Feature - Chat Agent Pinning #14716
Feature - Chat Agent Pinning #14716
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Co-authored-by: mihaela21k <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Fuyao Tang <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Zidong Wang <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Fuyao Tang <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: mihaela21k <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Zidong Wang <[email protected]>
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@atahankilc Could you fix the linting: |
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As the UI of the chat input has changed quite a bit since this PR started, I'd suggest to integrate the pinned agent as sketched in the following screenshot:
We have room below the text input for additional controls and information. For instance, we use a + icon to add context in another PR. I think it'd be great to use this room to put the agent pinning UI there as well, in the form of a @ button to e.g. pin or unpin an agent, and showing the currently pinned agent, if any, next to it. Buttons shown at this place are currently controlled here in the code: We may need to extend this a bit to allow also showing an optional text left to the button. This avoids also any interference with the changesets that may be shown above the chat input:
What do you think? |
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Hey @planger. Thank you for your guidance. I tried to refactor the pinning UI and related items. I've attached the updated UI to this comment. There's one thing I couldn't manage to sort out and wanted to get your opinion on. Our implementation does not include agent pinning from the input widget component, so I tried to implement it in a way that the "@" icon is displayed by default, which would trigger agent completion pop-up when clicked. However, I got a bit tangled up in the process. As a result, the option is currently only shown if there is a pinned agent, and clicking it only allows unpinning. With this said, is there anything I could do to trigger agent suggestions? And if not, should I implement a separate UI for selecting an agent? 
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Thank you very much for this iteration! I think this already feels pretty nice. I'm not sure we really need an explicit pin action though. I think we have two options for pinning agents:
- Show a context menu on click and offer "Unpin" if pinned, and "Pin > ".
- Trigger the auto completion for agents as you mentioned.
I personally prefer option 2. To trigger the code completion, I think a handler like this should work (if pinnedAgent === undefined):
handler: () => {
if (editorRef.current) {
editorRef.current.getControl().getModel()?.applyEdits([{
range: {
startLineNumber: 1,
startColumn: 1,
endLineNumber: 1,
endColumn: 1
},
text: '@ ',
}]);
editorRef.current.getControl().setPosition({ lineNumber: 1, column: 2 });
editorRef.current.getControl().getAction('editor.action.triggerSuggest')?.run();
}
}| registry.registerCommand(AI_CHAT_NEW_CHAT_WINDOW_WITH_PINNED_AGENT_COMMAND, { | ||
| // TODO - not working if function arg is set to type ChatAgent | undefined ? | ||
| execute: (...args: unknown[]) => this.chatService.createSession(ChatAgentLocation.Panel, {focus: true}, args[1] as ChatAgent | undefined), | ||
| isEnabled: widget => this.withWidget(widget, () => true), | ||
| isVisible: widget => this.withWidget(widget, () => true), | ||
| }); |
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Currently this command is never invoked anywhere
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For the extension we are developing for our course, we are using this command to directly open a chat widget with an agent pinned. If you don't have such a functionality expectation, I can remove it.
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Yeah, I don't think we need this in Theia at the moment.
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| export const AI_CHAT_NEW_CHAT_WINDOW_WITH_PINNED_AGENT_COMMAND: Command = { | ||
| id: 'ai-chat-ui.new-chat-with-pinned-agent', | ||
| iconClass: codicon('add') | ||
| }; | ||
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Not really used at the moment.
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Oh, and one more comment. I think we should ensure to show the at-icon only if more than one chat agent is registered -- and make it configurable similar to the Because we do have adopters who only provide one chat agent and don't provide the option for users to switch between chat agents. |
I have added a setting option under ai features to dis/enable this pinning functionality and also made it configurable similar to the showContext, however, I couldn't directly link the preference in the settings to the frontend module. If you find it appropriate, I can write a class/function similar to AIActivationService to enable or disable pinning button in chat widget. This way, I believe I can retrieve the number of currently registered agents from the ChatAgentService or reflect the setting value by getting it from PreferenceService. |
| registry.registerCommand(AI_CHAT_NEW_CHAT_WINDOW_WITH_PINNED_AGENT_COMMAND, { | ||
| // TODO - not working if function arg is set to type ChatAgent | undefined ? | ||
| execute: (...args: unknown[]) => this.chatService.createSession(ChatAgentLocation.Panel, {focus: true}, args[1] as ChatAgent | undefined), | ||
| isEnabled: widget => this.withWidget(widget, () => true), | ||
| isVisible: widget => this.withWidget(widget, () => true), | ||
| }); |
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Yeah, I don't think we need this in Theia at the moment.
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| export const AI_CHAT_NEW_CHAT_WINDOW_WITH_PINNED_AGENT_COMMAND: Command = { | ||
| id: 'ai-chat-ui.new-chat-with-pinned-agent', | ||
| iconClass: codicon('add') | ||
| }; | ||
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Thanks a lot for your feedbacks. I have removed the code parts you mentioned in your comments and rebased branch. I noticed that DefaultChatAgentId binding was removed from ai-chat-frontend-module.ts, and if PinChatAgent also needs to be removed, I can remove it.. It should be all set for another review. Let me know if anything else needs tweaking. Appreciate it! |
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I have noticed a bug in chat input widget and wanted to share with you: The height of the chat input box kept increasing continuously, and it seemed to be fixed when I set the height in the theia-ChatInput-Editor style to a fixed value. Screen.Recording.2025-02-14.at.13.32.20.mov |
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@atahankilc Thanks, yes there seems to be a rather severe bug on Also, I expect a few conflicts with #14787. So I may opt to merge the other one first and then I'll take over rebasing this one and resolving their conflicts, because this change is smaller, it is probably easier this way. Code looks already good so far! Thank you! |
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I cherry-picked #14942 and retested this. I think it works great now, thank you very much for your consistent work on this nice feature!
We could already merge this PR now and rebase #14787 --- I expect several conflicts though. Or we do it the other way around, which might be easier. I'll give it a try locally.
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Conflicts are straight forward to resolve, so I'll rebase #14787 |
What it does
An "agent pinning" feature has been introduced to enhance the user experience in consecutive agent usage within the chat interface.
Automatic Pinning:
If a chat agent is mentioned in a prompt and there is no prior pinned agent, the mentioned agent is automatically pinned. This eliminates the need for the user to repeatedly mention the agent in subsequent prompts.
Handling New Mentions:
If a different agent is mentioned while another agent is pinned, the pinned agent remains unchanged. The newly mentioned agent is used only for the specific prompt where it is mentioned, without affecting the pinned agent.
Manual Control:
Users can manually unpin the agent through the chat interface if desired.
New Session with Pinned Agent:
A new chat session can now be initiated directly with a pinned agent.
How to test
Follow-ups
As part of this contribution, We encountered an issue with the added command
ai-chat-ui.new-chat-with-pinned-agent. The command is expected to take a single argument of type ChatAgent | undefined. However, the function call fails when the argument is passed directly in the expected form. To make the command work, We had to pass an argument array instead, where the first item in the array is undefined, followed by the actual ChatAgent value.This behavior seems to deviate from the intended design. While this workaround resolves the issue for now, the underlying cause still needs to be investigated. The error message encountered when not using this approach is:
Error: The command 'ai-chat-ui.new-chat-with-pinned-agent' cannot be executed. There are no active handlers available for the command.We are including this as a follow-up issue to address later and investigate why the command handler does not behave as expected when a single argument is passed directly.
Attribution
This feature was developed by @atahankilc, @ZidongWang123, @TANG839, and @mihaela21k as part of the AI Coding Exercises project in the Practical Course Software Engineering for Business Information Systems at Technical University of Munich.
Review checklist
Reminder for reviewers