feat(tui): move the activity line while the agent works, and say for how long

.agents/evidence/composer.md

@@ -11,5 +11,5 @@ resolves every one against the source, so a renamed or deleted test fails the bu
 | COM-2 | `backspace_removes_a_whole_grapheme_cluster`, `deleting_an_empty_draft_changes_nothing`, `editing_happens_at_the_caret_rather_than_at_the_end`, `motion_steps_over_whole_clusters_and_stops_at_the_ends`, `word_deletion_takes_the_trailing_space_and_the_word`, `killing_binds_to_the_logical_line_the_caret_is_on`, `the_visible_window_follows_the_caret_above_the_tail`, `a_draft_grows_to_a_third_of_the_column_then_its_window_follows_the_caret` with the `composer-grown-*` and `composer-windowed-*` frames, `the_wheel_over_the_composer_walks_the_draft_one_row_per_notch` |
 | COM-3 | `a_refused_dispatch_returns_the_draft_and_opens_one_notice`, `a_refused_dispatch_is_one_bounded_notice_and_not_an_exit`, `ctrl_j_breaks_the_conversation_draft_but_not_the_drawer_filter`, `enter_submits_and_modified_enter_or_ctrl_j_breaks_the_line`, `a_blank_draft_submits_nothing_and_is_left_alone`, `taking_the_draft_returns_it_exactly_and_clears_it`, `returned_text_lands_after_the_existing_draft`, `a_typed_message_reaches_the_transcript_by_way_of_the_runtime`, `a_submitted_message_is_a_finished_user_item`, `a_live_dispatch_restores_undelivered_user_text`, `persistence_failure_restores_the_draft_and_opens_one_notice` |
 | COM-4 | `the_composer_names_the_model_while_another_agent_is_selected`, `the_user_controlled_child_input_submits_a_message_when_finished`, `ccv_2_user_child_input_uses_its_lifecycle_without_primary_commands`, `production_mapping_preserves_message_steering_interrupt_and_approval`, `production_handoff_routes_child_input_and_retains_the_locked_draft`; `scripts/smoke-delegate.py`; CCV-2/CCV-4 |
-| COM-5 | `current_work_priority_is_derived_from_semantic_facts`, `parallel_running_tools_use_stable_first_appearance_order`, `the_activity_line_names_each_current_work_state_and_the_rule_carries_none`, `current_work_does_not_move_input_and_repeated_facts_cost_no_frame`, `the_current_work_frames_match_their_fixtures` with the `current-work-*` frames |
+| COM-5 | `current_work_priority_is_derived_from_semantic_facts`, `parallel_running_tools_use_stable_first_appearance_order`, `the_activity_line_names_each_current_work_state_and_the_rule_carries_none`, `current_work_does_not_move_input_and_repeated_facts_cost_no_frame`, `the_activity_line_takes_rows_only_while_there_is_work_or_a_request`, `the_activity_line_reads_elapsed_effort_and_quiet_and_drops_them_in_order`, `the_turn_is_counted_from_its_start_and_forgotten_when_it_ends`, `the_count_carries_through_the_gap_between_steps`, `the_count_stops_while_the_turn_waits_on_the_user`, `a_child_streaming_does_not_break_the_primary_quiet`, `the_current_work_frames_match_their_fixtures` with the `current-work-*` frames |
 | COM-6 | `pointer_clicks_place_the_caret_in_each_input`, `edits_that_join_clusters_restore_the_grapheme_boundary`, `a_full_input_row_never_places_the_caret_on_the_border`, `terminal_paste_edits_the_focused_input_without_submitting`; `scripts/smoke-tui.py` drives Chinese paste, pointer insertion, selection replacement and source copying |

.agents/evidence/motion.md

@@ -6,6 +6,6 @@ resolves every one against the source, so a renamed or deleted test fails the bu
 
 | Invariant | Proven by |
 | --- | --- |
-| MOT-1 | `mot_1_one_deadline_serves_every_mover_and_late_wakes_coalesce`, `effort_xhigh_labels_remain_static_without_an_animation_deadline`, `effort_animation_changes_only_visible_max_cells_and_stops_when_hidden` |
-| MOT-2 | Unproven beyond `effort_animation_changes_only_visible_max_cells_and_stops_when_hidden`, which checks the effort markers' width |
+| MOT-1 | `mot_1_one_deadline_serves_every_mover_and_late_wakes_coalesce`, `the_mark_cycle_divides_the_clock_cycle`, `effort_xhigh_labels_remain_static_without_an_animation_deadline`, `effort_animation_changes_only_visible_max_cells_and_stops_when_hidden` |
+| MOT-2 | `mot_2_every_activity_mark_frame_is_one_cell`, `effort_animation_changes_only_visible_max_cells_and_stops_when_hidden` |
 | MOT-3 | `effort_animation_changes_only_visible_max_cells_and_stops_when_hidden` |

.agents/phases/phase-04-product-polish.md

@@ -252,7 +252,7 @@ Visual changes are reviewed against real frames before the contract adopts them.
     queues above the composer. `Alt-↑` restores the newest message and its explicit skill only
     into an empty primary draft; an occupied draft preserves both messages and advertises the
     precondition. Completed skill preparation wakes the projection without requiring provider
-    output or another key. The activity row meets the waiting rule without an extra blank row.
+    output or another key. The waiting rule follows the activity line's own blank row.
     The user delegated completion on 2026-09-12; the agent reviewed the existing design and these
     fixes, and [ui-ux](../ui-ux.md) adopts the resulting input/state grammar. Reviewed frames at
     [wide](../../crates/plexmaton-tui/frames/input-queue-wide.txt),

.agents/plans/phase-04-stage-34-conversation-chrome.md

@@ -5,12 +5,12 @@
 | Phase | [Phase 04](../phases/phase-04-product-polish.md) stage 34 |
 | Contract | [ui-ux](../ui-ux.md) §transcript grammar and its activity-line rule; EFF-4 in [reasoning-effort](../specs/reasoning-effort.md); FR-1 in [frame-loop](../specs/frame-loop.md); TR-6 in [transcript-layout](../specs/transcript-layout.md); SEL-1 and SEL-2 in [selection-and-copy](../specs/selection-and-copy.md) |
 | Evidence | [Conversation chrome spike](../spikes/conversation-chrome/README.md): the rendered candidates the user chose from and the survey of three other CLIs |
-| Status | Slices 1–3 of 5 implemented and locally verified |
+| Status | Slices 1–4 of 5 implemented and locally verified |
 
 ## Outcome
 
 The user's turn is told by its surface rather than by a shout, and a working agent is told by a
-row that moves and says only what is known: how long the step has run, at what effort, and how long
+row that moves and says only what is known: how long the turn has run, at what effort, and how long
 the route has been quiet. Both are presentation. Removing either changes no journal entry, no
 request and no replay.
 
@@ -38,15 +38,20 @@ MOT-1 to MOT-3 live in [motion](../specs/motion.md), promoted when the motion ow
    of view state where every renderer reads it. The effort rail is its first user with no change in
    behaviour. Closed by the effort tests passing unchanged and
    `mot_1_one_deadline_serves_every_mover_and_late_wakes_coalesce`.
-4. **Activity line.** The row opens with the mark's core moving, then the label, then muted `· 11s ·
-   high effort`, and after five seconds without a model event `· quiet for 31s`. Elapsed reads
-   `11s`, `2m 11s`, `1h 2m`. The mark wears blue, the server-tool colour while a provider-run search
-   is the work, and stands still in the action-required colour while approval is required. The
-   core's cycle is the outline morph the user chose in the spike; whether Unicode geometric shapes
-   or the Nerd Font's Material Design outlines draw it, and at what length, is the user's call once
-   their terminal font settles, recorded there. Closes with frames for thinking, responding, running
-   tool, running search, approval, compacting and quiet at three widths; MOT-2 for the cycle; MOT-3
-   as a test that a tick advances no semantic revision.
+4. **Activity line — implemented.** The row opens with the mark, then the label, then muted
+   readings: elapsed across the turn, stopped while an approval or a question waits on the user, the
+   effort, and after five seconds with nothing from the primary's own route `quiet for`, which a
+   child's stream does not interrupt. Elapsed reads `11s`, `2m 11s`, `1h 2m`; a short row drops
+   effort, then quiet, then elapsed. The mark is the Nerd Font's circle, rounded square and square,
+   outline then filled, eight frames at 200 ms, which the user chose in their own terminal over the
+   Unicode cycles that shook. It wears blue, the server-tool colour while a hosted search runs, and
+   stands still in the action-required colour during approval. The readings are presentation: events
+   are dated as they are applied and the motion clock supplies the instant a frame is drawn for.
+   After the user's first look in kitty the row gained a blank row beneath it and gives up its rows
+   when idle with nothing waiting; a selection note never opens them, and rides the status row while
+   they are closed. Closed by refreshed current-work frames, the readings, turn-count, child-quiet
+   and footer-rows tests, the selection drags that no longer move, MOT-2 for the mark, and the
+   activity smokes.
 5. **Documents.** Evidence tables current; SVG review of the frames attached; this plan deleted;
    the phase row says done.
 

.agents/specs/composer.md

@@ -47,12 +47,17 @@ production snapshot delivery and focused child routing are accepted by `scripts/
 The product retains an addressed child submission before cold activation or journal work and
 returns any later refusal to that same worker composer.
 
-**COM-5 — Current work is derived and static.** The conversation's activity line, its last row
-above the composer's top rule, shows at most one label: `Approval required` outranks
-`Running <tool>`, then `Responding`, then `Thinking`; idle shows none. The label is derived from
-the semantic projection and owns no timer; the composer's rules never carry it. The same row's
-right end holds the selection note (SEL-5) and the attention pill (ATT-1), which no longer have a
-border to ride (ui-ux §input).
+**COM-5 — Current work is derived; its readings are presentation.** The conversation's activity
+line, over one blank row above the composer's top rule, shows at most one label: `Approval
+required` outranks `Running <tool>`, then `Responding`, then `Thinking`; idle with nothing waiting
+takes no rows. The label is derived from the semantic projection; the composer's rules never carry
+it. The readings are dated as the workspace applies events and drawn for the motion clock's
+instant, so they never move the semantic revision. Elapsed counts the primary's turn, from when it
+opens until it ends: it carries through the gaps between steps and stops while an approval or a
+question holds the turn on the user. Quiet hears only the primary's own events, never a child's,
+and says nothing while the turn waits on the user. The row's right end holds the selection note
+(SEL-2) and the attention pill (ATT-1); while its rows are closed the selection note rides the
+status row instead (ui-ux §input).
 
 **COM-6 — Input selection names editable source.** A click places the caret; dragging retains a
 grapheme-boundary anchor, paints the source range, and release copies it through SEL-4. Typing or
@@ -91,7 +96,7 @@ Ctrl-C ──▶ non-empty draft ──▶ clear
 | --- | --- |
 | Place | Directly under the primary conversation, between two rules (ui-ux §input): the top rule carries the title and the resolved model's reasoning effort, then the lines, then the bottom rule. The columns a box's sides would spend stay blank, so the caret and the pointer keep a box's geometry |
 | Height | One row per wrapped line, at the width of the conversation column it actually occupies, up to a third of the terminal's height and never fewer than three; a taller draft shows the window containing the caret, which is its newest lines until `↑`/`↓` or the wheel over the composer walk the caret out of them |
-| Current work | One semantic suffix in the existing divider; action required uses its role and other work is ambient |
+| Current work | Never on the composer's rules: the conversation's activity line names it (COM-5) |
 | On a short terminal | Served before the notice strip and the agent list: a workspace that cannot be typed into is not a supported shape |
 | While a sub-agent's input holds the cursor | One row over the bottom rule, `Message Agent A · ⇥ to return`: no top rule, no title, still a focus stop and a pointer target. `Tab` from that input lands on it, because the composer follows the second window in the focus ring |
 

.agents/specs/input-queue.md

@@ -32,8 +32,8 @@ every entry it did not list.
 
 Cut below what it asked for, it lists fewer entries rather than losing the rows off its bottom, and
 the count grows to cover them; below its floor — its rule, one heading, one entry, that count and
-the way back — it takes no rows at all. Its top rule meets the activity row without an extra
-bottom border or blank row. It is chrome, so a row past its rectangle is a row with no
+the way back — it takes no rows at all. Its top rule follows the blank row the activity line keeps
+beneath itself, with no bottom border or blank row of its own. It is chrome, so a row past its rectangle is a row with no
 way to reach it: what it cannot show it must count, and the way back is the last row it gives up.
 Rejected: letting the rows it was granted simply clip its content, which drops the key in IQU-3
 first and leaves the title counting messages the band has stopped showing.

.agents/specs/motion.md

@@ -2,10 +2,10 @@
 
 | Field | Value |
 | --- | --- |
-| Status | MOT-1 and MOT-3 implemented for the effort rail; MOT-2 unproven until the activity line moves |
+| Status | Implemented for the effort rail and the activity line's mark |
 | Owns | When anything in the workspace moves, what a moving frame may change, and the one clock it runs on |
 | Depends on | FR-1 and FR-3 in [frame-loop](./frame-loop.md); EFF-4 in [reasoning-effort](./reasoning-effort.md) as the first thing that moves |
-| Proven by | `plexmaton-tui::workspace` effort tests below |
+| Proven by | `plexmaton-tui::workspace` effort tests and `plexmaton-tui::render` activity-mark tests |
 
 ## Invariants
 
@@ -17,8 +17,7 @@ phase and counts the next tick from itself, queuing no missed frames. Rejected:
 thing, which is how the effort rail began and would have given the activity line a second one.
 
 **MOT-2 — A motion frame is one cell.** Every glyph in a motion sequence has display width one, and
-a test proves it for each sequence, so a frame can never widen or reflow a row. Unproven: the
-effort markers are checked; no other sequence exists yet.
+a test proves it for each sequence, so a frame can never widen or reflow a row.
 
 **MOT-3 — Motion changes presentation only.** A phase change invalidates the painted frame and never
 the semantic revision or layout (FR-1), so replaying a journal reproduces the same rows whatever the
@@ -27,4 +26,5 @@ clock was doing.
 ## Grammar
 
 The phase is a count, not a time: renderers derive their frame from it, so two moving things on
-screen stay in step. The effort rail's marker completes a cycle every 1.6 s (EFF-4).
+screen stay in step. The effort rail's marker and the activity line's mark each complete a cycle every
+1.6 s, the mark at three phases a frame over eight frames.

.agents/specs/selection-and-copy.md

@@ -42,7 +42,9 @@ capability/failure labels are not copied. Clipping and source fallback preserve
 Maps and prepared rows share MD-4's bounded cache; cache hits borrow mapping data, and highlighting
 copies only the rows it paints. Copying reads only the selected entries, not the whole history;
 PRE-4 prepares missing maps through the owned worker rather than reparsing on release. Pending,
-changed-source and failure feedback appears on the selected conversation's activity line, not as a delivery acknowledgement.
+changed-source and failure feedback appears on the selected conversation's activity line, or, for
+the primary while that line's rows are closed, at the status row's right end; never as a delivery
+acknowledgement.
 
 **SEL-3 — One selection, in one surface, for one agent.** A selection carries the surface and the
 agent it indexes. Extending in a different surface replaces it, and a selection whose surface stops
@@ -62,7 +64,9 @@ successful terminal write has no acknowledgement; helper success proves only tha
 accepted the request. Native helper failure is returned without a silent route change. The CLI publishes `✓ Copied` only
 for native acceptance, or `Copy sent` for terminal/tmux send. A two-second receipt overlays the
 bottom-right status cells without layout or focus changes; quit has priority without extending
-its window. New admitted copies withdraw old receipts; cancellation, replacement and delivery
+its window. While the primary's activity line is closed those cells otherwise carry its selection
+note (SEL-2), which a receipt replaces for its two seconds. New admitted copies withdraw old
+receipts; cancellation, replacement and delivery
 failure produce none. The two tmux legs remain independent: a successful terminal send can report
 `Copy sent` even when the helper rejects; this does not claim clipboard acceptance. All helper
 operations bound both stdin writes and exit waits to 500 ms, kill and reap on failure, timeout or

.agents/spikes/conversation-chrome/README.md

@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ generators are in [`mockups/`](./mockups/); each writes one HTML page to
 | Surface | Chosen | Rejected on sight |
 | --- | --- | --- |
 | Activity line composition | mark, label, muted `· 32s · high effort`, `· quiet for 31s` once nothing has arrived; no token count | a red stall tell; estimated tokens |
-| Activity mark | the outline morph: ring grows, rounds into the frame, frame sharpens (`◦ ○ ◯ ▢ □ ◻`). Drawn with Unicode geometric shapes (C2′, 12 frames; C2″, 8) or the Nerd Font's Material Design outlines (N2): the user decides once their terminal font settles | filled squares, which the font draws as rectangles; braille; quarter circles; Claude Code's star |
+| Activity mark | N2, the Nerd Font's circle, rounded square and square, outline then filled: chosen 2026-09-22 in a kitty window beside the Unicode cycles; the user asked for the filled half to keep it simple yet ever changing | C2′ and C2″, which shook in the user's terminal because mixed-size Unicode shapes centre differently; filled squares; braille; quarter circles; Claude Code's star |
 | User message | band of lifted ground with a blue `›`, continuation indented | the accent bar; a bare prefix; a hairline bar; a band alone |
 | Mark placement | centred in the empty conversation, name beneath, gone with the first message | a header or drawer slot, not yet asked for |
 | Mark motion | K4 as the base: frame breathes between weights and drifts between palette slots; centre morphs circle, ring, rounded square, square, solid and outline | K1 to K3 as they stood |