From dff0df5fdcd5cfa90c711f931f5087113c7fad3a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Mikael Hugo <mikkihugo@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:43:40 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] fix(headless): suppress notification spam, categorize
 messages, distinguish phase vs status
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Three small UX fixes for headless / autopilot logs:

1. Add `zz-notifications` to TUI_FOOTER_STATUS_KEYS — these are sticky
   notification dots from the interactive TUI footer; they have no
   meaning in headless and were spamming the log.

2. Categorize notification messages by prefix so headless output is
   scannable: [mcp] for MCP-client-ready, [search] for web search status,
   [parallel] for slice-parallel/subagent dispatch. Falls through to
   the existing important/non-important formatting for everything else.

3. Distinguish phase transitions from generic status updates: phase:/
   milestone:/slice:/task: prefixed keys get [phase]; everything else
   gets [status]. Previously both used [phase], which was misleading.

Patterns based on bunker commits 14ec4d97f / c15afb45f (which were the
research source) but written fresh against our existing
TUI_FOOTER_STATUS_KEYS structure rather than cherry-picked.

The assistant-text-preview commit (cf0274c63) is a separate, larger
refactor in headless.ts and is deferred to v3.1.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 src/headless-ui.ts | 41 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
 1 file changed, 39 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/headless-ui.ts b/src/headless-ui.ts
index 6404b2e0a..ca9e0d4e9 100644
--- a/src/headless-ui.ts
+++ b/src/headless-ui.ts
@@ -90,8 +90,39 @@ const TUI_FOOTER_STATUS_KEYS = new Set([
 	"ollama",
 	"sf-fast",
 	"sf-auto",
+	"zz-notifications",
 ]);
 
+/**
+ * Categorize notification messages so headless logs are scannable —
+ * `[mcp]` for MCP-client ready lines, `[search]` for search status,
+ * `[parallel]` for slice-parallel/subagent dispatch. Returns null to
+ * fall through to the default formatting.
+ */
+function formatCategorizedNotification(message: string): string | null {
+	if (message.startsWith("MCP client ready")) return `[mcp]     ${message}`;
+	if (message.startsWith("Web search:")) return `[search]  ${message}`;
+	if (message.startsWith("Native Anthropic web search")) return `[search]  ${message}`;
+	if (message.includes("dispatching") && message.includes("subagents"))
+		return `[parallel] ${message}`;
+	if (message.startsWith("Slice-parallel:")) return `[parallel] ${message}`;
+	if (message.startsWith("sf-reactive:")) return `[parallel] ${message}`;
+	return null;
+}
+
+/**
+ * True when statusKey indicates a real phase/milestone/slice/task transition
+ * (rather than a generic status update). Drives [phase] vs [status] tagging.
+ */
+function isPhaseStatusKey(statusKey: string): boolean {
+	return (
+		statusKey.startsWith("phase:") ||
+		statusKey.startsWith("milestone:") ||
+		statusKey.startsWith("slice:") ||
+		statusKey.startsWith("task:")
+	);
+}
+
 // ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 // Tool-Arg Summarizer
 // ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -351,6 +382,9 @@ export function formatProgress(
 			if (method === "notify") {
 				const msg = String(event.message ?? "");
 				if (!msg) return null;
+				// Categorise known prefixes so headless logs are scannable.
+				const categorised = formatCategorizedNotification(msg);
+				if (categorised) return categorised;
 				// Bold important notifications
 				const isImportant =
 					/^(committed:|verification gate:|milestone|blocked:)/i.test(msg);
@@ -368,10 +402,13 @@ export function formatProgress(
 				// Show meaningful phase transitions.
 				if (statusKey) {
 					const label = parsePhaseLabel(statusKey, msg);
-					if (label) return `${c.cyan}${tag("phase")}${label}${c.reset}`;
+					if (label) {
+						const labelTag = isPhaseStatusKey(statusKey) ? tag("phase") : tag("status");
+						return `${c.cyan}${labelTag}${label}${c.reset}`;
+					}
 				}
 				// Fallback: show message if non-empty.
-				if (msg) return `${c.cyan}${tag("phase")}${msg}${c.reset}`;
+				if (msg) return `${c.cyan}${tag("status")}${msg}${c.reset}`;
 				return null;
 			}