Add dedicated reasoning-depth hotkeys, non-semantic depth meter, and next-turn-safe switching

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

• #12915
• #14081
• #14159

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One more connection: this pairs very naturally with the continuation/resume UX discussed in #14041 and #14042.

If model/reasoning changes are next-turn-safe, then the control flow can become much cleaner:

• adjust model/depth quickly
• abort if needed
• resume/continue without retyping

That seems like a much stronger mental model than forcing users back through /models plus manual prompt editing every time they want to steer the current thread.

I'd like to see this for /fast too, having to steer it to stop after it finishes its current task to do this is not great.

Strong +1 from real CLI usage.

In actual development, I do not need to switch models very often, but I do need to switch reasoning effort frequently. Most turns can stay at medium/high, then when I hit a genuinely hard debugging or architecture problem I want to raise the next turn to xhigh immediately, inside the same active session.

Right now this is much more awkward than it should be. In codex-cli 0.118.0, /model shows a dialog titled Select Model and Effort, but the screen only lists models. That makes the current UX and documentation feel misleading: the title implies effort is directly switchable there, but in practice there is no obvious in-session effort control.

Using -c model_reasoning_effort=... with a fresh launch, or even fork/resume --last -c ..., is a workaround, not a good interactive workflow. When you are actively developing, getting stuck, and wanting to temporarily escalate to xhigh, this should be a one-step operation, not a session-management exercise.

What would help most:

• a dedicated /effort command or hotkey
• or a clear second-step effort picker from /model
• next-turn-safe semantics: do not mutate the in-flight request, but apply the new effort to the next turn in the same thread
• make the staged/current effort visible in /status and the statusline
• document the behavior clearly, because the current docs/UI wording suggests this already exists

This is a very high-frequency control in real-world CLI use. It should be as cheap to change as temperature/gear in a cockpit, not something that requires restarting or forking the workflow.

Adding a related manual-override case.

If automatic reasoning selection is not available, or if the user wants to override it for a single turn, it would be useful to support lightweight inline markers in the prompt itself, not only a menu/hotkey flow.

Examples:

• @high investigate this failure and propose the fix
• @medium summarize this diff
• @xhigh review the architecture tradeoffs

Why this helps:

• it is faster than opening /model or another picker
• it is naturally scoped to the current turn, so users do not have to remember to switch back afterward
• it works well in copied prompts, saved workflows, and shell aliases
• it can coexist with auto mode: explicit marker wins for that turn, otherwise auto/default policy applies

Suggested semantics:

• parse reserved effort markers at the start of the user message, e.g. @low, @medium, @high, @xhigh
• apply only to the next submitted turn unless explicitly pinned
• show the selected effort visibly before/while running, e.g. Effort: high (from @high)
• avoid treating unknown @name mentions as effort markers, so this does not conflict with normal mentions or agent references

A slash form like /effort high is also useful, but inline markers are lower-friction when the user already knows the desired effort for this one prompt.

I need this. As a Plus subscriber, I am very quota-conscious, so I try to use the lowest effort possible. But to switch the effort level in CLI, I need to type /model, then select the same model, and then select the effort level. Repeating this often is not fun.

Either a simple /effort switch or better yet, maybe a custom preset. Like I can assign 1 to 5.5 low and 2 to 5.3-Codex xhigh in settings and then just type /model 1 or /model 2 to switch to it directly.

It would be incredibly helpful for me if the color of something visibly changes based on the current selected reasoning level. That's about the only way I'll really notice it.