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Hitting Escape while CLI is working re-displays the previous prompt #13306

@guidedways

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@guidedways

What happened?

Hitting escape re-displays the previous prompt and takes multiple escapes to clear the field, only to press 'up' to RE-DISPLAY the same prompt again! This can lead to a frustrating experience because primarily the use-cases are:

  • Hit escape to stop CLI from doing whatever it's doing and give it a different command (does not require previous prompt)
  • Hit escape to give additional instructions (assuming the previous prompt is now in the context)
  • Hit escape to give it a new prompt altogether, prehaps even /clear in between to re-use the previous prompt

It is assumed that whatever was prompted earlier is already in the model's context so should not be required a second time. ClaudeCode for instance supports hitting escape-escape (twice) to 'rewind' back to a previous prompt (so does Codex). This is useful if you want the CLI to forget what was said entirely and go back to a previous point to preserve (and re-use) tokens.

What did you expect to happen?

CLI should stop what it's doing and give me a blank input field.

It's always quicker to:

  • Hit escape
  • Press up-arrow to re-use a previous prompt if one has to

Instead of being forced to see your entire long prompt again. There's also merit in being consistent with other CLIs - yes everyone should be using Gemini but in reality many of us switch between tools for a variety of reasons.

Client information

Client Information

Run gemini to enter the interactive CLI, then run the /about command.

> /about
# paste output here

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area/coreIssues related to User Interface, OS Support, Core Functionalitypriority/p1Important and should be addressed in the near term.status/possible-duplicate

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