From 0a686116246082f796bf96637739666cce80b57c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Sawyer Cutler <sawyer@dirtroad.dev>
Date: Sat, 8 Aug 2026 14:28:42 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] Keep the landing intact when a plugin warns at startup
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A startup plugin warning went out through appendStreamRow, whose first
statement is clearLandingMark — so one warning took the whole landing
hero with it: the mark, the hints beside it, the composition. A first run
in any repo with an unresolved skill showed no landing at all.

CL-5618 routed MCP and hook failures through surfaceStartupNotice for
this exact reason. Plugin diagnostics were the path it missed.

Also drops the internal gutter labels these rows carried. "command" is
plumbing, not a word an operator would use for what they are reading.

And dedupes the summary: one skill referenced by three plugins produced
three warnings, so seven missing skills printed as nine entries and the
count disagreed with the list.
---
 src/plugins/diagnostics.ts     | 14 +++++++++++---
 src/tui-opentui/runner-host.ts |  2 +-
 src/tui/runner.ts              | 12 ++++++++----
 3 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/plugins/diagnostics.ts b/src/plugins/diagnostics.ts
index a66e6fc6a..80030decd 100644
--- a/src/plugins/diagnostics.ts
+++ b/src/plugins/diagnostics.ts
@@ -49,20 +49,28 @@ export function formatPluginWarningsSummary(
 ): string | undefined {
   if (warnings.length === 0) return undefined;
 
+  // Deduped: one skill referenced by three plugins produces three warnings,
+  // and listing it three times makes the printed count disagree with the list.
+  const seenSkills = new Set<string>();
   const skillMisses: string[] = [];
+  let skillWarningCount = 0;
   for (const w of warnings) {
     const m = /skill "([^"]+)" referenced but not found/.exec(w);
-    if (m?.[1] !== undefined) skillMisses.push(m[1]);
+    if (m?.[1] === undefined) continue;
+    skillWarningCount += 1;
+    if (seenSkills.has(m[1])) continue;
+    seenSkills.add(m[1]);
+    skillMisses.push(m[1]);
   }
 
-  if (skillMisses.length > 0 && skillMisses.length === warnings.length) {
+  if (skillMisses.length > 0 && skillWarningCount === warnings.length) {
     const n = skillMisses.length;
     return `plugins: ${n} skill${n === 1 ? "" : "s"} missing: ${skillMisses.join(", ")}`;
   }
 
   if (skillMisses.length > 0) {
     const n = skillMisses.length;
-    const other = warnings.length - n;
+    const other = warnings.length - skillWarningCount;
     return `plugins: ${n} skill${n === 1 ? "" : "s"} missing (${skillMisses.join(", ")}); ${other} other warning${other === 1 ? "" : "s"}`;
   }
 
diff --git a/src/tui-opentui/runner-host.ts b/src/tui-opentui/runner-host.ts
index b98abd8d8..dff2cc83a 100644
--- a/src/tui-opentui/runner-host.ts
+++ b/src/tui-opentui/runner-host.ts
@@ -327,7 +327,7 @@ export async function mountRunnerHost(deps: RunnerHostDeps): Promise<RunnerHost>
     ...(deps.surfaces ?? {}),
     ...(host.openModels !== undefined ? { openModels: host.openModels } : {}),
     notify: (text) =>
-      appendStreamRow(host.shell, { role: "system", text, meta: "command" }),
+      appendStreamRow(host.shell, { role: "system", text }),
   }
 
   const refreshModels = (
diff --git a/src/tui/runner.ts b/src/tui/runner.ts
index 1a4d4ec6c..a88f418f8 100644
--- a/src/tui/runner.ts
+++ b/src/tui/runner.ts
@@ -150,6 +150,7 @@ import {
   setPromptRecognitionSource,
   setSentMessageHistory,
   setShellRunState,
+  surfaceStartupNotice,
 } from "../tui-opentui/shell.js";
 import {
   classifyAgentSendFailure,
@@ -1841,7 +1842,7 @@ export async function runTUI(initialConfig: Config): Promise<number> {
   };
 
   const systemRow = (text: string): void => {
-    appendStreamRow(host.shell, { role: "system", text, meta: "command" });
+    appendStreamRow(host.shell, { role: "system", text });
   };
 
   /** Settle the shell after a rejected send so the run does not look live. */
@@ -2370,9 +2371,12 @@ export async function runTUI(initialConfig: Config): Promise<number> {
       });
     });
 
-  // Surface fire-and-forget startup plugin diagnostics now that the shell has
-  // a transcript to write into (queued above, before `host` existed).
-  for (const notice of startupPluginNotices) systemRow(notice);
+  // Startup diagnostics ride the notice strip, not the transcript: an
+  // `appendStreamRow` here calls `clearLandingMark` and takes the whole landing
+  // hero with it — mark, the hints beside it, the composition — so a single
+  // plugin warning left a first run with no landing at all. Same reason
+  // CL-5618 routed MCP and hook failures here; this is the path it missed.
+  for (const notice of startupPluginNotices) surfaceStartupNotice(host.shell, notice);
 
   await host.waitUntilExit();
   // Quitting mid-stream is an abnormal end for the in-flight cycle: nothing