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Inline thinking bubbles with summary/full modes#18033

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jacob314 merged 55 commits intogoogle-gemini:mainfrom
LyalinDotCom:show_thinking
Feb 10, 2026
Merged

Inline thinking bubbles with summary/full modes#18033
jacob314 merged 55 commits intogoogle-gemini:mainfrom
LyalinDotCom:show_thinking

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@LyalinDotCom
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@LyalinDotCom LyalinDotCom commented Feb 1, 2026

Summary
This PR improves inline thinking UX by rendering each thought as its own compact bubble and adding distinct summary/full settings for display.

Details

  • Thought Bubbles: Inline thinking now renders one bubble per thought event (no grouped counts), avoiding flicker-prone growth and making scroll behavior stable in both regular and alternate buffer modes.
  • Display Modes: Added separate UI settings for full vs summary inline thinking, with full taking precedence when both are enabled. The deprecated showInlineThinking toggle is hidden from the settings dialog but kept for backward compatibility.
  • Consistent Rendering: Propagated inline thinking display to alternate buffer/pending/quitting renders so behavior matches regular buffer mode.
  • Visual Cleanup: Removed the redundant “Thinking” header line; bubbles now display the subject/summary inline with a chat bubble icon.
  • Reusable UI: Added shared IconText component to handle emoji-with-fallback rendering, used by thinking bubbles.
  • Docs/Schema: Regenerated settings schema and docs to reflect the new settings.

Related Issues
Related to #15052

How to Validate

Thinking Subject (summary):

  1. Enable summary mode: /settings → Show Inline Thinking (Summary) = true (Full = false).
  2. Ask a question that emits thoughts; expect one compact bubble per thought with a 💬 icon (fallback ◆ if emoji isn’t supported).

Full Thinking Comments:

  1. Enable full mode: /settings → Show Inline Thinking (Full) = true.
  2. Expect bubbles to show full subject + description per thought.

For both, test in both regular and alternate buffer modes: bubbles should render consistently during streaming and in history.

Note:

a. In the future we should consolidate the setting to one setting that supports an enum of options
b. We should explore with actual thought summaries using Flash-lite

@LyalinDotCom LyalinDotCom requested review from a team as code owners February 1, 2026 00:27
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Summary of Changes

Hello @LyalinDotCom, I'm Gemini Code Assist1! I'm currently reviewing this pull request and will post my feedback shortly. In the meantime, here's a summary to help you and other reviewers quickly get up to speed!

This pull request significantly refines the user experience for displaying model thinking processes within the CLI. It transitions from a potentially disruptive display to a more organized, bubble-based interface. Users now have granular control over the level of detail shown for these thoughts, choosing between a concise summary or a comprehensive view, ensuring a more stable and visually clean interaction regardless of the terminal's operational mode.

Highlights

  • Enhanced Inline Thinking UI: Model thoughts are now displayed as individual, compact bubbles, improving readability and stability by preventing UI flicker and ensuring consistent scroll behavior.
  • Flexible Display Modes: Introduced distinct settings (ui.showInlineThinkingFull and ui.showInlineThinkingSummary) allowing users to choose between a full or summarized view of inline thoughts, with full mode taking precedence. The old ui.showInlineThinking is deprecated.
  • Consistent Cross-Buffer Rendering: Inline thinking display is now uniformly rendered across regular, alternate buffer, pending, and quitting modes.
  • Streamlined Visuals: The redundant "Thinking" header has been removed, and thought bubbles now present the subject/summary alongside a chat bubble icon (💬 or ◆ fallback).
  • Reusable Icon Component: A new IconText component was added to handle emoji rendering with a fallback mechanism for environments that don't support emojis.
  • Updated Configuration: The settings schema and documentation have been regenerated to reflect the new inline thinking settings.
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chrstnb commented Feb 1, 2026

Build failed: Build process failed (no specific link errors found). Check logs for details.

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Code Review

This pull request introduces a significant improvement to the user experience by rendering model thoughts as individual, compact bubbles with distinct 'summary' and 'full' display modes. The implementation is well-structured, encompassing new settings, UI components, and updated documentation. My review has identified two high-severity issues: one concerning a behavioral inconsistency with a deprecated setting, and another related to unsafe string truncation that could corrupt Unicode characters in the UI.

Comment thread packages/cli/src/ui/hooks/useGeminiStream.ts Outdated
Comment thread packages/cli/src/ui/utils/inlineThinkingMode.ts Outdated
@gemini-cli gemini-cli Bot added the area/agent Issues related to Core Agent, Tools, Memory, Sub-Agents, Hooks, Agent Quality label Feb 1, 2026
@LyalinDotCom
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Build failed: Build process failed (no specific link errors found). Check logs for details.

looking into it

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chrstnb commented Feb 1, 2026

Build failed: Build process failed (no specific link errors found). Check logs for details.

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chrstnb commented Feb 1, 2026

Build failed: Build process failed (no specific link errors found). Check logs for details.

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chrstnb commented Feb 1, 2026

Build failed: Build process failed (no specific link errors found). Check logs for details.

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keithguerin commented Feb 6, 2026

Here's a proposed updated UX spec (attached gif), that aligns to gemini.google.com, and is also effective for Gemini CLI:

  • Display thinking summaries by default, with details collapsed.
  • Instead of showing each step as an individual line, show a single line that rotates through the summaries. This is appropriate since the summaries are often vague and reflective (e.g. "Considering User's Request"), rather than functional steps (e.g. "Loading the data").
  • The ctrl+o shortcut to "Show details" expands the thinking row to show full details.
  • When thinking is complete, the title changes to say "Show Thinking (ctrl+o)"
    thinking

@LyalinDotCom
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Here's a proposed updated UX spec (attached gif), that aligns to gemini.google.com, and is also effective for Gemini CLI:

  • Display thinking summaries by default, with details collapsed.

  • Instead of showing each step as an individual line, show a single line that rotates through the summaries. This is appropriate since the summaries are often vague and reflective (e.g. "Considering User's Request"), rather than functional steps (e.g. "Loading the data").

  • The ctrl+o shortcut to "Show details" expands the thinking row to show full details.

  • When thinking is complete, the title changes to say "Show Thinking (ctrl+o)"
    thinking

        [
          
        
            ![thinking](https://private-user-images.githubusercontent.com/1129411/546059623-79100117-ea43-4703-8144-baa165219ba2.gif?jwt=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.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.KozwiugVhgj71v14QoK8WB1-FhPq2ft-7AToHMlxroQ)
          ](https://private-user-images.githubusercontent.com/1129411/546059623-79100117-ea43-4703-8144-baa165219ba2.gif?jwt=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.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.KozwiugVhgj71v14QoK8WB1-FhPq2ft-7AToHMlxroQ)
        
        
          
            
              
            
            
              
              
            
          
          [
            
              
            
          ](https://private-user-images.githubusercontent.com/1129411/546059623-79100117-ea43-4703-8144-baa165219ba2.gif?jwt=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJnaXRodWIuY29tIiwiYXVkIjoicmF3LmdpdGh1YnVzZXJjb250ZW50LmNvbSIsImtleSI6ImtleTUiLCJleHAiOjE3NzA2MDk5MTEsIm5iZiI6MTc3MDYwOTYxMSwicGF0aCI6Ii8xMTI5NDExLzU0NjA1OTYyMy03OTEwMDExNy1lYTQzLTQ3MDMtODE0NC1iYWExNjUyMTliYTIuZ2lmP1gtQW16LUFsZ29yaXRobT1BV1M0LUhNQUMtU0hBMjU2JlgtQW16LUNyZWRlbnRpYWw9QUtJQVZDT0RZTFNBNTNQUUs0WkElMkYyMDI2MDIwOSUyRnVzLWVhc3QtMSUyRnMzJTJGYXdzNF9yZXF1ZXN0JlgtQW16LURhdGU9MjAyNjAyMDlUMDQwMDExWiZYLUFtei1FeHBpcmVzPTMwMCZYLUFtei1TaWduYXR1cmU9NzA0Y2YzNzFhNzQ0ZWM0OTBhNWFmMTA0NTYxMWM3YzE4Y2E2ZTcxMjQwOWUzNmY2YzI4OGUwM2I1YTU3MzM3NSZYLUFtei1TaWduZWRIZWFkZXJzPWhvc3QifQ.KozwiugVhgj71v14QoK8WB1-FhPq2ft-7AToHMlxroQ)
    

It's not exactly what you had but I've done testing, and think this is the right balance between whats in the progress indicator, vs. what's in history (only things that persist). Show summary in history if it vanished made no sense given we show it in the progress indicator.

Comment thread packages/cli/src/ui/components/messages/ToolGroupMessage.tsx
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Will follow up with a pr with significant cleanup.

@jacob314 jacob314 enabled auto-merge February 9, 2026 22:07
@jacob314 jacob314 added this pull request to the merge queue Feb 10, 2026
@github-merge-queue github-merge-queue Bot removed this pull request from the merge queue due to failed status checks Feb 10, 2026
@jacob314 jacob314 added this pull request to the merge queue Feb 10, 2026
Merged via the queue into google-gemini:main with commit d3cfbdb Feb 10, 2026
25 of 26 checks passed
krsjenmt added a commit to krsjenmt/gemini-cli that referenced this pull request Feb 11, 2026
* Fix newline insertion bug in replace tool (google-gemini#18595)

* fix(evals): update save_memory evals and simplify tool description (google-gemini#18610)

* chore(evals): update validation_fidelity_pre_existing_errors to USUALLY_PASSES (google-gemini#18617)

* fix: shorten tool call IDs and fix duplicate tool name in truncated output filenames (google-gemini#18600)

* feat(cli): implement atomic writes and safety checks for trusted folders (google-gemini#18406)

* Remove relative docs links (google-gemini#18650)

* docs: add legacy snippets convention to GEMINI.md (google-gemini#18597)

* fix(chore): Support linting for cjs (google-gemini#18639)

Co-authored-by: Gal Zahavi <38544478+galz10@users.noreply.github.com>

* feat: move shell efficiency guidelines to tool description (google-gemini#18614)

* Added "" as default value, since getText() used to expect a string only and thus crashed when undefined...  Fixes google-gemini#18076   (google-gemini#18099)

* Allow @-includes outside of workspaces (with permission) (google-gemini#18470)

* chore: make `ask_user` header description more clear (google-gemini#18657)

* bug(core): Fix minor bug in migration logic. (google-gemini#18661)

* Harded code assist converter. (google-gemini#18656)

* refactor(core): model-dependent tool definitions (google-gemini#18563)

* feat: enable plan mode experiment in settings (google-gemini#18636)

* refactor: push isValidPath() into parsePastedPaths() (google-gemini#18664)

* fix(cli): correct 'esc to cancel' position and restore duration display (google-gemini#18534)

* feat(cli): add DevTools integration with gemini-cli-devtools (google-gemini#18648)

* chore: remove unused exports and redundant hook files (google-gemini#18681)

* Fix number of lines being reported in rewind confirmation dialog (google-gemini#18675)

* feat(cli): disable folder trust in headless mode (google-gemini#18407)

* Disallow unsafe type assertions (google-gemini#18688)

* Change event type for release (google-gemini#18693)

* feat: handle multiple dynamic context filenames in system prompt (google-gemini#18598)

* Properly parse at-commands with narrow non-breaking spaces (google-gemini#18677)

* refactor(core): centralize core tool definitions and support model-specific schemas (google-gemini#18662)

* feat(core): Render memory hierarchically in context. (google-gemini#18350)

* feat: Ctrl+O to expand paste placeholder (google-gemini#18103)

* fix(cli): Improve header spacing (google-gemini#18531)

* Feature/quota visibility 16795 (google-gemini#18203)

* docs: remove TOC marker from Plan Mode header (google-gemini#18678)

* Inline thinking bubbles with summary/full modes (google-gemini#18033)

Co-authored-by: Jacob Richman <jacob314@gmail.com>

* fix(ui): remove redundant newlines in Gemini messages (google-gemini#18538)

* test(cli): fix AppContainer act() warnings and improve waitFor resilience (google-gemini#18676)

* refactor(core): refine Security & System Integrity section in system prompt (google-gemini#18601)

* Fix layout rounding. (google-gemini#18667)

* docs(skills): enhance pr-creator safety and interactivity (google-gemini#18616)

* test(core): remove hardcoded model from TestRig (google-gemini#18710)

* feat(core): optimize sub-agents system prompt intro (google-gemini#18608)

* feat(cli): update approval mode labels and shortcuts per latest UX spec (google-gemini#18698)

* fix(plan): update persistent approval mode setting (google-gemini#18638)

Co-authored-by: Sandy Tao <sandytao520@icloud.com>

* fix: move toasts location to left side (google-gemini#18705)

* feat(routing): restrict numerical routing to Gemini 3 family (google-gemini#18478)

* fix(ide): fix ide nudge setting (google-gemini#18733)

* fix(core): standardize tool formatting in system prompts (google-gemini#18615)

* chore: consolidate to green in ask user dialog (google-gemini#18734)

* feat: add `extensionsExplore` setting to enable extensions explore UI. (google-gemini#18686)

* feat(cli): defer devtools startup and integrate with F12 (google-gemini#18695)

* ui: update & subdue footer colors and animate progress indicator (google-gemini#18570)

* test: add model-specific snapshots for coreTools (google-gemini#18707)

Co-authored-by: matt korwel <matt.korwel@gmail.com>

* ci: shard windows tests and fix event listener leaks (google-gemini#18670)

* fix: allow `ask_user` tool in yolo mode (google-gemini#18541)

* feat: redact disabled tools from system prompt (google-gemini#13597) (google-gemini#18613)

* Update Gemini.md to use the curent year on creating new files (google-gemini#18460)

* Code review cleanup for thinking display (google-gemini#18720)

* fix(cli): hide scrollbars when in alternate buffer copy mode (google-gemini#18354)

Co-authored-by: Jacob Richman <jacob314@gmail.com>

* Fix issues with rip grep (google-gemini#18756)

* fix(cli): fix history navigation regression after prompt autocomplete (google-gemini#18752)

* chore: cleanup unused and add unlisted dependencies in packages/cli (google-gemini#18749)

* Fix issue where Gemini CLI creates tests in a new file (google-gemini#18409)

* feat(telemetry): Ensure experiment IDs are included in OpenTelemetry logs (google-gemini#18747)

* feat(ux): added text wrapping capabilities to markdown tables (google-gemini#18240)

Co-authored-by: jacob314 <jacob314@gmail.com>

* Revert "fix(mcp): ensure MCP transport is closed to prevent memory leaks" (google-gemini#18771)

* chore(release): bump version to 0.30.0-nightly.20260210.a2174751d (google-gemini#18772)

* chore: cleanup unused and add unlisted dependencies in packages/core (google-gemini#18762)

* chore(core): update activate_skill prompt verbiage to be more direct (google-gemini#18605)

* Add autoconfigure memory usage setting to the dialog (google-gemini#18510)

Co-authored-by: gemini-code-assist[bot] <176961590+gemini-code-assist[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* fix(core): prevent race condition in policy persistence (google-gemini#18506)

Co-authored-by: Allen Hutchison <adh@google.com>

* fix(evals): prevent false positive in hierarchical memory test (google-gemini#18777)

* test(evals): mark all `save_memory` evals as `USUALLY_PASSES` due to unreliability (google-gemini#18786)

* feat(cli): add setting to hide shortcuts hint UI (google-gemini#18562)

* feat(core): formalize 5-phase sequential planning workflow (google-gemini#18759)

* Introduce limits for search results. (google-gemini#18767)

---------

Co-authored-by: Andrew Garrett <andrewgarrett@google.com>
Co-authored-by: N. Taylor Mullen <ntaylormullen@google.com>
Co-authored-by: Sandy Tao <sandytao520@icloud.com>
Co-authored-by: Gal Zahavi <38544478+galz10@users.noreply.github.com>
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kuishou68 pushed a commit to iOfficeAI/aioncli that referenced this pull request Feb 27, 2026
Co-authored-by: Jacob Richman <jacob314@gmail.com>
liamhelmer pushed a commit to badal-io/gemini-cli that referenced this pull request Mar 12, 2026
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