Chat Flicker Scroll Snap

[arul28]

Summary

Describe the change.

What Changed

Key files and behaviors.

Validation

How you tested.

Risks

Anything to watch.

  Open in ADE  ·  ade/chat-flicker-scroll-snap-7ffceeec branch  ·  PR #524

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Improvements
  • Enhanced chat message auto-scroll behavior during streaming. The app now respects user scrolling intent—if you scroll upward while new messages are streaming, auto-scroll pauses instead of forcing the view back to the bottom.
  • Improved chat history recovery and merge logic for more reliable message synchronization and data integrity.

Greptile Summary

This PR improves the auto-scroll experience in the chat view by detecting user scroll intent (wheel and touch events) before new streaming content arrives and triggers an auto-snap. It also refines mergeChatHistorySnapshot to preserve object identity for unchanged events, enabling React to skip unnecessary re-renders.

• Scroll intent detection: handleWheel and handleTouchMove call releaseBottomStickinessForUserScroll before the RAF-based auto-scroll fires, so upward gestures during streaming reliably break free. shouldStickToBottomAfterScroll introduces hysteresis: re-sticking only happens when the user returns to within 24 px of the bottom.
• History merge optimisation: mergeChatHistorySnapshot now builds a key→entry map over existing and substitutes matching parsed entries with their original object references, short-circuiting to return the same array when nothing changed.

Confidence Score: 4/5

Safe to merge with the pinch-to-zoom guard applied; without it, zooming in during streaming silently disables auto-scroll for the rest of the session.

The wheel handler releases auto-scroll stickiness on any negative deltaY without checking ctrlKey. Trackpad pinch-to-zoom delivers exactly those events (negative deltaY, ctrlKey true) but does not move scrollTop, so handleScroll never fires to re-engage stickiness — leaving auto-scroll permanently disabled for the conversation. Everything else in the PR (touch handling, hysteresis logic, history merge) looks correct and is well-covered by tests.

apps/desktop/src/renderer/components/chat/AgentChatMessageList.tsx — specifically the handleWheel callback

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
apps/desktop/src/renderer/components/chat/AgentChatMessageList.tsx	Adds wheel/touch intent detection to break auto-scroll stickiness before streaming content snaps back; handleWheel misses the ctrlKey guard needed to ignore pinch-to-zoom gestures, which can permanently disable auto-scroll.
apps/desktop/src/renderer/components/chat/AgentChatPane.tsx	mergeChatHistorySnapshot now preserves object identity for unchanged events (dedup-key lookup via Map) and short-circuits by returning the original array when no entries changed; logic is correct and well-tested.
apps/desktop/src/renderer/components/chat/AgentChatMessageList.test.tsx	Adds unit tests for shouldStickToBottomAfterScroll and an integration test verifying that an upward wheel event breaks streaming auto-scroll; coverage is appropriate for the new behavior.
apps/desktop/src/renderer/components/chat/AgentChatPane.test.tsx	Adds two tests for the mergeChatHistorySnapshot identity-preservation optimization; both cases (fully identical and partially matching) are covered.

Flowchart

%%{init: {'theme': 'neutral'}}%%
flowchart TD
    A[User wheel / touch event] --> B{Event type}
    B -->|onWheel deltaY < 0| C{ctrlKey?}
    C -->|No - scroll up| D[releaseBottomStickinessForUserScroll]
    C -->|Yes - pinch-to-zoom| E[⚠ Bug: also releases stickiness]
    B -->|onTouchMove nextY - prevY > 2px| D
    D --> F[stickToBottomRef = false\ncancel RAF]
    F --> G[Streaming content grows\nResizeObserver fires]
    G --> H{stickToBottomRef?}
    H -->|true| I[scrollToBottomSoon RAF]
    H -->|false| J[No auto-scroll ✓]
    K[onScroll] --> L[shouldStickToBottomAfterScroll]
    L --> M{wasStuckToBottom?}
    M -->|true| N[stick if dist < 160 px]
    M -->|false| O[stick if dist ≤ 24 px]

Loading

Prompt To Fix All With AI

Fix the following 1 code review issue. Work through them one at a time, proposing concise fixes.

---

### Issue 1 of 1
apps/desktop/src/renderer/components/chat/AgentChatMessageList.tsx:4478-4482
**Pinch-to-zoom kills auto-scroll permanently**

On trackpads, browsers fire `wheel` events with `ctrlKey: true` when the user pinch-zooms. Zooming in (spreading fingers) produces `deltaY < 0`, so this handler calls `releaseBottomStickinessForUserScroll()` — which sets `stickToBottomRef.current = false` and cancels the RAF. Crucially, pinch-to-zoom does **not** move `scrollTop`, so `handleScroll` never fires to re-engage stickiness. The result: a user who zooms in while a message is streaming silently loses auto-scroll for the rest of the conversation and must manually click "Jump to latest".

```suggestion
  const handleWheel = useCallback((event: React.WheelEvent<HTMLDivElement>) => {
    if (event.deltaY < 0 && !event.ctrlKey) {
      releaseBottomStickinessForUserScroll();
    }
  }, [releaseBottomStickinessForUserScroll]);
```

_{Reviews (2): Last reviewed commit: "Address chat scroll review note" | Re-trigger Greptile}

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1 Skipped Deployment

Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
ade	Ignored	Preview	Jun 3, 2026 8:46am

[coderabbitai]

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

This PR improves chat rendering during streaming and snapshot recovery by introducing dual-threshold scroll stickiness with explicit user-gesture release, and updating snapshot merging to preserve object identity for deduplicated events.

Changes

Chat Streaming and Snapshot Recovery

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Scroll stickiness threshold and decision logic apps/desktop/src/renderer/components/chat/AgentChatMessageList.tsx	STICK_RESUME_THRESHOLD_PX defines a smaller distance threshold for resuming bottom-follow after user scroll. New exported helper shouldStickToBottomAfterScroll uses larger STICK_THRESHOLD_PX when already stuck and smaller STICK_RESUME_THRESHOLD_PX when not stuck.
User scroll and gesture release mechanism apps/desktop/src/renderer/components/chat/AgentChatMessageList.tsx	lastTouchYRef tracks most recent touch Y coordinate. releaseBottomStickinessForUserScroll() drops sticky state, clears pending scroll targets, and cancels scheduled scroll-to-bottom animation on user input.
Scroll and gesture event handling integration apps/desktop/src/renderer/components/chat/AgentChatMessageList.tsx	handleScroll now uses shouldStickToBottomAfterScroll for sticky-state computation. Wheel handler detects upward wheel scrolling; touch handlers detect sufficient delta (>2px) to trigger release. Scroll container is wired to onWheel, onTouchStart, onTouchMove, onTouchEnd, onTouchCancel handlers.
Scroll stickiness behavior validation apps/desktop/src/renderer/components/chat/AgentChatMessageList.test.tsx	Tests import shouldStickToBottomAfterScroll and validate decision logic across distance and stickiness combinations. Additional tests simulate user upward wheel intent during streaming and confirm scroll position remains stable after rerender with extra streamed output.
Chat history snapshot identity preservation apps/desktop/src/renderer/components/chat/AgentChatPane.tsx	mergeChatHistorySnapshot builds existingByKey map and normalizes parsed events by replacing matches with existing event objects. Merged result is assembled from normalizedParsed and tail, with identity-preservation check returning the original existing array when reference-equal.
Snapshot merge identity validation apps/desktop/src/renderer/components/chat/AgentChatPane.test.tsx	Test cases verify that recovery input matching existing snapshot returns same array/object identities, and that existing entries are reused by reference with only new recovery events appended.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 3 (Moderate) | ⏱️ ~22 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• arul28/ADE#175: The mergeChatHistorySnapshot identity-preservation changes are directly related to prior chat history snapshot and merge behavior work in AgentChatPane.

Suggested labels

desktop

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 inconclusive)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Title check	❓ Inconclusive	The title 'Chat Flicker Scroll Snap' is partially related to the changeset. It references scroll behavior, which is a real aspect of the changes, but is vague and doesn't clearly convey the specific improvements: better bottom-stickiness thresholds, user-input release handling, and array identity preservation in chat history merging.	Consider using a more specific title that better describes the main changes, such as 'Improve chat bottom-stickiness behavior with threshold tuning and user-input release' or 'Fix chat scroll stability with separate resume thresholds and identity preservation'.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
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.
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.

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✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch ade/chat-flicker-scroll-snap-7ffceeec

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[arul28]

@copilot review but do not make fixes