[Bug]: Async question replies display the agent’s question as user-authored text

[gfdelarue]

Before submitting

• I searched existing issues and did not find a duplicate.
• I included enough detail to reproduce or investigate the problem.

Area

apps/server

Steps to reproduce

1. In a Codex thread, have the agent ask a question using request_user_input_async.
2. Enter a custom answer in the question panel and submit it.
3. Read the resulting user message in the transcript.

A minimal example is a question of Which package manager? and an answer of pnpm. This concerns the async question tool, not the older blocking question flow.

Expected behavior

The transcript distinguishes the agent's question from the user's answer. Keeping the question as context is reasonable, but it should not appear to be text the user authored.

Actual behavior

The question and answer appear together in one user bubble, with no attribution or formatting that distinguishes them:

Which package manager?
pnpm

In the observed conversation, the agent asked about CPU power limits, fan/cooler settings, or RAM speed. The user entered only a reply about CPU cooler tuning presets. The resulting user bubble included the entire agent question before that reply.

A read-only inspection of that conversation's stored records confirmed:

• The user-input.resolved activity contains only the user's reply in answers.
• The generated async-answer:... user message contains the full question followed by that reply.

This is not only a renderer issue. The server constructs and persists the combined text, and the normal turn path sends that text to the provider.

Impact

Cosmetic issue

The transcript misattributes the question to the user. No failed delivery, duplicate submission, or change in the agent's reasoning was demonstrated.

Version or commit

Source verified at 061543e9e5b54ec0048725c37d52fef2962df173, which matched upstream main when checked. The exact installed version behind the original observation was not recorded.

Environment

Observed in the T3 chat UI with Codex async questions. The source path is shared by web, desktop, and mobile clients. Exact browser/desktop and Codex versions were not recorded; this was not independently reproduced on each client.

Supporting evidence

• The decider joins each question and answer and stores the result as a user message in the same command sequence.
• The provider turn path uses the stored message text.
• The existing engine test expects question-plus-answer text.
• Async question support was introduced in feat(codex): support async questions #9512.

The focused engine test was attempted but failed during imports with Schema.TaggedError is not a function, before any test ran. Installed Effect was 4.0.0-beta.103, while this checkout requires 4.0.0-rc.112. The evidence above is from the observed transcript, persisted records, and source inspection, not a successful new test run.

Workaround

No verified workaround. The report asks for clear attribution of question context, without requiring removal of that context from the provider message or a particular UI design.

[juliusmarminge]

Triage

Confirmed. This is a real cosmetic bug in the async question reply path, not a renderer-only glitch.

When thread.user-input.respond handles a responseMode: "message" request (Codex request_user_input_async), the decider keeps only the user's reply on user-input.resolved, then builds a normal user message by joining each question and answer:

[`${question.question}\n${answer.trim()}`, attachmentLabels].filter(Boolean).join("\n")

That string is persisted as role: "user" with id async-answer:${requestId} and sent to the provider as message.text. The existing engine test expects this shape (Which package manager?\npnpm\n\n…). The chat timeline then renders that text as a user bubble with no special case, so the agent's question looks user-authored.

This is the message-mode path added in #9512. The older blocking question flow does not create this combined user message.

Related (not duplicates)

• [Bug]: iOS 1.0.3 hides async questions while Settle is blocked #10192 — iOS hides pending async questions
• [Bug]: Codex harness accepts send_user_message_async but the UI drops the messages #9222 / fix(server): render async Codex messages #9227 — async Codex assistant messages, not question replies
• fix(clients): show the submitted answers on user input rows #10417 / feat(web): render AskUserQuestion exchanges as a stylized Q&A list #5867 — client Q&A presentation; they do not change the persisted user message or provider payload
• fix(chat): avoid duplicate status rows and hidden answers #10602 — duplicate status / hidden answer rows

No open PR rewrites the question\nanswer construction.

Suggested fix

Keep the question as provider context if needed, but attribute it. Smallest change is to label the join in apps/server/src/orchestration/decider.ts and update OrchestrationEngine.test.ts. Optionally, render async-answer:* messages as a Q&A row from the requested activity + answers instead of a raw user bubble.

Cosmetic only: no failed delivery or agent-reasoning issue was shown. Enough detail to implement; no further reporter input needed.