Historical record

This page records what happened on a date, with its observed failures and limits. It is not a requirement for the current implementation. Current behaviour is in Status.

The Agent panel

Updated 2026-10-28.

Question

The user found the Agent panel's conversation window too primitive, "as if an intern made it", and gave ten screens of other Agent applications as references (work/chat-windows-ref/, ignored by Git). What they share: the person's message as a rounded bubble; the work before the answer folded into one line ("Worked for 31s") with each step a muted line under it; the answer set as readable prose with headings, lists, code blocks and tables; one rounded message box holding the model and a round send button; and a small line under it with context and usage.

The references set the kind of window, not values to copy. The question: can a person read what the Agent answered, see what it did and what it cost, and write the next message, without the window getting in the way?

Observed before

Looked at with the real records of the local service's test project, on a copy (work/chat-panel-20261028/before/, panel 640 px):

• Every tool step was a 50 px row with a rule under it. A style meant for the Project page's run buttons (.activity-row) also matched the panel's rows. A message with 20 steps filled several screens before its answer.
• The answer's headings, lists, paragraphs and tables ran into each other; the table was cut at the panel's edge and scrolled sideways.
• Six permission choices, each with its whole command, followed the answer as grey lines ("You chose “Yes” · Rscript -e …").
• A grey band, "Session plan & usage", sat between the messages and the box.
• The box was three rows: a text area with a resize grip; a select reading group/auto-claude-opus-5-5 · magpie-server Xhigh effort; then "Resumes this conversation." beside a pale Send.
• The header read "All conversations · hi · Claude Code": the first message, not the title Claude Code gave the session.

Changed

Rho only (web/conversation.tsx, web/markdown.tsx, web/theme.css, web/agent-settings.tsx, web/settings-menu.tsx, web/settings-menu.css, web/icons.tsx, src/conversation-presentation.ts):

• Each message folds its work. The Agent's last words stay in the open. What it did before them, with what it said along the way and the choices made for it, is one line: "Worked · Ran 8 commands · Wrote 1 file · Edited 1 file · Read 4 files · 2 refused · 6 choices". It is open while the Agent works and folds when the message ends; the person's own opening or closing is kept. Inside, each step is one line with an icon for its kind (read, edit, command, search, fetch, plan); refused steps are red. A pending permission stays outside the fold as the amber card.
• Files are counted once. Nine edits of one script are "Edited 1 file"; commands still count each run.
• The answer reads as text. 14 px with room between paragraphs, headings set apart, first-level list markers, code blocks with their language and Copy, inline code as quiet chips, and tables that wrap inside the panel before they scroll.
• Each message ends with one line: how it ended, the model that answered, the time, and Copy for the answer.
• The header has a back arrow, the Agent's mark, the session's title and New conversation, and stays at the top while the messages scroll.
• The message box is one rounded surface: the text grows to about ten lines; under it the settings chip and a round Send, which becomes Stop while the Agent answers. ⌘/Ctrl Enter still sends. "Jump to latest" is a round button above the box, with a dot when something new arrived.
• Under the box, the plan entry in progress and the context ring, tokens and cost the Agent reported. It opens a small card above the box: context used as a bar with its tokens, the cost, the plan as a list of entries, and one line saying the Agent reported these and Rho does not measure them. Escape closes it and leaves the panel open.
• The settings are one chip and a short menu. The chip names the model, the provider it comes through, the effort and what is switched on; the provider yields first when the panel is narrow. It opens a menu with a row per setting the Agent offers, each with its value: the Agent (new conversation only), the model, effort, mode. A setting whose only values are On and Off is a switch that changes at once and keeps the menu open. A row opens its list in place under a back arrow; the model list keeps its search and providers. A value closes the menu; Escape and ← step back, then close it, never the panel. In a new conversation's lists the first entry is "Not chosen · Claude Code uses Xhigh", apart from a value the Agent itself calls Default.
• The start screen names the Agent with its mark and what it can do here.

Runs

Evidence: work/chat-panel-20261028/, work/agent-ui-acceptance/ and work/agent-page-acceptance/ (ignored by Git).

Run	What was looked at	Observed	Change
look.mjs before	The real ggplot2 conversation at 640 px	As above	The fold, the answer's type, the box
look.mjs after1	The same	"Edited 9 files" for one script edited nine times; the model name cut with room to spare; a bare "Session" label	Files counted once; the label went
look.mjs after1, opened	The fold, the record, the model list	Escape on the record also closed the panel	Escape stops at the record
look.mjs 390	A phone	Escape on the record also closed the sheet	Its default stopped too
look.mjs 340	The default width	The effort clipped to "Xhigh effo"	The model's width follows the panel's
acceptance:agent-ui	A controlled peer: streaming, permission, plan	"Mod" cut in the chip: its −8 px margin made it 8 px narrower than its holder; list markers were hollow circles inside the list of messages	The margin moved to the holder; first-level markers
chipdebug.mjs	The chip's widths	The deficit was always 8 px, the margin	—
The user, after the first pass	The record above the box	"Still a lump": the plugin's session view as prose, a title, a context sentence and four paragraphs of observation notes; the trigger a grey band when open	Rho draws the card from the same report; the notes went; no band
The user, after the record	The model chooser, beside two references: a menu of rows with their values, effort as a list, Fast as a switch	Too crude: a native effort select above a large model popover	One chip and a menu of rows
menu.mjs	The menu on the copy at 640, 340 and 390 px	The model's value cut at its start ("laude-opus-5-5 · magpie-server"); Fast mode and Ultracode, offered as On/Off lists, drawn as rows; two "Default" entries in a new conversation's Effort list	The value ends in an ellipsis; On/Off lists are switches; Rho's entry is "Not chosen"
menu.mjs again	The same, a switch and a value	A switch keeps the menu open and adds "Fast mode" to the chip; a value closes it; Escape from a list returns to its row, then closes the menu with the panel open; no overflow or page errors	—

Where the Agent is reached

The user, on the project's Agent page with the panel open: the button that opens the chat should be easier to find and see; conversations were listed everywhere; and the topbar's panel button, opening Connection & access, is rarely used and can go.

Observed (work/layout-20261028/, the same copy, 1440 and 390 px):

• The panel opened from a small >_ beside the sidebar's Agent row, from New conversation on the Agent page, from Work with Agent on the Overview, and from the topbar only while the sidebar was hidden.
• The same conversations were listed three times: the Agent page's rows, the panel's start screen, and the Overview's Work progress, where each finished conversation was a large card ("hi", Continue conversation, tokens and cost).
• The panel had two headers: "Agent ×", then the conversation's back arrow, title and New conversation.
• The sidebar's Connection & access row also hid the sidebar on a wide window, so focus had nowhere to return when its drawer closed.

Changed (web/main.tsx, web/project.tsx, web/overview.tsx, web/conversation.tsx, web/work-progress.tsx, web/popover.ts, web/icons.tsx, web/theme.css):

• One Agent button, filled, at the right end of the topbar on every page and width, pressed while the panel is open. The sidebar's >_, the Agent page's New conversation and the Overview's Work with Agent went; empty states keep theirs.
• One header in the panel: the conversation's title (or "New conversation"), New conversation and Close. The title opens the recent conversations, newest first, with a search past six and "All conversations" leading to the Agent page. Escape closes the list, then the panel.
• One list: the panel's start screen lists nothing; Work progress shows a conversation while it answers or waits for a choice and counts the finished ones, linking to the Agent page.
• Connection & access opens from the sidebar's foot only, and keeps the sidebar.

Run	What was looked at	Observed	Change
look.mjs	The Agent page, the panel, its recent list, Connection & access at 1440 px	The list focused its first entry, not the open conversation; the sidebar row hid the sidebar and focus fell to the page; the list's dates read "Oct 27" where the Agent page says "Yesterday"	Focus goes to the open one; the row keeps the sidebar; the Agent page's wording
look.mjs again, and at 390 px	The same, and the phone sheet	One Agent button; no list on the start screen; Escape closes the list and keeps the panel; All conversations shows the Agent page (and closes the sheet on a phone); no overflow or page errors	—
The Overview at 1440 and 390 px	Work progress	Two finished conversations as cards headed "hi"	Finished ones are counted and linked

Agents outside Rho

The user asked what Connection & access is for, and said the Agent page's sessions started outside Rho were plain text with no design, where other products' "connect your agent" pages are designed. They chose that the Agent connects itself, with steps a person can see and buttons a person can press, and kept Connection & access at the sidebar's foot.

Observed before (the same copy, 1440 px):

• Connection & access held the connection's state (also in the topbar), this tab's access (which matters only for a tab opened from a link), the Agents with access (also on the Agent page) and a document's Changes.
• Sessions started outside Rho was a closed section of sentences: each grant's label, abilities and last call, then the project Host's activity. Work progress had its own "Connect an external ACP client" with a placeholder folder. Nothing on the page added Rho to an Agent: rho --grant printed a claude mcp add line to paste.

Decided: an Agent that connects itself through a Skill would need the operator's connection, which opens every project. Instead the person at this machine presses one button; the service gives that Agent access to this project only and runs the Agent's own mcp add with that narrower connection. Nothing is sent to the Agent.

Changed (src/agent-connect.ts, src/server.ts, src/protocol.ts, src/state.ts, src/cli.ts, web/outside-agents.tsx, web/outside-agents.css, web/agent-manage.tsx, web/main.tsx, web/overview.tsx, web/work-progress.tsx):

• session.connect, for the person at this machine only, grants Claude Code or Codex access to the project and runs claude mcp add -s local rho-<folder> in the project folder or codex mcp add rho-<folder>, after removing an earlier entry of that name, then records what was added. A grant whose connection still reaches this service with its token is kept; one written for another address is replaced; a new grant the Agent then refuses is removed. Each CLI call may take 20 s and keep 8 KiB of output; past either it is stopped and the step fails with what it printed. rho --grant uses the same name and command.
• Outside Rho, the Agent page's third tab: Claude Code, Codex and Other ACP clients on the left with their state (Added, Connected, Access ended); on the right three steps in the state Rho observes, access to this project, Rho in that Agent (the button, what it ran and when) and its first call (when, which operation), then prompts to copy. Other ACP clients has the rho --acp commands with this project's folder and the sessions such a client started. The project Host's activity is a closed section below, read only while open. Work progress's ACP help went.
• Connection & access holds the connection, this tab's access and a document's Changes; its Agents list went.

Run	What was looked at	Observed	Change
work/outside-20261028/look.mjs at 1440 px, stand-in claude and codex	Before and after Add, the first call, a refused Codex, ACP, Host activity	Steps 1 and 2 both marked as next before anything was added; a refusal left step 2 unmarked; the ACP panel kept an empty height	Step 1 waits on the button; a refusal marks step 2; a lower minimum height
The same at 390 px	The tab and its Agents	"Outside Rho" broke over two lines; the third Agent was cut off in a scrolling row	Tab names do not wrap; the Agents share the row in three columns
Again, after the copy's service started on a new port	Add again, Codex refused	The kept connection named the previous port, so Add again repaired nothing; the refused Codex was left as "Access only"	Kept only while it reaches this service; a refused new grant is removed
Both widths again, and work/layout-20261028/look.mjs	The tab; Connection & access	The steps follow the state; the drawer shows the connection and this tab; no overflow or page errors	—

Connection & access

The user asked for Connection & access to be designed as well.

Observed (work/access-20261028/look.mjs on the same copy: this machine's tab, a document in Studio, a tab from a link, the service stopped; 1440 and 390 px):

• Each part was a heading over sentences. "Can" was one sentence of four abilities in a narrow column beside its label; a link's scope was the full temporary path.
• Offline, the drawer's dot was grey, not amber like the topbar's, and it showed the browser's "Failed to fetch".
• A link's "Use this machine's access instead" was red text centred under the list.
• A document's Changes (the Documents plugin's section) sat 12 px further in than the rest, in its own colours.

Changed (web/main.tsx, web/access.css, web/icons.tsx, web/theme.css):

• Connection is a card that leads with its state and action: Up to date ("Changes show as Rho records them") and Refresh, Connecting, or Can't reach Rho since a time and Reconnect, in amber. Below, when it was last read and that reading never starts work; offline, the reason, with a request that never reached the service named as "Rho did not answer at this address" here and in the other messages that quote it.
• This tab is a card for this machine or a link: how it was opened or when the link expires, its folder (a link's folder by name, its path on hover), what it can do with a check each and, for a narrower link, what it cannot, then the link's way back as a button.
• The focused view's section lines up with the cards and takes the application's colours through the custom properties the Documents plugin reads.

Run	What was looked at	Observed	Change
look.mjs at 1440 and 390 px	The four states after the change	A link's folder still showed its full path	The folder's name, with the path on hover
Both widths again	The same	Cards in each state; no overflow or page errors	—

Checks

Run serially on 2026-10-28 (work/chat-panel-20261028/final/):

• build:service, build:web, the web type check and check:contracts passed.
• Rho 215/215 and Plugins 92/92 (ledger), including "a file the Agent touched several times is counted once; commands count each time".
• acceptance:agent-ui 7/7 with a controlled peer: text streams into the open message; each action names its file, command or operation while it runs; the plan line follows the entry in progress and its record lists the plan and closes on Escape without closing the panel; a native permission is answered and the choice kept in the work that folds when the message ends; Markdown renders; reading earlier lines is not interrupted and the round "Jump to latest" names new activity.
• agent-page 5/5, graph 8/8, agent-canvas 10/10, frontend 13/13, continuity 7/7, sources 7/7, objects 5/5, actions 6/6, and shell, pages, person and plugin UI passed. After the record changed, agent-ui 7/7, frontend 13/13, agent-canvas 10/10, agent-page 5/5 and the stylesheet token test passed again.
• After the settings menu, the same serial batch passed again: Rho 215/215, Plugins 92/92, agent-page 6/6 with "the message box names the saved model and effort in one chip, and its menu changes them in place", graph 8/8, frontend 13/13, agent-canvas 10/10, agent-ui 7/7, continuity 7/7, sources 7/7, objects 5/5, actions 6/6, and shell, pages, person and plugin UI. The Agents tab's model list, which the menu now shares, passed in agent-page after its unused options were removed. acceptance:acp chooses the Agent through the new menu; it needs a real Agent and was not run.
• After the Agent button moved to the topbar, the same batch passed again, with agent-canvas checking that the panel opens from the topbar and from nothing in the sidebar. The older acceptance:ui and acceptance:interaction stop before the changed step (a "link already used" page and a sidebar entry named "workspace", both gone); acceptance:ui:u2 opens Changes from the sidebar, then fails on whether the Documents plugin names the person "You". acceptance:acp and the conversation episode reach a finished conversation through the recent list; they need a real Agent and were not run.
• After Outside Rho, the batch passed again: Rho 218/218, with agent-connect.test.mjs (both Agents' mcp add, a kept and a replaced connection, a rho --grant grant as the same session, an Agent refused, and a refusing, missing or stalled CLI), Plugins 92/92, agent-page 7/7 with "Outside Rho adds Rho to Claude Code with its own mcp add and shows its first call; a refused Codex leaves no access", graph 8/8, frontend 13/13, agent-canvas 10/10, agent-ui 7/7, continuity 7/7, sources 7/7, objects 5/5, actions 6/6, and shell, person and plugin UI. pages looked for the Agents list in Connection & access; it now finds the session under Outside Rho and passed, with no overflow at four widths.
• After Connection & access became cards, the whole batch passed again (Rho 218/218, Plugins 92/92, agent-page 7/7 and the rest as above), including pages on the drawer at four widths and continuity going offline and back.

Limits

• The fold hides what the Agent said along the way once a message ends; it is one click away, and the last words never fold.
• The menu offers what the Agent reported when it was last asked, under the Agent's own names ("Xhigh", "Ultracode").
• The usage line shows what the Agent reported for its session; an Agent that reports none shows no ring. The observation counts the Agent plugin keeps (updates seen, not displayed) are no longer shown in the panel; Work progress shows them while a conversation is in progress.
• A message whose stream joins two sentences without a break shows them joined: Rho shows what the Agent sent.
• Tables wrap; on a phone a four-column table grows tall rather than scrolling.
• A document's Changes open in the Connection & access drawer, now reached only from the sidebar's foot; the document has no button of its own for them.
• The recent list holds conversations started in Rho; sessions started elsewhere are on the Agent page.
• The recent list's search appears past six conversations; the copy has two, so it was not seen with real records.
• Only stand-in CLIs ran mcp add; the real ones were read through --help, so the user's Claude Code and Codex configurations were not changed. A session already open does not load the new server; a new one does, as the page says.
• Codex keeps one entry per folder name for every folder: two projects in folders of the same name share rho-<folder>, and the later replaces the earlier.
• With no project Host running, Host activity reads "Observation disconnected" (the Agent plugin's wording). acceptance:agent-activity, which now opens it from Outside Rho, drives real Claude Code and dsh and was not rerun.
• A document's Changes are the Documents plugin's: they do not name the document, give times as "10:29 PM" where Rho uses 24 hours, and set their heading smaller than the cards'.
• No person other than the builder has used the window.