fix: TUI crash with Unicode characters in branch selector

- Use truncateToWidth instead of substring in user-message-selector.ts
- Fix truncateToWidth to use Intl.Segmenter for proper grapheme handling
- Add tests for Unicode truncation behavior

packages/coding-agent/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
 ### Fixed
 
 - **Print mode error handling**: `-p` flag now outputs error messages and exits with code 1 when requests fail, instead of silently producing no output.
+- **Branch selector crash**: Fixed TUI crash when user messages contained Unicode characters (like `✔` or `›`) that caused line width to exceed terminal width. Now uses proper `truncateToWidth` instead of `substring`.
 
 ### Added
 

packages/coding-agent/src/tui/user-message-selector.ts

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-import { type Component, Container, Spacer, Text } from "@mariozechner/pi-tui";
+import { type Component, Container, Spacer, Text, truncateToWidth } from "@mariozechner/pi-tui";
 import { theme } from "../theme/theme.js";
 import { DynamicBorder } from "./dynamic-border.js";
 
@@ -54,8 +54,8 @@ class UserMessageList implements Component {
 
 			// First line: cursor + message
 			const cursor = isSelected ? theme.fg("accent", "› ") : "  ";
-			const maxMsgWidth = width - 2; // Account for cursor
+			const maxMsgWidth = width - 2; // Account for cursor (2 chars)
-			const truncatedMsg = normalizedMessage.substring(0, maxMsgWidth);
+			const truncatedMsg = truncateToWidth(normalizedMessage, maxMsgWidth);
 			const messageLine = cursor + (isSelected ? theme.bold(truncatedMsg) : truncatedMsg);
 
 			lines.push(messageLine);

packages/coding-agent/test/truncate-to-width.test.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+import { truncateToWidth, visibleWidth } from "@mariozechner/pi-tui";
+import { describe, expect, it } from "vitest";
+
+/**
+ * Tests for truncateToWidth behavior with Unicode characters.
+ *
+ * These tests verify that truncateToWidth properly handles text with
+ * Unicode characters that have different byte vs display widths.
+ */
+describe("truncateToWidth", () => {
+	it("should truncate messages with Unicode characters correctly", () => {
+		// This message contains a checkmark (✔) which may have display width > 1 byte
+		const message = '✔ script to run › dev $ concurrently "vite" "node --import tsx ./';
+		const width = 67;
+		const maxMsgWidth = width - 2; // Account for cursor
+
+		const truncated = truncateToWidth(message, maxMsgWidth);
+		const truncatedWidth = visibleWidth(truncated);
+
+		expect(truncatedWidth).toBeLessThanOrEqual(maxMsgWidth);
+	});
+
+	it("should handle emoji characters", () => {
+		const message = "🎉 Celebration! 🚀 Launch 📦 Package ready for deployment now";
+		const width = 40;
+		const maxMsgWidth = width - 2;
+
+		const truncated = truncateToWidth(message, maxMsgWidth);
+		const truncatedWidth = visibleWidth(truncated);
+
+		expect(truncatedWidth).toBeLessThanOrEqual(maxMsgWidth);
+	});
+
+	it("should handle mixed ASCII and wide characters", () => {
+		const message = "Hello 世界 Test 你好 More text here that is long";
+		const width = 30;
+		const maxMsgWidth = width - 2;
+
+		const truncated = truncateToWidth(message, maxMsgWidth);
+		const truncatedWidth = visibleWidth(truncated);
+
+		expect(truncatedWidth).toBeLessThanOrEqual(maxMsgWidth);
+	});
+
+	it("should not truncate messages that fit", () => {
+		const message = "Short message";
+		const width = 50;
+		const maxMsgWidth = width - 2;
+
+		const truncated = truncateToWidth(message, maxMsgWidth);
+
+		expect(truncated).toBe(message);
+		expect(visibleWidth(truncated)).toBeLessThanOrEqual(maxMsgWidth);
+	});
+
+	it("should add ellipsis when truncating", () => {
+		const message = "This is a very long message that needs to be truncated";
+		const width = 30;
+		const maxMsgWidth = width - 2;
+
+		const truncated = truncateToWidth(message, maxMsgWidth);
+
+		expect(truncated).toContain("...");
+		expect(visibleWidth(truncated)).toBeLessThanOrEqual(maxMsgWidth);
+	});
+
+	it("should handle the exact crash case from issue report", () => {
+		// Terminal width was 67, line had visible width 68
+		// The problematic text contained "✔" and "›" characters
+		const message = '✔ script to run › dev $ concurrently "vite" "node --import tsx ./server.ts"';
+		const terminalWidth = 67;
+		const cursorWidth = 2; // "› " or "  "
+		const maxMsgWidth = terminalWidth - cursorWidth;
+
+		const truncated = truncateToWidth(message, maxMsgWidth);
+		const finalWidth = visibleWidth(truncated);
+
+		// The final line (cursor + message) must not exceed terminal width
+		expect(finalWidth + cursorWidth).toBeLessThanOrEqual(terminalWidth);
+	});
+});

packages/tui/src/utils.ts

@@ -309,36 +309,53 @@ export function truncateToWidth(text: string, maxWidth: number, ellipsis: string
 		return ellipsis.substring(0, maxWidth);
 	}
 
-	let currentWidth = 0;
+	// Separate ANSI codes from visible content using grapheme segmentation
-	let truncateAt = 0;
 	let i = 0;
+	const segments: Array<{ type: "ansi" | "grapheme"; value: string }> = [];
 
-	while (i < text.length && currentWidth < targetWidth) {
+	while (i < text.length) {
-		// Skip ANSI escape sequences (include them in output but don't count width)
+		const ansiResult = extractAnsiCode(text, i);
-		if (text[i] === "\x1b" && text[i + 1] === "[") {
+		if (ansiResult) {
-			let j = i + 2;
+			segments.push({ type: "ansi", value: ansiResult.code });
-			while (j < text.length && !/[a-zA-Z]/.test(text[j]!)) {
+			i += ansiResult.length;
-				j++;
+		} else {
+			// Find the next ANSI code or end of string
+			let end = i;
+			while (end < text.length) {
+				const nextAnsi = extractAnsiCode(text, end);
+				if (nextAnsi) break;
+				end++;
 			}
-			// Include the final letter of the escape sequence
+			// Segment this non-ANSI portion into graphemes
-			j++;
+			const textPortion = text.slice(i, end);
-			truncateAt = j;
+			for (const seg of segmenter.segment(textPortion)) {
-			i = j;
+				segments.push({ type: "grapheme", value: seg.segment });
+			}
+			i = end;
+		}
+	}
+
+	// Build truncated string from segments
+	let result = "";
+	let currentWidth = 0;
+
+	for (const seg of segments) {
+		if (seg.type === "ansi") {
+			result += seg.value;
 			continue;
 		}
 
-		const char = text[i]!;
+		const grapheme = seg.value;
-		const charWidth = visibleWidth(char);
+		const graphemeWidth = visibleWidth(grapheme);
 
-		if (currentWidth + charWidth > targetWidth) {
+		if (currentWidth + graphemeWidth > targetWidth) {
 			break;
 		}
 
-		currentWidth += charWidth;
+		result += grapheme;
-		truncateAt = i + 1;
+		currentWidth += graphemeWidth;
-		i++;
 	}
 
 	// Add reset code before ellipsis to prevent styling leaking into it
-	return text.substring(0, truncateAt) + "\x1b[0m" + ellipsis;
+	return result + "\x1b[0m" + ellipsis;
 }