Rho

Appearance

Transcript display ​

Parent: Interactive TUI.

The interactive TUI owns the transcript viewport while it is open. Scroll with the built-in controls, not the terminal's scrollback. When you exit, your previous shell view returns. If a session exists, Rho prints only a short saved-session summary.

Scroll and follow ​

ControlAction
pageup / pagedownScroll the transcript viewport
Mouse wheelScroll the transcript viewport
ctrl-end (default)Jump back to the live bottom
Left-click and dragSelect text; copy on release

The jump binding is keybindings.jump_to_bottom in config (default ctrl+end). It must differ from open_editor. Restart Rho after keybinding changes.

Live bottom vs manual scroll ​

  • Following the bottom: transcript content stops one row above the spinner so the activity rail stays clear.
  • Scrolled up: the full last visible row stays drawn wherever the spinner and jump control are not painted.
  • Away from the bottom: Rho overlays a right-aligned control such as ↓ jump to bottom ctrl+end on the last transcript row. Only that control's cells are covered.
  • While the spinner is up: it is similarly overlaid on the left, including when the parent turn is idle but background agents or jobs remain.

Press the jump binding or click the button to resume following live output.

Markdown and structure ​

Assistant Markdown renders in the feed as it streams.

FeatureBehavior
ATX headings # … ######Syntax markers are dropped. Each level has its own color. H1–H3 use stronger emphasis
Code fencesBordered blocks with a top-right COPY control that highlights on hover
Mermaid fencesTerminal diagram art when supported; see Mermaid diagrams
Display and inline mathTXM Unicode art for closed $$...$$ and single-row $...$; see Math rendering
Tables and ordinary MarkdownWrapped to the pane width

Heading-like text inside code fences, or invalid heading lines, stays literal.

Copy ​

  • /copy opens a tree-style picker of assistant outputs in the current conversation, grouped by user prompt. The latest output is selected initially. Use ↑/↓ or type to filter, preview the full text, then press Enter to copy. Esc closes without changing the clipboard or the conversation. The picker also works with --no-save and during a response, using the text available when it opened. Rho briefly shows how many characters were copied.
  • Drag-select transcript text to copy it to the terminal clipboard. Rho briefly shows how many characters were copied.
  • Code block, Mermaid, and math panel COPY actions sit in the top-right border and highlight on hover. For Mermaid and math, COPY always copies the source, not the rendered art.
  • Click without drag does not copy. The code-block copy control is excluded from drag selection so a click on COPY does not grab neighboring text.

Stream idle timeout ​

Provider streams that deliver no meaningful payload for two minutes are treated as stale. Keep-alives such as SSE pings do not reset that timer. Rho can then surface a stream-idle error and leave the stuck working state instead of waiting forever.

Connection setup uses its own connect timeout. Non-streaming HTTP requests are not bound by the two-minute stream idle rule.

Display modes ​

show_reasoning_output controls whether reasoning text appears. It defaults to on. Rho keeps received reasoning text when it is hidden. Changing the setting from /config shows or hides reasoning through the current transcript, including earlier turns and the live response.

When reasoning is hidden, the TUI shows Thinking... until that phase finishes, then a Thought for … summary. When reasoning is shown, the same summary follows the reasoning block. Durations use a compact format such as 3.2s, 2m 5s, or 1h 2m.

If a response interleaves answer text and reasoning, Rho keeps those segments in arrival order. Hidden reasoning leaves its Thought for … receipt between answer segments. Zen mode hides that receipt too. Toggling either setting does not merge or reorder stored segments.

zen_mode, under /config → Appearance, hides tool cards, reasoning blocks, and the Thinking... placeholder so the transcript shows message text. The activity rail stays visible. Tools and reasoning still run. The status row displays zen. The setting applies immediately, including during the current turn.

Image thumbnails from read_file paint in supporting terminals. Details: Documents and images.

Exit ​

Leaving the TUI restores the prior shell view. Session data stays on disk under the sessions layout. Export a transcript with /export or rho sessions export.