mohio

AI Assistance Panel

This document covers the current Codex integration in the right sidebar of desktop/.

Scope

• assistant IPC surface
• main-process Codex app-server client
• renderer chat history, transcript, and composer UI
• document-aware prompting on top of Codex-owned threads

Current State

• The right sidebar is a live assistant panel instead of layout scaffolding.
• Mohio uses the installed codex CLI through codex app-server.
• Each chat runs from the active workspace root.
• Codex is limited to read-only workspace access in this integration.
• Mohio reuses Codex’s existing auth, config, and on-disk session history.
• Mohio does not keep a separate chat-history database or document-thread store.
• Mohio does not let the assistant apply edits, patches, or document proposals yet.

API Surface

The renderer uses window.mohio for assistant behavior:

• listAssistantThreads()
• createAssistantThread()
• getAssistantThread(threadId)
• sendAssistantMessage(input)
• cancelAssistantRun(threadId)
• onAssistantEvent(listener)

Assistant input payload:

• threadId
• documentRelativePath
• content
• documentTitle
• documentMarkdown

Assistant thread shape:

• Codex thread identity
• workspace path
• title and preview for history rows
• ordered user and assistant messages
• run status: idle, running, or error
• optional panel-local error message

Runtime Behavior

• The main process starts a long-lived codex app-server child process and talks to it over JSON-RPC.
• Mohio creates and resumes Codex threads with:
  • cwd set to the active workspace root
  • approvalPolicy: never
  • sandbox: read-only
  • Mohio-specific developer instructions
  • persistent Codex thread history enabled
• Mohio lists Codex threads with the current workspace path as the cwd filter.
• Mohio loads full transcript history from Codex through thread/read.
• Mohio passes the current document title, document body, document path, workspace name, workspace path, and the user’s request into each turn prompt.
• Codex may inspect any file in the active workspace during the run.
• Mohio streams assistant text into the sidebar from Codex app-server notifications.
• Failed runs stay local to the assistant panel and do not affect editor state.

Renderer Behavior

• The sidebar starts in a session-list view for the current workspace.
• The list view shows a simple workspace-filtered title list of Codex chats and no dedicated New Chat button.
• Thread titles in the list view are single-line and truncate with ellipsis on overflow.
• Opening a chat switches the sidebar into a dedicated thread view.
• A newly created chat stays in the dedicated thread view even before Codex includes it in the workspace history list.
• The thread view header includes:
  • a back action to return to the session list
  • the current Codex thread title
  • a menu with New Chat, Rename Chat, and Delete Chat
• The thread-view back control and the ... menu trigger use simple unframed icon buttons.
• Assistant panel icons use lucide-react from Lucide, matching the rest of the desktop shell, and Mohio does not use custom hand-authored SVG icon shapes.
• Mohio does not show a separate empty helper paragraph inside a brand new chat before the first message.
• Users can switch between existing Codex chats without changing the selected document.
• The transcript renders only in the active thread view.
• The assistant footer stays pinned at the bottom of the right sidebar in both list and thread views, below the chat list when browsing sessions.
• Quick-action pills render directly above the composer input in the sticky footer area.
• User prompts remain compact, while assistant answers render as full-width left-aligned responses instead of chat bubbles.
• Mohio keeps streamed assistant text visible once it appears and never replaces it with a placeholder.
• While a Codex run is active and no new assistant text has arrived yet, Mohio shows a muted animated Thinking... line as the last row in the transcript.
• Mohio hides that Thinking... line while fresh assistant text is actively streaming, and shows it again only if the run is still active but the stream goes quiet.
• Quick-action pills render above the composer:
  • Summarise document
  • Improve document
• The composer is a full-width textarea that auto-grows with typed content, up to five visible lines.
• The send control is an icon-only button inside the right side of the composer.
• For single-line composer height, the send icon is vertically centered.
• Once the composer grows to multiple lines, the send icon stays anchored to the bottom-right.
• Pressing Enter sends the prompt; Shift+Enter inserts a newline.
• The composer is disabled when no workspace is open, no document is selected, or the active Codex thread is already running.
• Sending from the list view footer always starts a fresh chat automatically before dispatching the prompt.
• If no Codex thread is active in thread view, sending a message starts a new one first.
• If the user opens an existing Codex chat from history, Mohio resumes that thread with Codex before starting the next turn.
• If Codex rejects turn startup on a freshly created thread because no rollout exists yet, Mohio resumes the thread and retries turn startup with bounded backoff before surfacing an error.
• The composer does not render a Cancel button.
• Delete Chat maps to Codex thread archive behavior and removes the thread from Mohio’s visible workspace list.

Current Limitations

• Only Codex is wired today; Claude Code is not yet integrated.
• Mohio does not offer chat search, archive, or fork UI yet.
• There is no review/apply workflow for assistant-generated document changes.
• There is no assistant tool UI for document creation, publish, or history actions yet.

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