feat(cli): implement dynamic terminal tab titles for CLI status

[NTaylorMullen]

Implements dynamic terminal tab titles that reflect the current state of the Gemini CLI (Idle, Working, or Action Required). This allows users to monitor the agent's progress and know when their attention is required directly from their OS taskbar or terminal tab list without needing to focus the CLI window.

Every time it freezes is me clicking away from the tab (gif recording issue)
DynamicThoughtTitlesDemo.webm https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d1ad1b37-28e1-4d1a-ac78-17424ff5f643

Details

• Dynamic State Mapping: Refactored computeWindowTitle into computeTerminalTitle to take StreamingState and confirmation states as input.
• Visual Stability: Titles are now padded to exactly 80 characters. This prevents visual jitter (icons shifting/resizing in taskbars or tab lists) as the title length changes.
• Default Setting: The ui.showStatusInTitle setting remains disabled by default (can be enabled via settings or config).
• Prefixes: Uses standard project prefixes for visual consistency:
• Idle: ◇ Ready (workspace)
• Working: ✦ [Thought Subject] (workspace)
• Confirmation Needed: ✋ Action Required (workspace)

Updates from Code Review

• Switched to custom waitFor in tests.
• Added vi.restoreAllMocks() to afterEach blocks and ensured mocks are correctly reset in beforeEach.
• Refactored terminal title tests to use it.each for better readability.
• Confirmed ui.showStatusInTitle default value is false and regenerated documentation.
• Rebased on latest main and resolved conflicts in AppContainer.tsx.

Related Issues

Fixes #16367

How to Validate

1. Run the CLI in a terminal with visible tabs (e.g. iTerm2, macOS Terminal).
2. Observe the initial title: ◇ Ready (gemini-cli3).
3. Give the CLI a long-running task (e.g. "Count from 1 to 50 slowly").
4. Observe the tab title change to ✦ [Subject] (gemini-cli3).
5. Trigger a command that requires shell confirmation (e.g. "Run git log").
6. Observe the tab title change to ✋ Action Required (gemini-cli3) while waiting for your approval.

Pre-Merge Checklist

[✓] Updated relevant documentation and README (if needed)
[✓] Added/updated tests (if needed)
[✓] Noted breaking changes (if any)
[✓] Validated on MacOS

[gemini-code-assist]

Summary of Changes

Hello @NTaylorMullen, 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 enhances the user experience of the Gemini CLI by introducing dynamic terminal tab titles. These titles provide real-time status updates, such as whether the CLI is idle, actively working on a task, or requires user confirmation. This change allows users to quickly grasp the CLI's operational state at a glance from their OS taskbar or terminal tab list, improving workflow efficiency by reducing the need to constantly switch focus to the CLI window. The implementation includes a robust title computation logic, ensuring visual stability and clear communication of the CLI's status.

Highlights

• Dynamic Terminal Tab Titles: The CLI now dynamically updates terminal tab titles to reflect its current state: Idle, Working, or Action Required. This allows users to monitor the agent's progress and know when their attention is required without focusing the CLI window.
• Refactored Title Computation: The computeWindowTitle function has been refactored and renamed to computeTerminalTitle. It now takes StreamingState and confirmation states as input to generate more descriptive titles.
• Visual Stability: All terminal titles are now padded to a fixed length of 80 characters. This prevents visual jitter, such as icons shifting or resizing in taskbars or tab lists, as the title length changes.
• Default Setting Change: The ui.showStatusInTitle setting, which controls whether the CLI status is shown in the terminal title, is now enabled by default.
• Standardized Prefixes: New, visually consistent prefixes have been introduced for different states: ◇ Ready for Idle, ✦ [Thought Subject] for Working, and ✋ Action Required for when confirmation is needed.

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[github-actions]

Size Change: +2.69 kB (+0.01%)

Total Size: 23 MB

Filename	Size	Change
./bundle/gemini.js	23 MB	+2.69 kB (+0.01%)

ℹ️ View Unchanged

Filename	Size
./bundle/sandbox-macos-permissive-closed.sb	1.03 kB
./bundle/sandbox-macos-permissive-open.sb	890 B
./bundle/sandbox-macos-permissive-proxied.sb	1.31 kB
./bundle/sandbox-macos-restrictive-closed.sb	3.29 kB
./bundle/sandbox-macos-restrictive-open.sb	3.36 kB
./bundle/sandbox-macos-restrictive-proxied.sb	3.56 kB

_{compressed-size-action}

[gemini-code-assist]

Code Review

This pull request introduces dynamic terminal tab titles, which is a great enhancement for user experience. The implementation is well-structured, centralizing the logic in computeTerminalTitle. However, I found a high-severity issue where the generated title can exceed the 80-character limit if the workspace folder name (or CLI_TITLE) is very long. This defeats the purpose of padding for visual stability. I've provided a suggestion to fix the truncation logic to ensure the title never exceeds 80 characters.

[jacob314]

Review comments by /review-frontend after manual review by Jacob.

Great implementation of dynamic terminal titles! This significantly improves the UX for monitoring the agent's state. I've identified a few areas where the implementation could better align with our project's testing and code quality standards:

Testing Standards

• Use custom waitFor: In packages/cli/src/ui/AppContainer.test.tsx, the test at line 1274 uses vi.waitFor. Please switch to our custom waitFor from packages/cli/src/test-utils/async.ts to ensure compatibility with act() and prevent flakiness.
• Snapshot Testing: Many of the new tests for terminal titles (in both AppContainer.test.tsx and windowTitle.test.ts) use raw string matching (toBe, toContain). We prefer using toMatchSnapshot() to verify rendering-related output to ensure consistency and catch regressions more effectively.
• Mock Management: Please add vi.restoreAllMocks() to the afterEach blocks in AppContainer.test.tsx to prevent mock state from leaking between tests, as per our internal guidelines.
• Parameterized Tests: packages/cli/src/utils/windowTitle.test.ts is quite repetitive. Consider refactoring these into a parameterized test using it.each to reduce boilerplate and improve readability.

Code and Configuration

• Default Setting Consistency: The PR description mentioned that ui.showStatusInTitle is now enabled by default, but the change in settingsSchema.ts still has it set to false. Could you clarify if this was intentional or if the default should be updated?

Overall, the logic for computeTerminalTitle is very robust and well-handled!

[jacob314]

Approved with a couple minor comments.