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Feature Request: TUI option for minimal/collapsed diff display #9089
Description
Problem
When editing large files (300-500+ lines), the diff output in the TUI becomes very long and requires extensive scrolling. This makes it hard to follow the conversation flow.
Current Behavior
✅ Edited file src/components/App.tsx
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ - old line 1 │
│ + new line 1 │
│ - old line 2 │
│ + new line 2 │
│ ... (500 more lines of diff) ... │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Expected Behavior
Minimal mode - clean, compact:
✅ Edited file src/components/App.tsx (+245, -123 lines)
Minimal + expandable - click to see full diff:
✅ Edited file src/components/App.tsx (+245, -123 lines) [expand]
Use Case
- Large refactors with many line changes
- Generated code (500+ lines)
- Config file updates
- Keeping conversation flow readable
Suggested Implementation
New TUI config option in opencode.json:
{
"tui": {
"diff_display": "minimal"
}
}| Mode | Behavior |
|---|---|
full |
Show complete diff (current default) |
minimal |
Show only filename + line counts, with option to expand |
When minimal:
- Default view: collapsed (filename + stats only)
- User can expand to see full diff if needed
Important Note
UI vs Context Separation:
The minimal feature should ideally:
- UI: Show minimal/collapsed for clean scrolling experience
- AI Context: Keep full diff in conversation history so AI maintains understanding
This prevents AI from "forgetting" what was edited while keeping the TUI clean for users.
User sees: ✅ Edited file App.tsx (+50, -30 lines) [expand]
AI sees: Full diff content in context for continuity
Reacted by 张丘洋, yofri, Max S, Louis Pré, Mateus and Chuigda Whitegive
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github-actions commentedon Jan 17, 2026
This issue might be a duplicate or related to existing issues. Please check:
Feel free to ignore if your use case is specifically different from these.
LIHUA919 commentedon Jan 17, 2026
Hi! I'd like to work on this feature. Before I start implementation, I have a couple of questions:
Compact Mode overlap: I noticed there's a planned Compact Mode feature (feat(tui): Compact Mode Phase 1 - Display Hierarchy Implementation #9017-9019) that includes a 4-level display hierarchy (FULL, COLLAPSED,
SHORTHAND, HIDDEN). Would this diff display feature conflict with or be superseded by Compact Mode? Or should they be implemented independently?
Design review requirement: Per CONTRIBUTING guidelines, core UI features may require design review. Does this feature need design approval before
implementation?
My proposed approach
If this is good to implement, my plan would be:
tui.diff_displayconfig option ("full" | "minimal")Please let me know if this aligns with the team's vision, or if I should wait for Compact Mode instead.
feat(tui): add minimal diff display mode
feat(tui): add minimal diff display mode
feat(tui): add minimal diff display mode
kolinekp commentedon Mar 11, 2026
I think there might be two separate issues worth distinguishing here:
In the second case, I suspect the culprit is the context lines surrounding each change. Standard unified diff includes several unchanged lines around every hunk, and if opencode renders those without collapsing, or uses a large context window – even a 2-line edit can look massive in the TUI.
It would be worth knowing whether these two cases share the same root cause or need separate solutions. Either way, the minimal/collapsed diff view proposed here would help with both.
maxsoldev commentedon Apr 8, 2026
I would double-down on this feature request. The issue is exacerbated when developing a new project from scratch or writing detailed .md docs. In such cases many hundreds of lines are displayed in terminal and one needs to scroll past them to get to previous messages. This is time consuming and frustrating when trying to navigate back and forth within a discussion
A better option would be to collapse the content of the tool calls and keep the header e.g. "Wrote hello-world/src/App.css" which can be toggled to see the full contents if needed. As mentioned above "Hide tool details" hides all tool execution info including headers making what happened during the execution very opaque.
A new setting providing a balance between those two extremes (show everything vs hide everything) by keeping headers and hiding full content behind toggle would be a very desirable improvement
github-actions commentedon Jul 6, 2026
To stay organized issues are automatically closed after 60 days of no activity. If the issue is still relevant please open a new one.
JonasDoe commentedon Jul 6, 2026
The more agent driven we act (OpenSpec, BMad etc.), the less we care about diffs and the more we care about the general chat log. I think it's a big miss.