From 178b4437b116e84be2065992d7698e7d541adce3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Harry Bayliss <harry@hjb.dev>
Date: Mon, 25 May 2026 13:00:54 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Give injected agent submit Enter a longer settle delay

The trailing CR that submits orchestrator-injected input was written
only 15ms after the body, inside TUI agents' paste-coalescing window,
so codex (and other paste-detecting agents) intermittently swallowed it
as a newline and left the message composed but unsent. Centralize the
per-piece timing in a pure pieceWriteDelay helper: keep 15ms between
body lines but give the final lone Enter a 100ms settle gap so the
agent closes the preceding burst and registers the CR as submit. Covers
send_input, send_message, timers, and the spawn initial prompt (all go
through writeInput).

Resolves the codex composer-submit TODO item.
---
 CHANGELOG.md                     |  3 ++
 TODO.md                          |  5 ---
 internal/app/child.go            | 23 ++++++++++--
 internal/app/child_input_test.go | 61 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 4 files changed, 85 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index ae66ac0..711034c 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -16,6 +16,9 @@ loosely follows [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
   over MCP.
 
 ### Fixed
+- Injected agent input now sends the submit Enter as a separated,
+  settled keystroke so messages reliably submit instead of sometimes
+  sitting unsent in the composer.
 - Codex agents are no longer reported idle while a turn is still
   running.
 - Slow MCP tool calls such as `wait_for_pattern` no longer block later
diff --git a/TODO.md b/TODO.md
index e409838..b5dae71 100644
--- a/TODO.md
+++ b/TODO.md
@@ -1,6 +1 @@
-- [ ] When opening a codex sub agent, the message gets input to the field, but the message is never submitted.
-  - This appears to be inconsistent. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Might be because of popups on codex sub agents?
-  - Question: when it fails, is a Codex startup popup visible (trust/workspace, auth/model selection, permissions), or is the normal composer focused?
-  - Question: if the message is sitting in the composer, does pressing Enter once manually submit it, or does something else need to be dismissed first?
-  - Question: does this happen with short one-line prompts as well as long/multiline sub-agent instructions?
 - [ ] The per-tab agent summary text should display below the tab always, not just when the tab is focused.
diff --git a/internal/app/child.go b/internal/app/child.go
index 92df21b..91f96f4 100644
--- a/internal/app/child.go
+++ b/internal/app/child.go
@@ -26,6 +26,11 @@ import (
 // false positives (timestamps, exit codes, etc.).
 var portRegex = regexp.MustCompile(`https?://[^\s:/]+:(\d{2,5})(?:/[^\s]*)?`)
 
+const (
+	agentInterPieceDelay   = 15 * time.Millisecond
+	agentSubmitSettleDelay = 100 * time.Millisecond
+)
+
 type ChildStatus string
 
 const (
@@ -642,8 +647,8 @@ func (c *Child) writeInput(b []byte) error {
 		return err
 	}
 	for i, piece := range pieces {
-		if i > 0 {
-			time.Sleep(15 * time.Millisecond)
+		if delay := pieceWriteDelay(i, len(pieces), piece); delay > 0 {
+			time.Sleep(delay)
 		}
 		if _, err := pty.Write(piece); err != nil {
 			return err
@@ -659,6 +664,20 @@ func inputWritePieces(kind ChildKind, b []byte) [][]byte {
 	return splitOnEnter(b)
 }
 
+func pieceWriteDelay(index, total int, piece []byte) time.Duration {
+	if index == 0 {
+		return 0
+	}
+	if index == total-1 && isLoneEnter(piece) {
+		return agentSubmitSettleDelay
+	}
+	return agentInterPieceDelay
+}
+
+func isLoneEnter(piece []byte) bool {
+	return len(piece) == 1 && (piece[0] == '\r' || piece[0] == '\n')
+}
+
 func mintIdentity() string {
 	var buf [12]byte
 	_, _ = rand.Read(buf[:])
diff --git a/internal/app/child_input_test.go b/internal/app/child_input_test.go
index f834457..1e472ca 100644
--- a/internal/app/child_input_test.go
+++ b/internal/app/child_input_test.go
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ package app
 import (
 	"bytes"
 	"testing"
+	"time"
 )
 
 func TestInputWritePiecesOnlySplitAgentEnters(t *testing.T) {
@@ -27,3 +28,63 @@ func TestInputWritePiecesOnlySplitAgentEnters(t *testing.T) {
 		}
 	}
 }
+
+func TestPieceWriteDelay(t *testing.T) {
+	cases := []struct {
+		name  string
+		index int
+		total int
+		piece []byte
+		want  time.Duration
+	}{
+		{
+			name:  "first piece",
+			index: 0,
+			total: 3,
+			piece: []byte("body"),
+			want:  0,
+		},
+		{
+			name:  "middle body piece",
+			index: 1,
+			total: 3,
+			piece: []byte("body"),
+			want:  agentInterPieceDelay,
+		},
+		{
+			name:  "final carriage return submit",
+			index: 1,
+			total: 2,
+			piece: []byte("\r"),
+			want:  agentSubmitSettleDelay,
+		},
+		{
+			name:  "final newline submit",
+			index: 1,
+			total: 2,
+			piece: []byte("\n"),
+			want:  agentSubmitSettleDelay,
+		},
+		{
+			name:  "final non-enter piece",
+			index: 2,
+			total: 3,
+			piece: []byte("tail"),
+			want:  agentInterPieceDelay,
+		},
+		{
+			name:  "standalone enter fast path",
+			index: 0,
+			total: 1,
+			piece: []byte("\r"),
+			want:  0,
+		},
+	}
+	for _, tc := range cases {
+		t.Run(tc.name, func(t *testing.T) {
+			if got := pieceWriteDelay(tc.index, tc.total, tc.piece); got != tc.want {
+				t.Fatalf("pieceWriteDelay(%d, %d, %q) = %s, want %s", tc.index, tc.total, tc.piece, got, tc.want)
+			}
+		})
+	}
+}