## Problem
Before this change, composer paths that cleared the textarea after
submit or slash-command dispatch
also cleared the textarea kill buffer. That meant a user could `Ctrl+K`
part of a draft, trigger a
composer action that cleared the visible draft, and then lose the
ability to `Ctrl+Y` the killed
text back.
This was especially awkward for workflows where the user wants to
temporarily remove text, run a
composer action such as changing reasoning level or dispatching a slash
command, and then restore
the killed text into the now-empty draft.
## Mental model
This change separates visible draft state from editing-history state.
The visible draft includes the current textarea contents and text
elements that should be cleared
when the composer submits or dispatches a command. The kill buffer is
different: it represents the
most recent killed text and should survive those composer-driven clears
so the user can still yank
it back afterward.
After this change, submit and slash-command dispatch still clear the
visible textarea contents, but
they no longer erase the most recent kill.
## Non-goals
This does not implement a multi-entry kill ring or change the semantics
of `Ctrl+K` and `Ctrl+Y`
beyond preserving the existing yank target across these clears.
It also does not change how submit, slash-command parsing, prompt
expansion, or attachment handling
work, except that those flows no longer discard the textarea kill buffer
as a side effect of
clearing the draft.
## Tradeoffs
The main tradeoff is that clearing the visible textarea is no longer
equivalent to fully resetting
all editing state. That is intentional here, because submit and
slash-command dispatch are composer
actions, not requests to forget the user's most recent kill.
The benefit is better editing continuity. The cost is that callers must
understand that full-buffer
replacement resets visible draft state but not the kill buffer.
## Architecture
The behavioral change is in `TextArea`: full-buffer replacement now
rebuilds text and elements
without clearing `kill_buffer`.
`ChatComposer` already clears the textarea after successful submit and
slash-command dispatch by
calling into those textarea replacement paths. With this change, those
existing composer flows
inherit the new behavior automatically: the visible draft is cleared,
but the last killed text
remains available for `Ctrl+Y`.
The tests cover both layers:
- `TextArea` verifies that the kill buffer survives full-buffer
replacement.
- `ChatComposer` verifies that it survives submit.
- `ChatComposer` also verifies that it survives slash-command dispatch.
## Observability
There is no dedicated logging for kill-buffer preservation. The most
direct way to reason about the
behavior is to inspect textarea-wide replacement paths and confirm
whether they treat the kill
buffer as visible-buffer state or as editing-history state.
If this regresses in the future, the likely failure mode is simple and
user-visible: `Ctrl+Y` stops
restoring text after submit or slash-command clears even though ordinary
kill/yank still works
within a single uninterrupted draft.
## Tests
Added focused regression coverage for the new contract:
- `kill_buffer_persists_across_set_text`
- `kill_buffer_persists_after_submit`
- `kill_buffer_persists_after_slash_command_dispatch`
Local verification:
- `just fmt`
- `cargo test -p codex-tui`
---------
Co-authored-by: Josh McKinney <joshka@openai.com>
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