bug: Chat view flickers repeatedly while Pi agent is running

[marcinkardas]

Operating system(s)

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux

What happened?

Hi,

When the agent is actively working, the chat view appears to refresh roughly every second.

Observed behavior:

• parts of the chat repeatedly collapse / toggle
• text disappears and reappears
• the whole conversation becomes difficult to read while the agent is running
• the behavior is visible in the attached screen recording

Expected behavior:
The chat should remain stable while the agent is running. New output can stream in, but existing visible content should not repeatedly collapse, disappear, or re-render in a disruptive way.

Installed packages:

[
  "https://github.com/BlackBeltTechnology/pi-anthropic-messages.git",
  "npm:pi-blackhole",
  "npm:@plannotator/pi-extension",
  "npm:@ff-labs/pi-fff",
  "npm:@juicesharp/rpiv-todo",
  "npm:@juicesharp/rpiv-ask-user-question",
  "npm:pi-btw",
  "npm:@gotgenes/pi-permission-system",
  "npm:pi-subagents-lite",
  "npm:pi-hermes-memory",
  "git:github.com/jonjonrankin/pi-caveman"
]

Video:
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0f1f37d2-a6cd-4df9-ba7b-355f0a41065c

Steps to reproduce

1. Open Howcode with a Pi project/workspace.
2. Start or resume a coding thread.
3. Send a prompt that makes the agent run for a while.
4. Keep the chat/thread view open during execution.
5. Watch the rendered messages while the agent is working.

Actual result

The chat view seems to refresh repeatedly during execution. Message content collapses/toggles or disappears and reappears, as shown in the attached video.

Expected result

The chat should remain stable while new agent output is streamed or refreshed.

Agent implementation prompt

Environment:

• Howcode version: dev build (0.1.66)
• Pi version: 0.79.1
• OS: macOS 15.6

App version or commit

0.1.66-dev

[IgorWarzocha]

@marcinkardas yup I've noticed it happening with some extensions since I added them, I shall see what's what tomorrow. I'm assuming it has something to do with how often extensions refresh the UI and possibly remount too much. Cheers for the report!

[marcinkardas]

@IgorWarzocha I see that the problem has gone away after uninstalling: https://github.com/jonjonrankin/pi-caveman.

Changing the "Show animated status bar" setting to "off" fixes the problem, so it's probably a package issue. Do you have this package installed?