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Add description field to shell execution tool#17350

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eneufeld wants to merge 3 commits intomasterfrom
feat/shell-tool-description
Open

Add description field to shell execution tool#17350
eneufeld wants to merge 3 commits intomasterfrom
feat/shell-tool-description

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@eneufeld
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What it does

The model can now provide a brief explanation of each shell command, shown to the user in the approval confirmation dialog.

The description parameter is optional and serves three purposes:

  • Users can make informed approve/deny decisions faster
  • The model is forced to reason about what it's doing, reducing mistakes
  • The audit trail of agent actions becomes more readable

Changes:

  • New optional 'description' parameter in shellExecute schema
  • ShellExecutionInput interface extended with optional description
  • Confirmation UI renders description above the command block
  • CSS styling for the description text

How to test

Trigger a shell command and see that you get a description of the command and what it does.

Follow-ups

Breaking changes

  • This PR introduces breaking changes and requires careful review. If yes, the breaking changes section in the changelog has been updated.

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Review checklist

Reminder for reviewers

The model can now provide a brief explanation of each shell
command, shown to the user in the approval confirmation dialog.

The description parameter is optional and serves three purposes:
- Users can make informed approve/deny decisions faster
- The model is forced to reason about what it's doing, reducing
  mistakes
- The audit trail of agent actions becomes more readable

Changes:
- New optional 'description' parameter in shellExecute schema
- ShellExecutionInput interface extended with optional description
- Confirmation UI renders description above the command block
- CSS styling for the description text
@eneufeld eneufeld requested a review from sgraband April 14, 2026 22:15
@github-project-automation github-project-automation Bot moved this to Waiting on reviewers in PR Backlog Apr 14, 2026
Comment thread packages/ai-terminal/src/browser/shell-execution-tool.ts Outdated
@sgraband
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image

Do we want to somehow outline reasoning/which command does what in the description? Because in the example above, it helps me to understand what the LLM wants to do, but not why it does it like this? Can of course also be done in a follow up, but maybe we should decide on the scope and purpose of the description. Is it only to show the intent or also to help the user understand the command?

Co-authored-by: Simon Graband <sgraband@eclipsesource.com>
@eneufeld
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Yes we shou

image Do we want to somehow outline reasoning/which command does what in the description? Because in the example above, it helps me to understand what the LLM wants to do, but not why it does it like this? Can of course also be done in a follow up, but maybe we should decide on the scope and purpose of the description. Is it only to show the intent or also to help the user understand the command?

My intent was to help (me) understand what the command does. So yes we should extend here.

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Thanks LGTM 👍 Lets test it out and reiterate after gathering feedback.

@github-project-automation github-project-automation Bot moved this from Waiting on reviewers to Needs merge in PR Backlog Apr 15, 2026
@eneufeld eneufeld force-pushed the feat/shell-tool-description branch from bcfd783 to cb72399 Compare April 21, 2026 18:49
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