[Bug]: LaTeX in chat is broken: display math renders twice and unstyled, inline $...$ does not render

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
70/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
latex
Domain
desktop, frontend

Research direction

Start with the math plugin's getStyles() entry point and inspect the generated index-.css and terminal-.css assets in the 0.1.35 build. Verify how KaTeX CSS and font files are included, then reproduce display and inline formulas to confirm each display renders once with styling and inline math is no longer literal text.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

bug
GUI version

0.1.35

Operating system

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

Reproduction steps
  1. Send a single display formula, e.g.
    $$x = \frac{a}{b}$$
    or a message with several formulas (fractions, integrals, aligned blocks), e.g. $$e = mc^2$$.
  2. Also send inline math, e.g. $x^2$.
    • Display formulas appear twice. In the minimal repro (a single $$x = \frac{a}{b}$$) the first copy shows the fraction stacked, but small and unstyled, immediately followed by a second copy using plain characters.
    • Inline math is not rendered at all: $x^2$ stays as literal text.
Expected behavior

Each formula should be rendered only once, using a better style.

Actual behavior

Display math parses and renders, but the output is doubled and visually broken; inline math does not render at all.

AI analysis

Doubling: looking at the installed 0.1.35 build, the likely cause is the KaTeX stylesheet. The renderer ships only index-.css and terminal-.css and neither contains any .katex rules — katex.min.css appears nowhere in the app. KaTeX emits both HTML and a MathML fallback; the stylesheet is what normally hides the MathML and lays out the HTML. Without it, both outputs are visible: the native MathML copy renders on top, and the HTML copy collapses into a run of unstyled characters next to it.

Inline: $x^2$ stays as literal text.

Suggested fix: bundle katex.min.css together with the KaTeX font files (KaTeX_Main, KaTeX_Math, KaTeX_Size*) — neither is in the 0.1.35 build (only the Geist UI fonts ship). The math plugin already declares the stylesheet via getStyles() -> "katex/dist/katex.min.css", but it never reaches the build.

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