diff --git a/lib/cross-platform/index.js b/lib/cross-platform/index.js
index 78d002b..e72ea5f 100644
--- a/lib/cross-platform/index.js
+++ b/lib/cross-platform/index.js
@@ -303,15 +303,21 @@ function formatSection(title, content) {
  */
 
 /**
- * Truncate text to limit with ellipsis
+ * Truncate text to limit with ellipsis.
+ *
+ * Slices on Unicode code points (not UTF-16 code units) so multi-byte
+ * chars like emoji never end up as orphan surrogates. Non-positive
+ * maxLength returns the original string unchanged.
  *
  * @param {string} text - Text to truncate
- * @param {number} maxLength - Maximum length
+ * @param {number} maxLength - Maximum length (in code points)
  * @returns {string} Truncated text
  */
 function truncate(text, maxLength) {
-  if (text.length <= maxLength) return text;
-  return text.substring(0, maxLength - 3) + '...';
+  if (maxLength <= 0) return text;
+  const codePoints = [...text];
+  if (codePoints.length <= maxLength) return text;
+  return codePoints.slice(0, maxLength - 3).join('') + '...';
 }
 
 /**