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fix(chat): show a running Letta Code turn from the live terminal under its transcript - #2327
The owner, testing #2312 on the main test app: a Letta Code pane's chat does not look live the way OmO's does.
Root cause (measured, not a parse bug)
Letta Code appends a turn to its transcript.jsonl only when the turn ends (end_turn, on both the TUI and headless paths in letta-code's bundle). It writes nothing while it works, and a cancelled turn is never written. I measured this with real letta 0.34.23 in an isolated herdr session (local backend, a model through a local OpenAI-compatible proxy), with ms-resolution watchers on the files, herdr's status and Ovis's /api/pane/conversation:
A 6.6 s turn (prompt, Bash tool call, 300-word answer) wrote the transcript 0 times while working, then once at the end (3 entries sharing one captured_at).
Ovis showed that write 71 ms later (2 → 4 turns), so the chat sat on the previous turn for the whole run and then jumped.
Letta writes the turn about 120 ms before herdr flips the pane from working to idle.
Parsing: all 5 raw entries of the run were shown, and nothing was dropped.
OmO, by contrast, appends one record per message or tool result while it works (17+ writes during one turn), which is why its chat looks live.
Only the terminal shows a Letta turn while it runs. (Letta's local backend also keeps a messages.jsonl that is written per message, but a cloud agent, which the owner runs, has none.)
Change (client only, no HTTP/WS contract change)
While a letta-transcript pane is working or blocked, the transcript's turns stay on screen, and under them a quiet Live terminal box shows the pane's own terminal tail:
It reads GET /api/pane/read every second, 60 lines, with no parsing and no guessing.
It has a fixed height of 12 rows (8 rows under 480 px) from mount and follows its newest line, unless the reader has scrolled up inside it.
It carries aria-live="off" so the chat's live region does not announce terminal noise, and it is keyboard-focusable.
No scroll jump: the box goes in the same render that adds the written turn, not a frame later when herdr's status follows. Its baseline (nextLiveTurnArm) is the transcript returned by the first read that started after the turn began. A cached answer, a hidden page or an offline chat never serves as the baseline: hidden or offline, the box re-arms when the chat is back.
Design: the Codex and Claude apps stream the running turn into the conversation, but nothing written exists to stream here. So this follows Zed's agent panel, which shows a running command's terminal inline in the thread (DESIGN.md entry). A server-side terminal stand-in (scrollback while working) was built and tried first. It swapped the whole history out on every turn and came back mid-scroll, so it was dropped.
Verification
Real letta in the browser (isolated herdr, Ovis on loopback with port and state under a temp dir, Bun.WebView at 1280 and 390, dark theme, Codex palette): before/after screenshots of a turn mid-work and right after. The owner checks the look before merge.
Per-frame scroll logs:
Scrolled up 600 px: the reading anchor and scrollTop stayed constant on every frame as the box appeared and went away.
Pinned at the end: one follow frame when the box mounts, no growth after, and the box goes in the frame the turn arrives.
Before the arm fix, the box vanished ~120 ms after the turn appeared, a 240 px drop.
Coming back mid-turn (Tab 2 while turn N finished and N+1 started, then back to Tab 1): the box stayed for N+1. The first commit's logic hid it for the whole turn.
Tests:src/components/ChatLiveTurn.test.ts covers the arm as reducer sequences (turn written before the status follows, a cached transcript, reads started before the run, re-arming after hidden or offline, and per pane and per turn), plus the box's markup. It fails on main (the exports do not exist), and the cached-then-fresh sequence gives [true,false,false,false] under the first commit's logic. 41 pass in the chat and conventions files; bun run typecheck is green.
bun run check fast on this head (9df5230): green, 8456 pass, 0 fail, 34 skip.
Reviews
Adversarial reviewers omo-native-code-reviewer and Codex Sol 6.1 Fast xhigh:
Round 1 (first commit): both BLOCK.
HIGH: a stale or cached baseline hid the box for the whole turn.
HIGH/MEDIUM: the box's height grew after mount and was not followed at the end of the chat.
MEDIUM: the box was re-announced every second, and each poll yanked the inner scroll back.
MEDIUM: the tests restated helpers.
All fixed.
Round 2: omo APPROVE; Codex BLOCK. HIGH: an armed baseline survived a turn boundary missed while backgrounded or offline. Fixed by re-arming when the chat is hidden or offline.
Round 3 (Codex, this head 9df5230): APPROVE, no findings.
Known limits
Letta's mod_continue starts a second turn with no non-working status between; that continuation shows no box (the chat's Working line stays).
A turn so short that Letta writes it before the first read after it began can show twice for about 120 ms, until herdr's status follows.
ChatView itself is not mounted in a test: the arm logic is a pure reducer, and its three-line wiring is covered by the browser runs.
…r its transcript
Letta Code appends a turn to its transcript only when the turn ends
(end_turn, TUI and headless), so the chat sat on the previous turn for
the whole run and then jumped. Measured with real letta 0.34.23 in an
isolated herdr: a 6.6 s turn wrote the file 0 times while working and
once at the end; Ovis showed it 71 ms after that write. Parsing was not
the cause: every raw entry is shown.
While a Letta pane works or waits on the user, the transcript's turns
stay and a quiet "Live terminal" box under them shows the pane's own
terminal tail, read every second, 12 rows high (8 on a phone) and
following its newest line inside. It goes in the render that adds the
written turn (a Letta transcript changes only at a turn's end), not a
frame later when herdr's status follows, so the chat does not jump.
Refs #1730
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📝 Summary
Summary by CodeRabbit
New Features
Chat now displays a live terminal view while Letta is working or waiting for input. It updates automatically and follows new output unless you scroll away.
Completed turns appear in the conversation when they finish; cancelled turns do not.
The live terminal view adjusts to smaller screens.
Documentation
Updated the Chat and Letta Code guides to explain when live terminal output and completed turns appear.
Chat now shows a live terminal tail while a Letta transcript turn is working or blocked. It tracks settled conversation reads to keep the terminal visible until the written turn advances. The live panel updates every second and adjusts its height for phone screens.
Changes: Letta live terminal
Layer / File(s)
Summary
Track active Letta turns src/components/ChatView.tsx, src/components/ChatLiveTurn.test.ts
ChatView tracks settled conversation reads and written-turn keys to determine whether an active Letta turn remains visible. Tests cover eligible states, read timing, pane and turn changes, and visibility tracking.
Render the live terminal src/components/ChatView.tsx, src/components/ChatView.css, src/lib/i18n/chat.*.ts, src/components/ChatLiveTurn.test.ts, DESIGN.md, changelog.d/letta-native-chat.md, docs/guide.md
TerminalFallback supports a live mode that polls 60 lines every second, opens by default, and follows output while the reader is at the bottom. ChatView renders it for eligible active turns. Styling sets a 12-row height, reduced to 8 rows on narrow screens. Tests, translations, and documentation cover the display.
Issue 1730 describes support for Letta Code panes in Chat, including reading Letta’s session store as the pane conversation. This change adds live terminal display for Letta transcript panes while their turns run.
Possibly related PRs
devswha/ovis#2312: Adds the letta-transcript conversation source that this change checks in ChatView.
devswha/ovis#1815: Adds Letta Code as a launchable agent and documents Terminal chat; this change adds live terminal output for active turns.
Suggested reviewers:kilhyeonjun, mattmarcin
Merge Risk: Low · previous review 9df52
Live output can disappear before the completed turn loads, leaving a gap if the read is delayed or fails.
Pre-merge checks: 5
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The title clearly identifies the primary change: showing a running Letta Code turn from the live terminal beneath its transcript.
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Actionable comments posted: 1
🪄 Fix comments: Fix CodeRabbit comments on this PR
Prompt to fix review comments
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Inline comments:
Review comments at @src/components/ChatView.tsx:
- Around line 1306-1308: Update the live-turn transition in the ChatView flow so
a change of agentStatus to done does not close the live box while the finish
conversation read is pending; keep it open until a subsequent settled read
establishes the transcript state. Adjust the turnRunning input to
nextLiveTurnArm and the liveTurnOpen calculation using the existing read-state
signals, preserving the current behavior once that read settles.
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Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 0254843 and 9df5230.
Files selected for processing: 9
DESIGN.md
changelog.d/letta-native-chat.md
docs/guide.md
src/components/ChatLiveTurn.test.ts
src/components/ChatView.css
src/components/ChatView.tsx
src/lib/i18n/chat.ja.ts
src/lib/i18n/chat.ko.ts
src/lib/i18n/chat.zh.ts
Included review availability: This review used your included allowance. Your plan provides up to 4 included reviews per hour; 0 remain after this review.
…l box
The owner asked for the box to show the work, not Letta's own chrome.
Cut by the layout Letta Code 0.34.23 draws at the bottom of its screen:
the input box between two rules (its first row the `›` prompt, with
whatever the user is typing), the status row under it, and the tip rows
hanging under the spinner row. A screen in any other shape is shown as
it is. Tested on screens recorded from a real run.
Refs #1730
fe208de: Letta's input box and status row are now cut from the live terminal box (the owner's request after looking at the screenshots).
Cut by the layout Letta Code 0.34.23 draws at the bottom of its screen: the input box between two rules (its first row the › prompt, with whatever the user is typing), the status row under it (Letta Code · <model>), and the tip rows hanging under the spinner row. A screen in any other shape shows unchanged (src/lib/lettaScreen.ts).
The box now ends at Letta's spinner row, so the phone's 8 rows show the tool work.
Tests: src/lib/lettaScreen.test.ts uses three screens recorded from a real run (src/lib/fixtures-letta-screens/, user and host redacted at the same width): a turn at work, the same turn with a follow-up typed into Letta's input, and right after the turn. It covers unrecognised shapes too. It failed before the module existed and passes 5/5.
Live, in an isolated herdr with real letta at 1280 and 390: the box shows the ls and cat calls with their output and Letta's spinner row, and no input, status row or tip.
bun run check fast on fe208de: green, 8461 pass, 0 fail.
No reviewer round for this delta: it adds one pure function on the box's text, applied only in the live box, and leaves the reviewed arm and scroll logic unchanged.
Letta writes a turn before herdr's status says it ended, but the chat
reads it after: the box went on the status edge, so until that read
landed (longer when it was slow, and for good when it failed) the chat
showed neither the box nor the turn. Past the edge the box now stays
until a read started after it ends: it goes in the render that lays the
turn out, or when that read fails (both bounded by the chat's read
deadline). A cancelled turn, never written, ends on that read too. A
chat hidden or offline still drops the box and arms afresh when back.
Refs #1730
Merging fe208de (refs #1730; the owner approved the look with Letta's own input box and status row cut from the box, done in fe208de from recorded Letta Code 0.34.23 screens). Letta Code writes a turn to its transcript only when the turn ends, so while Letta works or waits on the user the Chat showed nothing new. Now the transcript stays, and under it a fixed-height "Live terminal" box shows the pane's newest 60 lines, read once a second, following the newest line unless the reader scrolls up; it goes in the same render as the transcript gains the turn. Client only, Letta only (letta-transcript), not announced to screen readers (aria-live off), the box keeps its full height so the chat does not move. CodeRabbit's point (the box could vanish when Letta's status said done before the chat read the finished turn) was fixed in 2eb7446: past that edge the box stays until a read started after it ends, then goes in the render that lays the turn out (or when that read fails). The lane's evidence: three review rounds, final omo + Codex APPROVE; check fast green. The merge pass read the diff.
## Problem
The owner tried #2327 on the main test app and prefers not to see its
**Live terminal** box in a Letta Code chat. What he wants instead is
Letta's in-progress messages appearing in the chat as they are written,
the way OmO, Codex and Claude Code look. That is being measured
separately, from Letta's own chunk logs, and is not guessed from the
terminal.
## Change
`git revert` of e5ed425 (#2327), client only, with no HTTP/WS contract
change:
- `ChatView` no longer mounts a live `TerminalFallback` under a running
`letta-transcript` turn. The live-turn arm (`nextLiveTurnArm`,
`liveTurnShown`, `turnOnlyInTerminal`) and its read counters are gone.
- `src/lib/lettaScreen.ts`, its fixtures and tests, the `.is-live` CSS
and the "Live terminal" chat strings are removed.
- `DESIGN.md`, `docs/guide.md` and the unreleased
`changelog.d/letta-native-chat.md` fragment are back to their wording
from before #2327. No release carried the box (no `v*` tag contains
e5ed425), so there is no separate changelog entry for removing it.
While Letta works, its chat shows the turns written so far and the usual
Working line. The turn appears when Letta writes it at the end, as it
did after #2312.
#2327 carried no unrelated fix: every line it changed served the box.
The one later commit on these files, ae3f080 (#2270, the faded
sent-waiting bubble), is kept intact.
## Verification
- **Real letta in the browser.** I used an isolated herdr session under
a temp HOME, letta 0.34.23 on its local backend with
gemini-3.1-flash-lite, and two Ovis servers on loopback (origin/main and
this branch) with their state in temp dirs, driven by Bun.WebView at
1280 px. The turn ran a Bash command and then wrote a 250-word story.
- Mid-turn, origin/main shows the Live terminal box under the turns.
- Mid-turn, this branch shows only `Working…` and no
`.chat-terminal-fallback`.
- After the turn, this branch shows the written turn:
`/api/pane/conversation` returns `letta-transcript` with 4 turns, and
the story is on screen.
- `bun run check fast` on 0eabe74: typecheck, build and unit tests are
all ok.
- No regression test was added. Nothing mounts ChatView in a unit test,
and the removed tests covered only the removed code. The browser
comparison is the before/after proof.
## Reviews
- omo-native-code-reviewer: **APPROVE**, no CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM
findings. It confirmed the exact inverse of #2327, #2270 preserved, no
dangling references and accurate docs. Its LOW note: one combined run of
the conventions/i18n test files failed 1 of 80 and passed on a rerun and
on each file alone. check fast was green.
- Codex Sol 6.1 Fast xhigh: **APPROVE**, no findings (428 tests across
16 related files, typecheck green).
Refs #2327, #1730
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![coderabbitai[bot]](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/in/347564?s=60&v=4){kind=small}
Problem
The owner, testing #2312 on the main test app: a Letta Code pane's chat does not look live the way OmO's does.
Root cause (measured, not a parse bug)
Letta Code appends a turn to its
transcript.jsonlonly when the turn ends (end_turn, on both the TUI and headless paths in letta-code's bundle). It writes nothing while it works, and a cancelled turn is never written. I measured this with real letta 0.34.23 in an isolated herdr session (local backend, a model through a local OpenAI-compatible proxy), with ms-resolution watchers on the files, herdr's status and Ovis's/api/pane/conversation:captured_at).workingtoidle.Only the terminal shows a Letta turn while it runs. (Letta's local backend also keeps a
messages.jsonlthat is written per message, but a cloud agent, which the owner runs, has none.)Change (client only, no HTTP/WS contract change)
While a
letta-transcriptpane isworkingorblocked, the transcript's turns stay on screen, and under them a quiet Live terminal box shows the pane's own terminal tail:GET /api/pane/readevery second, 60 lines, with no parsing and no guessing.aria-live="off"so the chat's live region does not announce terminal noise, and it is keyboard-focusable.nextLiveTurnArm) is the transcript returned by the first read that started after the turn began. A cached answer, a hidden page or an offline chat never serves as the baseline: hidden or offline, the box re-arms when the chat is back.Design: the Codex and Claude apps stream the running turn into the conversation, but nothing written exists to stream here. So this follows Zed's agent panel, which shows a running command's terminal inline in the thread (DESIGN.md entry). A server-side terminal stand-in (scrollback while working) was built and tried first. It swapped the whole history out on every turn and came back mid-scroll, so it was dropped.
Verification
src/components/ChatLiveTurn.test.tscovers the arm as reducer sequences (turn written before the status follows, a cached transcript, reads started before the run, re-arming after hidden or offline, and per pane and per turn), plus the box's markup. It fails on main (the exports do not exist), and the cached-then-fresh sequence gives[true,false,false,false]under the first commit's logic. 41 pass in the chat and conventions files;bun run typecheckis green.bun run check faston this head (9df5230): green, 8456 pass, 0 fail, 34 skip.Reviews
Adversarial reviewers omo-native-code-reviewer and Codex Sol 6.1 Fast xhigh:
Known limits
mod_continuestarts a second turn with no non-working status between; that continuation shows no box (the chat's Working line stays).Refs #1730