---
name: "Constrain thinking traces in chat panel"
---

# Story 174: Constrain thinking traces in chat panel

## User Story

As a user chatting with Claude in the web UI, I want thinking traces to be height-constrained and visually distinct, so that extended thinking doesn't flood the conversation and push real content out of view.

## Acceptance Criteria

- [ ] Chat WebSocket protocol delivers thinking tokens separately from regular text tokens (not as a string prefix)
- [ ] Thinking tokens render in a fixed max-height (96px) scrolling container in the chat panel, matching the existing ThinkingBlock style
- [ ] ThinkingBlock auto-scrolls to bottom as new thinking tokens stream in
- [ ] When thinking ends and regular text starts, the thinking block stops growing and regular output renders normally below it
- [ ] The literal [thinking] prefix no longer appears in rendered chat output

## Out of Scope

- TBD
