Summary

Control UI: Collapse tool activity blocks by default, suppress partial answer fragments

Problem to solve

Tool execution activity blocks ("Activity: Processing tool exec...") are displayed expanded by default between assistant message fragments in the Dashboard chat. This clutters the conversation view and makes responses hard to read.

Three specific problems:

1. Each tool call shows a full expanded "Activity" block with processing details — should be collapsed by default
2. Partial/incomplete assistant text fragments are rendered between activity blocks (e.g. "Die MEMORY.md ist jetzt aktuell...") — visually confusing and wastes context tokens
3. "completed with error" activity blocks stay visible even when the tool call ultimately succeeds on retry

Proposed solution

1. Collapse activity blocks by default — show a compact summary line (e.g. "▸ 2 tool calls") that expands on click
2. Add config option: gateway.controlUi.activityDefault: "collapsed" (values: "collapsed" | "expanded")
3. Suppress partial assistant text between activity blocks — either buffer streaming output until tool calls complete, or visually separate "in-progress" from "final" text
4. Auto-collapse error blocks after successful retry

Alternatives considered

• verboseDefault: "off" — does not affect activity blocks, only tool summaries in assistant text
• No current config option exists to control activity block display behavior
• Manual closing of each block works but is tedious during active conversations

Impact

Affected users/systems: All Dashboard (Control UI) users — this is the default chat interface
Severity: Annoying — does not block functionality but significantly degrades readability
Frequency: Always — occurs on every message that involves tool calls
Consequence: Users must manually collapse activity blocks on every turn, partial answer fragments cause confusion, and wasted context tokens increase API costs

Evidence/examples

[Screenshot: Dashboard showing expanded "Activity: Processing tool exec..." blocks with partial answer fragments between them]

Environment: OpenClaw 2026.6.10-beta.2, Dashboard (Control UI), browser, agent model xiaomi/mimo-v2.5-pro

Additional information

This is a quality-of-life improvement for Dashboard-heavy users. Telegram and other channels already show only the final answer without activity blocks. The Dashboard should offer the same clean experience, with activity details available on demand via click-to-expand.