fix(watching): close the review findings on the label and its window

A dual review (Codex CLI and Claude's code-reviewer, same diff, same brief)
found the trust boundary weaker than the comments around it claimed. Eleven
findings, all applied.

The two blockers were both about who can write the row the label is read from.
Claude's window covered two rows, and the second one is the status line, whose
command a session running with permissions bypassed can write into its own
`.claude/settings.json` — so an agent could print `· 1 monitor ·` onto a row of
its own and silence its own idle alert. The default window is one row now, which
is the footer and nothing else, and the constant says why. Separately, the label
reached `data-tab-meta-sig` unescaped while the row is installed with innerHTML,
which is an injection sink for any config-supplied pattern whose capture group is
permissive; it goes through escapeHtml() like every other untrusted string in
that file.

The Codex entry could not be fixed the same way, and now says so. Its row is
third from the bottom only while a terminal runs; with none running that slot
holds the last row of the transcript, so matching the complete row (with the
`/stop to close` tail, window narrowed to three) raises the bar without closing
it. What contains it is `hooks: 'none'`: no hook event from a codex session
reaches notePrompt(), so a forged label costs a wrong badge and cannot quiet an
alert. The registry comment, `docs/cli-registry.md` and the test all state that
rather than claiming a guarantee the code does not have.

Also from the review: the TUI header badge no longer counts an acknowledged
item, which was the same gate the classifier fix already went through and was
wrong for human acknowledgement too; the TUI approval card reads the quiet
reason and drops to a new `info` tone instead of asking for a reply; the badge
carries an aria-label, because the phone it was built for has no hover target;
the schema refuses `watchingLines` without a `watchingLine`; and the pattern and
its window are resolved together rather than one memoized and one not.

Documentation moved with it. The mechanism now lives in
`docs/architecture-invariants.md` with CLAUDE.md keeping the rule and a pointer,
`docs/wiki/Notifications-And-Approvals.md` tells users why a session stopped
buzzing, and both that page and the changeset name the limitation neither did
before: a question asked in plain prose is not a dialog, so it is silenced along
with the false alarms while background work runs.

Verified live again after the narrowing, on an isolated beta: a Claude session
reported `1 monitor` and took its idle prompt acknowledged, and a Codex session
reported `1 background terminal` against the full-row anchor.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Michael Grundberg
2026-09-22 17:11:33 +02:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 64c288a683
commit 05c788ce9d
19 changed files with 292 additions and 59 deletions
+8
View File
@@ -323,6 +323,14 @@ const capabilitiesSchema = z
watchingLines: z.number().int().min(1).max(8).optional(),
})
.strict()
// A window with nothing to search is a typo, not a configuration. Refused at LOAD
// time for the same reason `privilegedParams[].param` is checked against the params
// the entry declares: the failure is otherwise silent and looks like a feature that
// simply never fires.
.refine(
(v) => v.watchingLines === undefined || v.watchingLine !== undefined,
'watchingLines has nothing to bound without a watchingLine'
)
.optional(),
model: z
.object({ source: z.enum(['flag', 'claude-settings-file', 'none']), param: z.string().optional() })
+21 -10
View File
@@ -211,12 +211,15 @@ const CLAUDE: CliEntry = {
// the CLI's own words for each kind of background task, and group 1 is the one
// Codeman badges the session with. Verified against a live 2.1.278 pane on
// 2026-09-21.
// ⚠️ The leading `·` is an anchor, not decoration. This pattern runs over the foot
// of the screen, which is the one part of it the AGENT does not write, and the
// separator is what keeps it on the footer's own item list. An agent that could get
// a bare `1 monitor` matched would silence its own idle alert by printing it. A
// footer that ever carries the chip as its only item therefore reports no watching
// rather than opening that door. See `watchingLabel()` in `session-activity.ts`.
// ⚠️ Two things keep an agent from writing its own label here, and both matter.
// The footer is the LAST row, so the default one-row window (`WATCHING_TAIL_LINES`)
// holds nothing but Ink's own chrome — in particular it leaves out the status line
// directly above, whose content comes from a `statusLine` command a bypassed
// session can write into its own `.claude/settings.json`. And the leading `·` keeps
// the match on the footer's own item list rather than on any text that happens to
// carry a count. A footer that ever drew the chip as its only item would report no
// watching rather than open that door. See `watchingLabel()` in
// `session-activity.ts`.
watchingLine: String.raw`·\s*(\d+ (?:monitors?|shells?|teams?|local agents?|cloud sessions?|MCP tasks?|background tasks?|(?:background|remote) dynamic workflows?|Artifact comment monitors?))`,
},
requiresMux: false,
@@ -534,16 +537,24 @@ const CODEX: CliEntry = {
// running: ` 1 background terminal running · /ps to view · /stop to close`. Unlike
// Claude's footer chip that row sits ABOVE the composer, which puts it third from the
// bottom once the status line and the composer are counted, hence `watchingLines`.
// The ` · /ps to view` tail is the anchor: it is CLI chrome, it names a slash command
// that only the CLI can offer, and without it a bare count in the transcript would do.
// Measured against a live codex-cli 0.154.0 pane on 2026-09-22: the row appears when
// the terminal starts, follows the composer down as the conversation grows, and is
// gone after `/stop`.
// ⚠️ This entry CANNOT promise what Claude's does, and the difference is Codex's
// layout rather than its pattern. The third row from the bottom is the chip only
// while a terminal runs; with none running it is the last row of the transcript,
// which the agent writes. Matching the complete row raises the bar — an assistant
// message has to end with this exact line, to the character — but nothing here makes
// forging it impossible, so do not read the Claude comment above as applying here.
// What contains it is that codex declares `hooks: 'none'`: no hook event from a codex
// session ever reaches `notePrompt()`, so there is no idle item to pre-acknowledge
// and a forged label costs a wrong badge and nothing else. A CLI that gains hook
// signals must not keep a pattern this soft.
workDetect: {
promptGlyph: '›',
workingLine: '[Ee]sc to interrupt',
watchingLine: String.raw`(\d+ background terminals?) running · /ps to view`,
watchingLines: 4,
watchingLine: String.raw`^\s{0,4}(\d+ background terminals?) running · /ps to view · /stop to close$`,
watchingLines: 3,
},
transcript: 'codex-rollout',
altScreen: 'strip-full',