TUI Spacing And Density PR1 Evidence

Goal

Provide before/after evidence that PR1 reduces visible row usage without removing content or changing rendering scope.

Fixed Conditions

Terminal width: 100 columns.
Compare the same prompt/output fixture before and after this PR.
Strip ANSI control sequences before counting visible rows.
Count rendered rows from the first non-empty fixture row through the last non-empty fixture row. This keeps internal blank spacer rows in the metric because those are the rows this PR removes.
The fixture renders the real Ink TUI components directly, so it does not require a model call or network access.

Scenarios

Simple Q&A.
File list output.
Long shell output.
File-read error output.
Multi-block project inspection output.
Diff output.
Long streaming output.

Commands

Terminal capture:

bash

git checkout origin/main
REPO_ROOT="$PWD"
/tmp/qwen-pr1-spacing-evidence/run-tmux-capture.sh "$REPO_ROOT" 'base origin/main 34b7d472e' base
git switch feat/tui-spacing-density-pr1
/tmp/qwen-pr1-spacing-evidence/run-tmux-capture.sh "$REPO_ROOT" 'PR1 fixed 848d6a166' fixed

VHS visual capture:

bash

git checkout origin/main
PATH=/Users/gawain/.nvm/versions/node/v24.15.0/bin:$PATH vhs /tmp/qwen-pr1-spacing-evidence/base.tape
git switch feat/tui-spacing-density-pr1
PATH=/Users/gawain/.nvm/versions/node/v24.15.0/bin:$PATH vhs /tmp/qwen-pr1-spacing-evidence/fixed.tape
ffmpeg -y -i /tmp/qwen-pr1-spacing-evidence/base.gif -i /tmp/qwen-pr1-spacing-evidence/fixed.gif -filter_complex "[0:v]fps=5,scale=780:-1:flags=lanczos[left];[1:v]fps=5,scale=780:-1:flags=lanczos[right];[left][right]hstack=inputs=2,split[s0][s1];[s0]palettegen[p];[s1][p]paletteuse" /tmp/qwen-pr1-spacing-evidence/base-vs-fixed-optimized.gif

Evidence Artifacts

Release: https://github.com/QwenLM/qwen-code/releases/tag/tui-spacing-density-pr1-evidence
Side-by-side GIF: https://github.com/QwenLM/qwen-code/releases/download/tui-spacing-density-pr1-evidence/base-vs-fixed-optimized.gif
Final screenshot: https://github.com/QwenLM/qwen-code/releases/download/tui-spacing-density-pr1-evidence/base-vs-fixed-final.png
Base tmux capture: https://github.com/QwenLM/qwen-code/releases/download/tui-spacing-density-pr1-evidence/base.tmux.txt
Fixed tmux capture: https://github.com/QwenLM/qwen-code/releases/download/tui-spacing-density-pr1-evidence/fixed.tmux.txt
Base summary JSON: https://github.com/QwenLM/qwen-code/releases/download/tui-spacing-density-pr1-evidence/base.summary.json
Fixed summary JSON: https://github.com/QwenLM/qwen-code/releases/download/tui-spacing-density-pr1-evidence/fixed.summary.json

Expected Results

Simple Q&A: at least 1 fewer visible row.
Expanded tool output: at least 1 fewer visible row per rendered tool result that previously had a blank header/result spacer.
Multi-tool expanded groups: 1 fewer visible row between each adjacent tool entry.
No scenario should lose user-visible content.

Results

Scenario	Width	Baseline rows	PR1 rows	Delta	Notes
Simple Q&A	100	2	1	-1	Assistant history item no longer starts with a spacer row
File list or shell output	100	3	2	-1	Tool header and first result row are adjacent
File-read error	100	3	2	-1	Error result uses the same tool header/result spacing
Project inspection	100	16	11	-5	Three expanded tools no longer have header/result spacer rows or blank inter-tool rows
Diff output	100	3	2	-1	Diff renderer remains unchanged; only tool header/result spacing changes
Long streaming output	100	N + 2	N + 1	-1	Content rows are unchanged; the extra header/result spacer is removed
Full representative fixture	100	26	19	-7	Same content rendered through real Ink components and captured in tmux

What This Proves

The base branch reproduces the extra spacer rows in a real terminal capture.
PR1 removes the targeted spacer rows while preserving the same fixture content.
The row-count improvement is measurable under fixed 100-column conditions.

What This Does Not Prove

It does not cover later PR scopes such as thinking trace visibility, tool border removal, SubAgent layout, branding, or theme colors.
It does not replace manual review for extremely narrow terminal wrapping.