diff --git a/codex-cli/src/components/chat/terminal-chat-response-item.tsx b/codex-cli/src/components/chat/terminal-chat-response-item.tsx
index 8e7ab4d8..4b7e069f 100644
--- a/codex-cli/src/components/chat/terminal-chat-response-item.tsx
+++ b/codex-cli/src/components/chat/terminal-chat-response-item.tsx
@@ -72,30 +72,13 @@ export function TerminalChatResponseReasoning({
 }: {
   message: ResponseReasoningItem & { duration_ms?: number };
 }): React.ReactElement | null {
-  // prefer the real duration if present
-  const thinkingTime = message.duration_ms
-    ? Math.round(message.duration_ms / 1000)
-    : Math.max(
-        1,
-        Math.ceil(
-          (message.summary || [])
-            .map((t) => t.text.length)
-            .reduce((a, b) => a + b, 0) / 300,
-        ),
-      );
-  if (thinkingTime <= 0) {
+  // Only render when there is a reasoning summary
+  if (!message.summary || message.summary.length === 0) {
     return null;
   }
-
   return (
     <Box gap={1} flexDirection="column">
-      <Box gap={1}>
-        <Text bold color="magenta">
-          thinking
-        </Text>
-        <Text dimColor>for {thinkingTime}s</Text>
-      </Box>
-      {message.summary?.map((summary, key) => {
+      {message.summary.map((summary, key) => {
         const s = summary as { headline?: string; text: string };
         return (
           <Box key={key} flexDirection="column">
diff --git a/codex-cli/src/components/chat/terminal-message-history.tsx b/codex-cli/src/components/chat/terminal-message-history.tsx
index 0e283591..07c3ac37 100644
--- a/codex-cli/src/components/chat/terminal-message-history.tsx
+++ b/codex-cli/src/components/chat/terminal-message-history.tsx
@@ -30,16 +30,14 @@ const MessageHistory: React.FC<MessageHistoryProps> = ({
   thinkingSeconds,
   fullStdout,
 }) => {
-  const [messages, debug] = useMemo(
-    () => [batch.map(({ item }) => item!), process.env["DEBUG"]],
-    [batch],
-  );
+  // Flatten batch entries to response items.
+  const messages = useMemo(() => batch.map(({ item }) => item!), [batch]);
 
   return (
     <Box flexDirection="column">
-      {loading && debug && (
+      {loading && (
         <Box marginTop={1}>
-          <Text color="yellow">{`(${thinkingSeconds}s)`}</Text>
+          <Text color="yellow">{`thinking for ${thinkingSeconds}s`}</Text>
         </Box>
       )}
       <Static items={["header", ...messages]}>
@@ -48,8 +46,13 @@ const MessageHistory: React.FC<MessageHistoryProps> = ({
             return <TerminalHeader key="header" {...headerProps} />;
           }
 
-          // After the guard above `item` can only be a ResponseItem.
+          // After the guard above, item is a ResponseItem
           const message = item as ResponseItem;
+          // Suppress empty reasoning updates (i.e. items with an empty summary).
+          const msg = message as unknown as { summary?: Array<unknown> };
+          if (msg.summary?.length === 0) {
+            return null;
+          }
           return (
             <Box
               key={`${message.id}-${index}`}