fix: detect kiro status from live controls and osc signals

[vinayshah1998]

Summary

Kiro panes should show working while a turn runs, blocked while an answer or approval is needed, and idle at the prompt. This PR updates the detection rules so old transcript text does not override those current controls.

Approval menus match their selected options and current footer instead of a heading that long tool details can push out of view. The rules cover clipped footers, trust menus, and request editing. Long feedback uses a complete editor-frame match anchored at the end of the detection buffer, so a closed editor cannot leave the pane blocked.

The bundled manifest and catalog copy are identical, at version 2026.09.19.1 with minimum engine version 2. No Rust, protocol, permission-policy, hook-installation, or session-restore changes.

Before and after

Before the approval fix, a real V3 multiline approval could read idle. The same pending approval reads blocked with the current rules. In this comparison, "before" is the previous PR rule, not the stock released manifest.

Long feedback also stays blocked. This editor's detection-buffer text was unchanged across the manifest hot reload.

Current qualification matrix

Tests used Herdr 0.9.0 on Linux aarch64 and Kiro CLI 2.22.2-nightly.4 with an OSC-capable TUI build. The final manifest was checked against captured inputs and through live hot reload. V3 is the primary target.

Live means a real Kiro backend and UI. Controlled means mocked ACP events in the real TUI, or explicit VT input through Herdr's parser. Those checks do not claim a live backend failure.

State or condition	Result	Evidence
V3 multiline approval, including 80×24	Pass: blocked	Before/after above; narrow menus below
V3 highlighted trust option and scope picker	Pass: blocked; no trust granted	Live menu captures
V3 request editing with empty, short, or long feedback	Pass: blocked	Live captures and focused replay checks
V3 question and crew approval	Pass: blocked; dismissal returns idle	Live captures at 125×40 and 80×24
V3 working, completion, and Ctrl+C	Pass: working, then idle	Live turn and cancellation captures
Historical approval text or a closed editor	Pass: no stale blocker	Live idle check and negative replay cases; stock before, corrected idle
Unicode/ASCII title-only fallback	Pass: working	Live V3 agent-monitor captures; isolated ASCII-frame checks
Progress-only OSC and stale working signals	Pass: working signal recognized; current controls take priority	Controlled VT checks below
Full-context warning and session error	Pass: no stale working state; idle	Controlled V3 TUI captures. There is no separate error-state rule
Graceful exit and SIGKILL	Pass: agent removed; shell remains	Real exit and controlled kill-while-working checks
V2 TUI approval	Pass: blocked	Live Yes / Trust / No menu
Legacy V1 approval	Pre-existing miss in both stock and PR rules	Same compatibility capture; outside this V3 repair
Native macOS and Windows runtime	Not run	Requires native test-host access

Validation

• 38 focused detector cases passed, including incomplete menus, clipped/wrapped footers, approval subviews, long feedback, and stale-panel negatives.
• 12 controlled VT assertions passed on the final manifest, including isolated signals, all four ASCII spinner frames, priority, and abrupt-exit cleanup.
• just ci 'test(detect::)' passed: formatting, all-target Clippy/compilation, 96 detection tests, maintenance, architecture, and integration-asset checks.
• Independent final review found no blocking issue.

Full local just ci stopped on the unchanged Linux ACL fixture for UID 65534, which this sandbox does not map. It reported 2,537 passes before that failure and fail-fast cancellation. The full local gate is not claimed green; no test or CI policy was weakened.

Supporting screenshots

These are captured terminal frames rendered to PNG, not desktop photographs. Captions and recorded-API annotations sit outside the terminal content. Local metadata is redacted. The test sessions used isolated config/state and were removed afterward.

Narrow V3 approval and trust menus

V3 question, crew, and historical-text checks

V3 working and cancellation

Controlled signal and priority checks

refs #4203

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• distribution/agent-detection/kiro.toml
• src/detect/manifests/kiro.toml

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The Kiro detection metadata now targets engine version 2 and release 2026.09.16.1. Detection rules were replaced with region-specific patterns for idle prompts, approvals, question panels, working footers, OSC titles, and OSC progress. Prior broad recent-output, subagent approval, clipboard exclusion, and spinner-based rules were removed.

Suggested reviewers: ogulcancelik

Priority: ⬇️ Low

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to b1365

No concrete merge-blocking behavior issue remains in the Kiro detection manifest update.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 0 functions across 0…
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly summarizes the main change: Kiro status detection now uses live controls and OSC signals.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description directly explains the detection-rule changes, validation results, manifest updates, and known test limitations.

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[greptile-apps]

Confidence Score: 5/5

The PR appears safe to merge; no actionable regression or outstanding blocking issue was identified.

Summary

Updates Kiro pane-state detection to prioritize live controls and use OSC title and progress signals as working cues.

• Detects current prompts as idle and approval or question controls as blocked.
• Recognizes both current and legacy tool-approval option vocabularies.
• Restricts screen matching to bounded live regions to avoid historical-buffer false positives.
• Keeps the bundled and distributed manifests aligned.

_{Reviews (2) · Last reviewed commit: "fix: detect kiro status from live contro..."}

[vinayshah1998]

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[JJLiebig]

@vinayshah1998 Thank you for the contribution!

Could you add a few things such as

• before/after screenshots
• a matrix of which kiro agent states are validated and qualified by you here based on our PR head and what expected states are missing still or unqualified?

Thanks!

[vinayshah1998]

@vinayshah1998 Thank you for the contribution!

Could you add a few things such as

• before/after screenshots
• a matrix of which kiro agent states are validated and qualified by you here based on our PR head and what expected states are missing still or unqualified?

Thanks!

Hey @JJLiebig thanks for giving this a look! Just added some more details for you, and some screenshots. Let me know if you'd like any more information

[JJLiebig]

The Kiro detection update is accurate and well-scoped. It replaces broad whole_recent matching with bounded live regions, keys idle off the current prompt line, and requires the real approval option rows plus the live footer, so stale transcript text no longer overrides active controls. OSC title and progress give working detection a fallback when the footer/controls scroll away. Bundled and published manifests are byte-identical at 2026.09.19.1, min_engine_version = 2 is right for OSC, and all CI checks pass. The qualification matrix and before/after captures are thorough, and the remaining gaps (legacy V1 approval, native macOS/Windows) are disclosed. Approving.

[JJLiebig]

Merging this now, @ogulcancelik when you rebase #3964, carry the new kiro detection content into vendor/agent-registry/agents/kiro/detection.toml + refresh lock.json, don't resolve by reverting it.

Should be no issue for clankers but just making the note anyway.