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In `ask_user` "Other" option has issues: it disappears or gets overridden by later "Other" text

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
68/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
shell
Domain
cli

Research direction

Start by reproducing the two cases in the ask_user flow using multiple questions, especially navigating with Shift+Tab and leaving a later Other field uncommitted. Trace how each question stores its selected option and Other text across navigation. Done means committed text remains visible and selected when returning, while uncommitted text stays associated with its own question and does not overwrite another answer.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

triage
Describe the bug

Whenever I am filling out ask_user prompts and I use the Other option to do some free text (do that a lot to give additional context) then navigate away and later return to that question, I can't see the Other text anymore. It also seems to default back to the default. Weird thing is that when I submit it still seems to get it. But it just looks like it was lost. Another issue is that if I start typing in a later question but don't submit and go back to a former one, it shows the unsubmitted text as the other. Accidentally hitting enter here will commit the text to the wrong question and override what was in there.
It's done this for a long time and I keep hoping it will just get fixed but it hasn't so I'm posting here about it finally.

Affected version

1.0.85

Steps to reproduce the behavior

Disappearing Text

  1. Have copilot ask_user with 2+ questions
  2. Fill out the "Other" section
  3. Hit enter to go to next question
  4. Shift + Tab to go back. See that it shows the first option as highlighted, not even "Other" which you selected
  5. Go down to "Other" and see it is empty. Hit enter anyway
  6. When question is complete you can see that it submitted the right thing but was bad UX

Overidding Text

  1. Have copilot ask_user with 2+ questions
  2. Fill out the "Other" section
  3. Hit enter to go to next question
  4. Fill out the "Other" section but don't commit with enter
  5. Shift + Tab to go back. See that it shows the first option as highlighted, not even "Other" which you selected
  6. Go down to "Other" and see the text of next question there
  7. Hitting Enter will override your response with the new text.
Expected behavior
  1. You enter text into Other
  2. Whether you commit with enter or not, that text belongs to that section.
  3. If you don't commit and just hit tab whatever the last selected option was (e.g., the default) remains the selected option, your text is just being held onto just in case
  4. If you do commit, then the text is saved as your answer and will be the selected option when you navigate back later. For now let's assume you did commit.
  5. In the next question if you fill out "Other" and don't commit that's fine it's still associated with that question
  6. Navigate back to previous question
  7. Since you committed your "other" text, as soon as we land on this previous question it shows the other section highlighted and shows your text not the text of the next question's "other" section. You can edit the text and recommit with the new text. It should never just disappear.
  8. If instead you had uncommitted text, when you came back to first question, we'd start with the previously committed answer or default and then going down to Other would show your previous text and you can continue to edit it and then commit or still choose not to.
  9. If you ever want to remove an other option you can always just choose a different option and thus it won't be sent to the agent.
Additional context

No response

Dominant language
Shell
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Merged PRs (30d)
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