawn for every session, including flybot-remote/<handle> sessions (remote-chat, core/src/host/remote-chat.js), whose turns are local relay turns.
• Placeholder: FlyBot sets --bt-placeholder from Message {name} (patches/ds-bot/0012-room-membership.patch ~L440, core/client.js L6968). After a turn the DSH composer's own default placeholder seems to win until the next re-render.

Expected (simplicity, consistency, English only)

• No Tool added / Tool removed lines from plugin tool masks in any chat (hide them like ask_user_question, or apply the mask before the first turn so no block is written). At least never in a friend's Bot chat.
• No run-stats footer in a friend's Bot chat (remote session); in own chats, correct plurals (1 turn · 1 step).
• The composer placeholder stays Message <friend Bot name> in a friend's Bot chat (name per Friend's Bot rows: two name formats ('Helper · SelfB0023's Bot' vs 'SelfA0023's Chief'), two-line wrap, no preview, inset highlight, faint marker, same avatar as own Chief #384: Message Chief (SelfA1238)), never the coding copy.

Suggested scope / files

• core/src/client/cells.js (ContextCell, HIDDEN_REMOVED_TOOLS or a check for plugin-gated tool names), core/src/host/hooks.js (hidePluginTools on first resolve).
• The stats footer render for remote sessions (FlyBot core client / DSH patch where the footer is drawn).
• patches/ds-bot/0012-room-membership.patch / core/client.js composer label.
• Tests for: no tool-mask cell in a remote chat; stats footer hidden for flybot-remote/*; placeholder unchanged after a turn.

Acceptance criteria

• A fresh friend chat on B never shows Tool removed: / Tool added: lines.
• No turns/steps/tok/s footer in a friend's Bot chat; 1 turn / 1 step grammar in own chats.
• Placeholder stays Message <friend Bot> before and after sends.

Related: #276 (closed; per-turn flip fixed, first line remains), #140, #384.