Best possible solution:

Land a reviewed version of this copy-only TUI change after draft/mergeability is resolved and the focused TUI event-handler test passes.

Do we have a high-confidence way to reproduce the issue?

Not applicable: this is a cleanup PR for user-facing copy, not a bug report. Source inspection confirms current main still emits the old internal watchdog notice on the timeout path.

Is this the best way to solve the issue?

Yes for the stated goal: replacing the string at the existing watchdog system-notice point while preserving timeout and reconnect behavior is the narrowest maintainable solution. Maintainers should still approve the final wording before landing.

What I checked:

• Current main behavior: The watchdog timeout path still resets the active run to idle and adds a system notice containing "streaming watchdog", "backend", and "resync" on current main. (src/tui/tui-event-handlers.ts:132, e2f4aa461700)
• Focused test surface: The existing TUI event-handler tests cover the watchdog timeout, reconnect silent reload path, normal finalization, disabled-watchdog behavior, and stale active-run behavior; the PR updates only the asserted notice text for those paths. (src/tui/tui-event-handlers.test.ts:955, e2f4aa461700)
• User-facing surface: The TUI docs describe the chat log as containing system notices, which confirms this watchdog text is user-visible TUI copy rather than a hidden diagnostic-only string. Public docs: docs/web/tui.md. (docs/web/tui.md:55, e2f4aa461700)
• PR state: The provided GitHub context marks this PR as draft, labeled maintainer, and not merged; protected-label cleanup should not close it even when the patch is small. (6d63b89ce38d)
• Feature history: Local history shows the streaming watchdog was introduced by f44ab20 and then integrated/fixed by 3525273 for fix(stability): session skills snapshot, tool-loop guard, TUI watchdog, LM Studio preload backoff #67401, with later TUI watchdog/reconnect notes in the changelog. (CHANGELOG.md:3022, e2f4aa461700)

Likely related people:

• @xantorres: The watchdog feature history credits Xan Torres for adding the TUI streaming watchdog and its user-visible reset notice in commit f44ab20. (role: introduced behavior; confidence: medium; commits: f44ab20d4db5; files: src/tui/tui-event-handlers.ts, src/tui/tui-event-handlers.test.ts, CHANGELOG.md)
• Ayaan Zaidi: Commit 3525273 is the visible merged fix keeping the TUI watchdog bound to the active run for fix(stability): session skills snapshot, tool-loop guard, TUI watchdog, LM Studio preload backoff #67401, adjacent to the notice path this PR edits. (role: recent watchdog maintainer; confidence: medium; commits: 352527393079; files: src/tui/tui-event-handlers.ts, src/tui/tui-event-handlers.test.ts)
• @steipete: Recent history shows Peter Steinberger maintaining TUI/session recovery and stalled-session logging, including commit 65f2c2a near this surface. (role: adjacent owner; confidence: medium; commits: 65f2c2a0db7c; files: src/tui/tui-event-handlers.ts, docs/web/tui.md)
• @vignesh07: The TUI history contains many recent TUI behavior and rendering fixes by Vignesh Natarajan, making them a useful adjacent reviewer for terminal UX copy and behavior. (role: heavy TUI contributor; confidence: low; commits: 68cb4fc8a163, 1cc2263578e9, b4cdffc7a429; files: src/tui)

Remaining risk / open question:

• No tests were run in this read-only review, so the PR author's focused test claim remains unverified here.
• The provided GitHub context reports the PR as draft and not mergeable, so landing readiness is not established.

Codex review notes: model gpt-5.5, reasoning high; reviewed against e2f4aa461700.