feature: Add "!cmd" user shell execution
This change lets users run local shell commands directly from the TUI by
prefixing their input with ! (e.g. !ls). Output is truncated to keep the
exec cell usable, and Ctrl-C cleanly
interrupts long-running commands (e.g. !sleep 10000).
**Summary of changes**
- Route Op::RunUserShellCommand through a dedicated UserShellCommandTask
(core/src/tasks/user_shell.rs), keeping the task logic out of codex.rs.
- Reuse the existing tool router: the task constructs a ToolCall for the
local_shell tool and relies on ShellHandler, so no manual MCP tool
lookup is required.
- Emit exec lifecycle events (ExecCommandBegin/ExecCommandEnd) so the
TUI can show command metadata, live output, and exit status.
**End-to-end flow**
**TUI handling**
1. ChatWidget::submit_user_message (TUI) intercepts messages starting
with !.
2. Non-empty commands dispatch Op::RunUserShellCommand { command };
empty commands surface a help hint.
3. No UserInput items are created, so nothing is enqueued for the model.
**Core submission loop**
4. The submission loop routes the op to handlers::run_user_shell_command
(core/src/codex.rs).
5. A fresh TurnContext is created and Session::spawn_user_shell_command
enqueues UserShellCommandTask.
**Task execution**
6. UserShellCommandTask::run emits TaskStartedEvent, formats the
command, and prepares a ToolCall targeting local_shell.
7. ToolCallRuntime::handle_tool_call dispatches to ShellHandler.
**Shell tool runtime**
8. ShellHandler::run_exec_like launches the process via the unified exec
runtime, honoring sandbox and shell policies, and emits
ExecCommandBegin/End.
9. Stdout/stderr are captured for the UI, but the task does not turn the
resulting ToolOutput into a model response.
**Completion**
10. After ExecCommandEnd, the task finishes without an assistant
message; the session marks it complete and the exec cell displays the
final output.
**Conversation context**
- The command and its output never enter the conversation history or the
model prompt; the flow is local-only.
- Only exec/task events are emitted for UI rendering.
**Demo video**
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/fcd114b0-4304-4448-a367-a04c43e0b996
This shows the aggregated (stdout + stderr) buffer regardless of exit
code.
Many commands output useful / relevant info on stdout when returning a
non-zero exit code, or the same on stderr when returning an exit code of
0. Often, useful info is present on both stdout AND stderr. Also, the
model sees both. So it is confusing to see commands listed as "(no
output)" that in fact do have output, just on the stream that doesn't
match the exit status, or to see some sort of trivial output like "Tests
failed" but lacking any information about the actual failure.
As such, always display the aggregated output in the display. Transcript
mode remains unchanged as it was already displaying the text that the
model sees, which seems correct for transcript mode.
- Refactor Exec Cell into its own module
- update exec command rendering to inline the first command line
- limit continuation lines
- always show trimmed output
No (intended) functional change.
This refactors the transcript view to hold a list of HistoryCells
instead of a list of Lines. This simplifies and makes much of the logic
more robust, as well as laying the groundwork for future changes, e.g.
live-updating history cells in the transcript.
Similar to #2879 in goal. Fixes#2755.
i'm not yet convinced i have the best heuristics for what to highlight,
but this feels like a useful step towards something a bit easier to
read, esp. when the model is producing large commands.
<img width="669" height="589" alt="Screenshot 2025-09-03 at 8 21 56 PM"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/b9cbcc43-80e8-4d41-93c8-daa74b84b331"
/>
also a fairly significant refactor of our line wrapping logic.
when the pager is scrolled to the bottom of the buffer, keep it there.
this should make transcript mode feel a bit more "alive". i've also seen
some confusion about what transcript mode does/doesn't show that i think
has been related to it not pinning scroll.
This fixes a bug where if you ran /diff while at turn was running,
transcript lines would be added to the end of the diff view. Also,
refactor to make this kind of issue less likely in future.
