gemini-cli/conductor/plan.md

Implementation Plan: Hide Context & Compression UI Redesign

Background & Motivation

The current UI for context window management (warnings and compression messages) is too prominent. The context overflow warning is a yellow block of text, the auto-compression message is yellow, and the manual compression message is green with an icon. Context usage percentage also conditionally "bleeds through" in the minimal UI when usage is high.

The goal is to make context management more seamless: hide the context overflow warning by default in favor of forced auto-compression, make compression messages visually subtle, prevent context percentage from appearing dynamically/automatically (e.g., in the minimal UI), while retaining the ability for users to explicitly enable the context percentage display in their footer if they choose.

Scope & Impact

• Add a new setting ui.showContextWindowWarning (default false).
• Modify core/client.ts to force compression on overflow if the warning is disabled. (Risk: Behavioral change for users who rely on the manual overflow blocker).
• Redesign CompressionMessage.tsx to be subtle (gray, no icon, left border).
• Update useGeminiStream.ts to use the new CompressionMessage for auto-compression, and update the overflow warning text to be shorter and percentage-based.
• Remove dynamic/automatic context percentage appearances (specifically the bleed-through in Composer.tsx), but preserve ContextUsageDisplay.tsx for opt-in use in the footer.

Proposed Solution

1. Remove Dynamic Context Percentage Displays

• Update Composer.tsx: Remove showMinimalContextBleedThrough logic and the <ContextUsageDisplay /> component from the minimal bleed-through row. The context percentage should never appear automatically based on high usage.
• Retain Footer Option: Keep ContextUsageDisplay.tsx, hideContextPercentage in settingsSchema.ts, and the context-used footer item in footerItems.ts. It remains off by default but available for users who explicitly want it in their footer.

2. Configuration Updates

• Update settingsSchema.ts: Add showContextWindowWarning: { type: 'boolean', default: false, ... } under the ui category.
• Update Config Interface: Add getShowContextWindowWarning(): boolean to packages/core/src/config/config.ts and its implementations.

3. Core Client Update (Auto-Compress on Overflow)

• Update packages/core/src/core/client.ts: Locate the token limit check if (estimatedRequestTokenCount > remainingTokenCount). Before yielding the ContextWindowWillOverflow event, check this.config.getShowContextWindowWarning(). If false:
  1. Call await this.tryCompressChat(prompt_id, true) to force a compression attempt.
  2. If compression succeeds (CompressionStatus.COMPRESSED), yield the ChatCompressed event and recalculate remainingTokenCount.
  3. If estimatedRequestTokenCount now fits within the new remainingTokenCount, bypass the overflow yield and continue processing the request.
  4. If it still overflows after forced compression, yield the ContextWindowWillOverflow event so the user is informed that the limit is absolutely reached.

4. Update Overflow Warning Text

• Update useGeminiStream.ts: Modify handleContextWindowWillOverflowEvent to use a shorter, percentage-based text. Example: "Context window is 100% full. Message size might exceed the limit."

5. Redesign Compression Message

• Update CompressionMessage.tsx:
  • Change colors from theme.status.success and theme.text.accent to theme.text.secondary (subtle gray).
  • Remove the ✦ icon.
  • Wrap the text in a <Box> with a left border to match ThinkingMessage.tsx: borderStyle="single" borderLeft={true} borderRight={false} borderTop={false} borderBottom={false} borderColor={theme.text.secondary}

6. Unify Auto-Compression Message

• Update useGeminiStream.ts: Modify handleChatCompressionEvent so that instead of constructing a yellow MessageType.INFO string, it dispatches an item of type: MessageType.COMPRESSION (passing the eventValue as compression props). This ensures automatic compression is rendered by our newly subtle CompressionMessage.tsx.

PR Notes

We will explicitly document the behavioral change in the PR description: By default, the CLI will now forcefully attempt to summarize chat history when it overflows, rather than immediately blocking the user with a warning. Additionally, context percentage no longer automatically appears when usage is high; it is strictly an opt-in footer setting.