[Feature]: Desktop — add setting to disable auto-scroll during streaming responses

[linfeng961]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

When the assistant generates a long streaming response, the Hermes Desktop app continuously auto-scrolls to show the latest output. By the time the response finishes, the viewport is at the very bottom of the message. The user must then scroll back up to read the response from the beginning. This happens every time a long reply is produced.

This is NOT about what happens after the response completes — it is about the auto-scroll DURING streaming that pulls the user away from their reading position.

Describe the solution you would like

Add a setting (e.g., Settings → Chat → "Auto-scroll on new content") with two options:

• Enabled (default, current behavior): the viewport follows streaming content to the bottom
• Disabled: the viewport stays at the user's current scroll position. If the response fits within the viewport it displays normally. If it exceeds the viewport the content extends below without pulling the scroll position down. The existing "scroll to bottom" floating button remains available for users who want to jump to the latest content manually.

Describe alternatives you have considered

• A "scroll lock" behavior similar to Discord/Slack: when the user manually scrolls up during streaming, auto-scroll pauses until they explicitly scroll back to the bottom
• VS Code terminal's "scroll on output" toggle

Related issues

• [Feature]: Desktop GUI — auto-scroll, sidebar overlap fix, custom session groups #44140 — also proposes a chat.auto_scroll config key, but bundles it with two unrelated features. This issue is focused on a single setting.
• [Bug]: Hermes Desktop chat auto-scrolls to bottom while reading older messages #53426 — closed as duplicate, but the described behaviour persists on Desktop v0.18.2 (Windows).

Environment

• Desktop version: 0.18.2
• Platform: Windows
• Component: Hermes Desktop chat transcript

[alt-glitch]

This was generated by AI during triage.

Related to #44678: the original Desktop streaming auto-follow request overlaps its focused control, but this issue now also requests tool-output auto-collapse and broader CLI behavior. Those are independently useful additions, so this is no longer a duplicate; maintainer decision needed on splitting or expanding scope.

[linfeng961]

Additional request: Collapsible / auto-hide tool execution output

After the assistant finishes responding, the tool execution output section (the activity log showing "thinking...", "Running python ...", etc.) occupies a large portion of the chat viewport — often filling the entire screen before the assistant's actual text reply becomes visible. The user must scroll past this block every time to read the response.

Current workaround tried:

• Settings → Appearance → "Tool call display" set to "Product" mode
• Even in Product mode, the condensed tool execution summaries still take up significant vertical space and cannot be collapsed

Requested behavior:
Add a setting or behavior to auto-collapse / minimize the tool execution output section after the assistant finishes its response. Options could include:

1. Auto-collapse on completion — tool execution output collapses to a single-line summary bar after the response is done, with an expand button to review details
2. Collapsible sections — each tool call block is manually collapse/expandable
3. Configurable threshold — hide tool output by default when it exceeds N lines

This would complement the existing "Tool call display" (Product/Technical) setting and give users control over how much screen space tool execution output consumes.

[rogerash0]

+1 from a terminal CLI user on Raspberry Pi/Linux. During streaming output the terminal continuously follows the bottom, so it is difficult to stay at an earlier part of a long answer to read or copy it. tmux copy mode is a workaround, but a native opt-in follow-stream/scroll-lock behavior would be much better: pause auto-follow when the user scrolls up, and provide a clear way to jump back to live output. This would be valuable for the CLI as well as Desktop.

[GottZ]

This was generated by AI during triage.

Summary

The supplied complex contains no verified member PRs for #65714, so there is no PR diff available here to assess against the requested Desktop auto-scroll setting. The discussion nevertheless identifies #59882 as a linked proposal for stricter run-start anchoring, while current main reportedly already stops following after a user scrolls away; neither #59882's diff nor a Verify verdict for it is included in this evidence.

Suggested consolidation

No merge recommendation can be made from the supplied PR set because it is empty. Triage #65714 as an issue-scope decision: verify #59882 separately before treating it as an implementation candidate, and split the later tool-output auto-collapse and CLI requests from the focused Desktop streaming-scroll setting, consistent with the contributor's maintainer-decision note; the evidence does not establish an exhaustive absence of other PR references.

Cross-PR triage: Reviewed 0 pull requests and 3 issues in this complex. Assessment working set: 0 kB of PR diffs, 7 kB of issue/PR text, 4 kB of discussion (6 comments), 0 verify verdicts. verdicts are based on issue/PR descriptions and structural graph facts — diffs were not available at assessment time. Part of an automated triage batch.