TUI mixes reconnect/system logs into the chat transcript, making user and assistant messages hard to distinguish
What version of Codex CLI is running?
codex-cli 0.116.0
What subscription do you have?
Unknown (signed in with ChatGPT)
Which model were you using?
Unknown
What platform is your computer?
Windows
What terminal emulator and version are you using (if applicable)?
Windows Terminal (version unknown)
What issue are you seeing?
In the Codex CLI TUI, user messages and assistant responses are not visually separated enough, and reconnect / transport status output can appear inline in the same transcript area.
This makes longer conversations hard to read because it becomes difficult to distinguish:
- what the user sent,
- what the assistant replied,
- what is only transient system or network status.
In my case, after sending a simple prompt, the TUI displayed reconnect/status output directly below the user message, including:
Reconnecting...Unexpected status 200 OK: 142- raw HTML such as
<!doctype html>
This feels like a TUI rendering / message separation bug, not only a styling preference.
<img width="1249" height="1285" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/aaca3d8e-8f12-463b-96f1-09dee62347b3" />
What steps can reproduce the bug?
- Start Codex CLI in the TUI on Windows.
- Send a simple prompt (for example:
123123123). - Let the session hit a reconnect or transient network issue.
- Observe that reconnect / status / debug output is rendered inline in the same main transcript area as chat messages.
A related issue about reconnecting exists (#7378), but this report is specifically about the TUI mixing system output into the visible chat transcript and making turns hard to distinguish.
What is the expected behavior?
- User and assistant turns should be visually separated more clearly.
- Reconnect / transport / debug status should be rendered in a dedicated status area, not inline with normal chat messages.
- Raw HTML or unexpected HTTP response bodies should not be dumped directly into the main conversation area.
Additional information
This is both a readability issue and a UX issue.
Even when a reconnect problem happens, the TUI should keep a clear distinction between conversation content and system output.
I attempted to attach a screenshot showing a user message on one line and reconnect/raw-HTML output immediately below it in the same transcript area.
This issue has 2 comments on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗