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Cancelling/closing an ask_user form silently discards all previously answered fields

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#4,945 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
65/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
shell
Domain
cli, developer-experience

Research direction

Look for the ask_user/elicitation tool implementation in the codebase, likely in a directory like src/ or lib/. Find where form cancellation is handled and where field answers are stored. Examine the flow that returns 'User cancelled the request' and see if partial answers can be captured. Check for UI components that manage form state. Testing involves running the CLI and triggering a multi-field form to verify the bug and any fix.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

area:tools

Describe the bug
When a multi-field form (via the ask_user/elicitation tool) is cancelled or closed (e.g. via Esc, see related issue about Esc behavior), any fields the user had already answered before cancelling are discarded entirely. The tool result returned to the agent is just a generic cancellation notice with no partial data — even though the user may have already provided a real, considered answer to an earlier question in the same form.

Expected behavior
If a user has answered one or more fields before a form is exited/cancelled, those partial answers should either be (a) preserved and returned to the calling agent so context isn't lost, or (b) the UI should clearly warn the user before discarding a partially-completed form, distinguishing 'cancel with no answers yet' from 'cancel after already answering something.'

Additional context
In a real session, a user answered the first question of a multi-field form, then the form was closed (likely via Esc). The tool call result contained only "User cancelled the request" with no indication that a field had been answered, and no way to recover it. The agent could not tell the user what had been captured (nothing) or distinguish intentional full-cancellation from an accidental exit after partial input.

Dominant language
Shell
Stars
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Forks
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Avg merge
14h 16m
Merged PRs (30d)
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