fix: Windows prompt cursor positioning issue with ANSI escape sequences by thebristolsound · Pull Request #4464 · block/goose

thebristolsound · 2025-09-01T02:25:14Z

Fix Windows prompt cursor positioning issue with ANSI escape sequences

Overview

This PR addresses a Windows-specific bug where ANSI escape sequences in the Goose CLI prompt cause incorrect cursor positioning and visual artifacts. This is a follow-up to the draft PR #3989 originally started by another contributor, with a refined implementation focused on simplicity and reliability.

Problem Description

On Windows, the Goose CLI prompt uses ANSI escape sequences for styling (cyan and bold colors):

let prompt = format!("{} ", console::style("( O)>").cyan().bold());

However, rustyline on Windows has a known issue with ANSI escape sequence width calculation that causes:

Cursor positioning to be offset from the actual text
Visual artifacts when editing commands
A poor user experience with input handling

Root Cause

This is a known issue in the rustyline library where ANSI escape sequences are not properly accounted for in width calculations on Windows terminals. The issue affects how rustyline positions the cursor relative to the displayed text.

Related Issues:

Upstream rustyline issue: Colored prompts behave incorrectly on Windows kkawakam/rustyline#562
Fix pending in rustyline: On windows, check that prompt is not styled kkawakam/rustyline#890

Solution

This PR implements a Windows-specific workaround with a simple, direct approach:

Platform-Specific Prompt Generation: The get_input_prompt_string() function uses a compile-time cfg! check to determine the operating system:

Windows: Returns plain text prompt "( O)> " without ANSI escape sequences
Other platforms: Returns styled prompt with ANSI colors (preserving existing behavior)

Code Changes

Simple Implementation: Uses cfg!(target_os = "windows") directly in the prompt generation function to conditionally return styled or plain text
Comprehensive Comments: Added detailed explanation of the Windows-specific workaround and references to upstream issues
Platform-Specific Testing: Updated unit tests to use conditional compilation (#[cfg]) to test only the behavior that runs on each platform, avoiding CI/CD environment issues

Testing

The test_get_input_prompt_string test uses conditional compilation to validate platform-specific behavior:

On Windows builds: Tests that the prompt is plain text without ANSI codes
On non-Windows builds: Tests that the prompt contains ANSI styling
Both: Verify basic structure and formatting

This approach ensures tests are reliable across different environments and CI/CD systems.

Future Considerations

This workaround should be removed once the repository updates to a version of rustyline that includes the fix from kkawakam/rustyline#890 and the fix has been verified to resolve the cursor positioning issues on Windows.

Credit

This work builds upon the draft PR #3989 originally created by another contributor. The implementation has been simplified for reliability and maintainability. #3989

Before screenshot:

After (fixed):

Screenshots taken in Windows 11 Terminal Preview, PowerShell 7

thebristolsound · 2025-09-09T00:43:26Z

Bump

michaelneale

looks good to me, can't test on windows myself but downside risk is low. And I learned that you can use "not" in platform macros, very cool! thanks @thebristolsound

thebristolsound · 2025-09-10T00:48:01Z

Thanks! Taking a look at these test failures, they were passing locally but something looks a bit off.

Copilot

Pull Request Overview

This PR fixes a Windows-specific bug where ANSI escape sequences in the Goose CLI prompt cause incorrect cursor positioning and visual artifacts in terminals. The solution implements platform-specific prompt generation to use plain text on Windows while preserving styled prompts on other platforms.

Extracted prompt generation into a reusable get_input_prompt_string() function with conditional compilation
Added Windows-specific workaround to use plain text prompts without ANSI escape sequences
Included comprehensive unit tests to verify platform-specific behavior and prompt consistency

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crates/goose-cli/src/session/input.rs

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Copilot reviewed 1 out of 1 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

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crates/goose-cli/src/session/input.rs

michaelneale · 2025-09-11T08:08:55Z

thanks @thebristolsound you will need to also follow instructions for the DCO Check: https://github.com/block/goose/pull/4464/checks?check_run_id=50117009096

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Copilot reviewed 1 out of 1 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

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crates/goose-cli/src/session/input.rs

Signed-off-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]> Update crates/goose-cli/src/session/input.rs Co-authored-by: Copilot <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]> Update input.rs Signed-off-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]>

Co-authored-by: Copilot <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]> Remove useless unit test Signed-off-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]>

…(terminal vs plaintext) Signed-off-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]>

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Copilot reviewed 1 out of 1 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

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crates/goose-cli/src/session/input.rs

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Copilot reviewed 1 out of 1 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

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Signed-off-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]>

thebristolsound · 2025-09-13T23:17:04Z

Okay, sorry for the notification spam on this one, but I think we're all green in the pipeline now. I've re-requested review as I made some minor adjustments to the unit tests in this PR. Let me know if anything else comes up or you want additional changes. cc @michaelneale

thebristolsound · 2025-09-26T20:41:39Z

bump. Any chance we can get this merged in?

DOsinga · 2025-09-30T12:58:08Z

yes!

…-unification * 'main' of github.com:block/goose: (24 commits) feat(cli): add `path` & `limit` to `session list` command (#4878) Allow better concurrent access (#4896) fix: Windows prompt cursor positioning issue with ANSI escape sequences (#4464) Fix: LiteLLM API key field not showing in UI configuration (#4105) fix: path is duplicated on tool calls causing them to fail (#4658) (#4859) add new prompt to get all available tutorials (#4802) Add filtering for agentVisible: false messages on streaming providers (#4847) alexhancock/mcp-crate-cleanup (#4885) docs: rename sub-recipe to subrecipe (#4886) docs: new multi-model section with autopilot topic (#4864) make agent manager singleton (#4880) Cli web auth token (#4456) fix(token_counter): fix panic with GitHub Copilot (#4632) Revert "Internal MCP Crate Cleanup (#4800)" (#4883) remove 2 redundant comments and one that lies (#4866) Internal MCP Crate Cleanup (#4800) Fix #4612: Return non-zero exit code when CLI session ends with error (#4621) Dead code cleanup (#4873) fix: restoring test data and correcting name (#4875) Add .goosehints file to enforce lowercase branding in documentation (#4870) ...

* main: (206 commits) Tiny: fix github casing (block#4903) remove anyOf from create_task tool (block#4897) chore(deps): bump tracing-subscriber from 0.3.19 to 0.3.20 (block#4442) fix optional recipe schema zod validation (block#4900) Added CMD+T keyboard shortcut that takes you to the Home tab (block#4541) feat(cli): add `path` & `limit` to `session list` command (block#4878) Allow better concurrent access (block#4896) fix: Windows prompt cursor positioning issue with ANSI escape sequences (block#4464) Fix: LiteLLM API key field not showing in UI configuration (block#4105) fix: path is duplicated on tool calls causing them to fail (block#4658) (block#4859) add new prompt to get all available tutorials (block#4802) Add filtering for agentVisible: false messages on streaming providers (block#4847) alexhancock/mcp-crate-cleanup (block#4885) docs: rename sub-recipe to subrecipe (block#4886) docs: new multi-model section with autopilot topic (block#4864) make agent manager singleton (block#4880) Cli web auth token (block#4456) fix(token_counter): fix panic with GitHub Copilot (block#4632) Revert "Internal MCP Crate Cleanup (block#4800)" (block#4883) remove 2 redundant comments and one that lies (block#4866) ...

…es (block#4464) Signed-off-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: HikaruEgashira <[email protected]>

thebristolsound force-pushed the bugfix/fix-windows-cursor-shift branch from 084d9bc to 2e6ee5e Compare September 1, 2025 02:28

thebristolsound changed the title ~~fix: Fix Windows prompt cursor positioning issue with ANSI escape sequences~~ fix: Windows prompt cursor positioning issue with ANSI escape sequences Sep 1, 2025

zanesq requested review from Kvadratni and michaelneale September 9, 2025 16:12

michaelneale approved these changes Sep 10, 2025

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thebristolsound force-pushed the bugfix/fix-windows-cursor-shift branch 2 times, most recently from cdf5e7c to 4b47fd8 Compare September 11, 2025 03:58

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thebristolsound force-pushed the bugfix/fix-windows-cursor-shift branch from 4b47fd8 to e18f9cd Compare September 11, 2025 04:01

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thebristolsound force-pushed the bugfix/fix-windows-cursor-shift branch from e679c9c to c53456a Compare September 11, 2025 04:08

blackgirlbytes approved these changes Sep 11, 2025

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thebristolsound force-pushed the bugfix/fix-windows-cursor-shift branch 4 times, most recently from a695b3f to 3a10238 Compare September 13, 2025 20:55

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thebristolsound force-pushed the bugfix/fix-windows-cursor-shift branch from 8a1ac80 to d3ccb4a Compare September 13, 2025 20:59

thebristolsound requested review from blackgirlbytes and michaelneale September 13, 2025 21:02

thebristolsound force-pushed the bugfix/fix-windows-cursor-shift branch 3 times, most recently from f390049 to 0465c08 Compare September 13, 2025 22:39

Matt Donovan and others added 3 commits September 13, 2025 15:39

Update crates/goose-cli/src/session/input.rs

390c833

Co-authored-by: Copilot <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]> Remove useless unit test Signed-off-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]>

Fix failures in CI/CD pipeline since console is aware of environment …

f3c48f5

…(terminal vs plaintext) Signed-off-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]>

thebristolsound force-pushed the bugfix/fix-windows-cursor-shift branch 2 times, most recently from c7e4381 to ff2bf74 Compare September 13, 2025 22:48

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thebristolsound force-pushed the bugfix/fix-windows-cursor-shift branch from ff2bf74 to 68f0c6b Compare September 13, 2025 22:55

thebristolsound requested a review from Copilot September 13, 2025 22:56

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Adjust assertions to account for CI pipeline

adfee2d

Signed-off-by: Matt Donovan <[email protected]>

thebristolsound force-pushed the bugfix/fix-windows-cursor-shift branch from 68f0c6b to adfee2d Compare September 13, 2025 23:02

thebristolsound mentioned this pull request Sep 17, 2025

fix: Remove bold styling from prompt on Windows to prevent cursor shift #3989

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3 tasks

DOsinga merged commit af40917 into block:main Sep 30, 2025
10 checks passed

thebristolsound mentioned this pull request Sep 30, 2025

Cursor shifted to the right using native windows CLI #3364

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This was referenced Oct 8, 2025

chore(release): release version 1.10.0 #5060

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release/1.10.0 #5101

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nabeelshirazi mentioned this pull request Feb 24, 2026

bug: Cursor position offset in CLI input prompt on Linux (same class as #3364) #7463

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thebristolsound commented Sep 1, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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Fix Windows prompt cursor positioning issue with ANSI escape sequences

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thebristolsound commented Sep 1, 2025 •

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