Bash tool summary line undercounts find paths and -o patterns

Resolved 💬 1 comment Opened May 18, 2026 by yuxi-liu-wired Closed Jun 16, 2026

Issue: Bash tool call summary line misleadingly undercounts find paths and -o patterns

Observed

The collapsed-summary line shown for a Bash tool call (the Searched for N patterns, listed M directories (ctrl+o to expand) text) does not accurately reflect what the shell command actually scanned or searched.

Example 1

Bash command (single tool call):

ls ~/Desktop/file1.pdf ~/Desktop/file2.pdf 2>&1 ; find ~/Desktop ~/Downloads ~/Documents -name "file1*" -o -name "file2*" 2>/dev/null | head -5

UI summary line: listed 1 directory (ctrl+o to expand)

Reality:

  • ls operated on 2 file paths in 1 directory (~/Desktop)
  • find scanned 3 separate root paths (~/Desktop, ~/Downloads, ~/Documents) with 2 name patterns joined by -o

The "1 directory" label captures the ls portion only and silently drops the find portion of the same Bash invocation.

Example 2

Bash command (single tool call):

find ~ -maxdepth 4 -name "file1*" -o -name "file2*" 2>/dev/null

UI summary line: Searched for 1 pattern, listed 1 directory (ctrl+o to expand)

Reality:

  • find received 1 root path (~) and 2 name patterns connected by -o
  • "1 pattern" undercounts because the -o-connected second -name is treated as part of the same logical pattern instead of as a separate pattern

Impact

When the user cannot expand the summary line (e.g., ctrl+o keybinding is overridden, the line is shown in a non-interactive transcript paste, or the user is reading the output in a context where the expansion is unavailable), the misleading summary becomes the only visible source of truth about what the assistant did. This produces real distrust between the user and the assistant when the user reads "1 directory" while the assistant's narration says "3 directories." Both descriptions are accurate fragments, but the UI summary's choice of which fragment to surface is incomplete and not labeled as such.

Expected behavior

Either:

  1. Summarize the full command (e.g., Listed 2 files in 1 directory; searched 3 directories for 2 patterns), or
  2. Label the summary explicitly as a partial/heuristic description (e.g., 1 directory listed (other shell ops in the call not summarized)), or
  3. Show the actual underlying command text in the collapsed view rather than a heuristic phrase.

Repro environment

  • Linux (Ubuntu 25.10, X11)

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