Transcript ChildQuestionRow

ChildQuestionRow

A question a child agent asked its parent agent, shown as a quiet inline row with the child's suggested options, its status, and optionally a field for the user to answer it instead of the parent.

import 'package:agent_kit/agent_kit.dart';

Demo

Pending: the first ChildQuestionRow in the gallery's "Pending" group. It has onOpenChild and onAnswer, so both actions show. The options are outline chips; they are not buttons.

Composing: initialComposing: true. The field is empty, so Send answer is disabled. The note under the field says where the answer goes.

Pending without an answer handler: no onAnswer, so "Answer yourself" is not drawn. Only Open child remains.

Answered by the agent: the gallery's "Answered by the agent" row. The strip is labelled "Agent". The answered-by-you row (gallery "Answered by you") has no shot; its strip is labelled "You".

Cancelled: state: cancelled. No actions and no answer strip; the note reads "The child was cancelled".

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Notes
item	ChildQuestionItem	Required, positional. Its task is the bold name (or "A child agent" when empty). Its question holds the text, options, state, answer, answeredBy and askedAt.
now	DateTime?	Replaces the wall clock for the wait time. Used by tests and the gallery.
onOpenChild	ValueChanged<String>?	"Open child", shown while pending. Gets the child's id.
onAnswer	void Function(String childId, String questionId, String text)?	Sends the user's answer. When null, "Answer yourself" is not drawn.
initialComposing	bool	Default false. Starts with the answer field open.

Status by question state:

State	Shown
pending	StatusMark.askingParent, "Asking parent · "
answered	check glyph and "Answered"
cancelled	X glyph and "Cancelled"

The wait time is seconds under a minute (at least "1s"), then whole minutes under an hour ("4m"), then "Hh MMm". A pending row started with no now re-renders once a minute.

Actions, only while pending:

• "Open child" (with an arrow glyph): drawn when onOpenChild is set.
• "Answer yourself": drawn when onAnswer is set. It opens or closes the field.

The field holds at least two lines and at most six. "Send answer" sends (childId, questionId, trimmed text) through onAnswer, then closes the field. Enter inserts a newline; sending is by the button only. Send answer is disabled while the trimmed text is empty.

Theme roles

• seam: the left rule, the option chips' outlines and the field's border.
• surface2: the answer strip and the field's well.
• ink: the task name, the question and the answer text. muted: the answered and cancelled status, the option text and the "Agent" or "You" label. faint: the notes and the field's hint.
• colors.iconSecondary: the bot glyph and the reply glyph. colors.textSelection: the field's selection.
• typeScale.body for the question and the answer; typeScale.uiSmall for the labels and notes. The task name is 13/18 at weight 700, fixed in the file.
• radii.pill for the option chips, radii.field for the strip and the field.

Size classes

ChildQuestionRow reads sizeClassOf(context).isCompact. When compact:

• "asked the agent" is hidden after the task name;
• the waiting note sits on its own line, with the actions in a wrap on the line below, shifted left 8 px;
• when not compact, the note and the actions share one row of at least 28 px.

Accessibility

• Row: Semantics(container: true, label: 'Question from <task> to the agent').
• The answer field: Semantics(label: 'Your answer to the child', textField: true, multiline: true). The hint "Your answer" is drawn as text, outside the field's semantics, and only while the field is empty.
• "Answer yourself" is wrapped in Semantics(expanded: composing), so a screen reader reports whether the field is open.
• Opening the field requests focus on the next frame.
• The status and the answer are plain text. The "Open child", "Cancel" and "Send answer" controls are normal buttons, with their own semantics.
• Enter adds a newline, so Send answer has no keyboard shortcut.

Gallery and tests

• Gallery scene: Components. Specimens "Child questions" in ContextSpecimens (apps/gallery/lib/components/context.dart, lines 189 to 271). Their order in the tree is pending (k2), composing (k3), no answer handler (k4), answered by the agent (k1), answered by you (k5) and cancelled (k6).
• Golden: apps/gallery/test/component_shots_test.dart writes child_question_pending (index 0), child_question_composing (1), child_question_no_answer (2), child_question_answered (3) and child_question_cancelled (5), light and dark. Index 4 (answered by you) has no shot.
• Widget tests, in packages/agent_kit/test/transcript/child_question_test.dart:
  • "pending: waits, offers Open child and Answer yourself" (line 61);
  • "Answer yourself is hidden without an answer handler" (line 85);
  • "composing sends (child, question, text)" (line 97);
  • "answered by the agent and by you, and cancelled" (line 120);
  • "the strip shows it, and it never reads as needs you" (line 158);
  • "Answer yourself reaches the backend" (line 203);
  • "without the capability there is no Answer yourself" (line 224).
• Golden test: packages/agent_kit/test/transcript/child_question_golden_test.dart writes packages/agent_kit/test/goldens/child_question_<width>_<theme>.png for widths 390 and 1000 (line 113).

---

Generated from docs/components/transcript/ChildQuestionRow.md. Edit the file there; changes made on the wiki are overwritten.