[sak0a]

What and why

The Linux QA pass (bug 3) found that Commit staged (#769) could not commit at all when commit-message generation failed, and showed the raw generation output:

• With the default text-generation model's provider not signed in (Codex), the panel printed Codex's whole stderr in red: model and sandbox lines, the full commit-message prompt, the staged patch, and a dozen 401 retries.
• With a provider whose output isn't JSON: "Cursor Agent returned invalid structured output", and no way forward.
• The server already accepted a commitMessage for a staged-only commit, but the button never sent one.

Now:

• A message field in the Staged view. Blank still asks the node to generate one; a typed message is sent as commitMessage with the same stagedOnly guard. It clears after a successful commit.
• A failed generation keeps the review. Generation runs before anything is written, so the controller (client-runtime localChanges) recognises a TextGenerationError as "changed nothing": it keeps the reviewed index and shows "No commit: the commit message could not be generated (…). Type a message and commit again." Other failures (index moved, uncertain delivery) still clear the review as before.
• The prompt and patch never reach the UI. cliFailureDetail (server, TextGenerationUtils.ts) builds the detail of a failed Codex or Claude CLI run: it drops every output line that is also a line of the prompt, strips ANSI and log timestamps, keeps the last two error lines and bounds the result at 400 characters. This applies to every surface that shows a text-generation failure (the git action toasts too), not just this button. The other providers' failures never echoed raw output.

For the QA case the panel now reads: "No commit: the commit message could not be generated (Codex CLI command failed: ERROR: Reconnecting... 5/5 ERROR: unexpected status 401 Unauthorized: Missing bearer or basic authentication in header, …). Type a message and commit again."

Overlaps

• Batch 4's Write commit messages and pull request text without tools #832 (tool-free text generation) and Write commits and pull requests in repository style or Conventional Commits #844 (writing style) edit CodexTextGeneration.ts and ClaudeTextGeneration.ts. This PR only replaces the non-zero-exit block in each, and the sanitizer works from whatever prompt those PRs build. git merge-tree against both PR heads, and against Find in the diff panel with ⌘F, match whole words or patterns, and open folded files on a match #846 (DiffPanel.tsx), merges cleanly.

Validation

• New: TextGenerationUtils.test.ts (prompt lines dropped, error lines kept, fallbacks, bound), a controller test (review kept, then a typed commit), and a DiffPanel.staging browser test (alert, no commitMessage on the first try, typed message sent, field cleared).
• bun run check, bun run check:changed (typecheck, related tests, read-from-disk tests incl. serverBundleBoundaries): pass.
• Web bundle budget: boot 516.3 / 520 KiB, RootAppShell 411.8 / 420 KiB (111 files), chat route 756.8 / 760 KiB (155 files). Unchanged.

Verified on the Linux QA box

Integration build, real ryco serve, text generation set to the fake Cursor (returns non-JSON): Commit staged showed "No commit: the commit message could not be generated (Cursor Agent returned invalid structured output). Type a message and commit again." with the staged review still there. Typing "Tweak the greeting" and committing created b50ee4b Tweak the greeting with exactly the staged hunk of src/app.ts; the unstaged edits to README.md and src/app.ts stayed in the working tree. A follow-up commit drops the doubled period the box run showed ("output.).").

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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[sak0a]

Merge train 3 reviewed this PR before merging. The squash includes these fixes from the review:

• Show the error message of a failed Claude text-generation run instead of its JSON envelope. Claude runs with --output-format json, so a failed run with empty stderr reported its whole JSON result envelope, cut to 400 characters, with the message buried inside. A failed run now reads the envelope's error result first (e.g. "Not logged in · Please run /login") and passes it through the same bounded failure detail; any other output falls back to the detail as before.