agent-signals

057. Kilo Code CLI can draw nothing for 30 s while a child npm runs

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Date
2026-10-30
Agents
Kilo Code CLI
Measured on
CI runner macos-26-intel (x64)

Measured

2026-10-30, Kilo Code CLI 7.8.18 (npm @kilocode/cli), the scenario scenarios/first-run.sh kilo kilo in the scenarios workflow (run 41142220844), with a throwaway HOME, no login and no key. The scenario records the screen, the processes and the files below HOME at each step. The step 02-after-20s came about 30 s after the start on macos-26-intel, and about 20 s after the start on the other labels. The data comes from the scrubbed summary in the job logs and from the scrubbed artifact.

Measured on: CI runner macos-26-intel (x64). For comparison: CI runner ubuntu-24.04 (x64), ubuntu-22.04-arm (arm64), macos-15, macos-26 (arm64) and macos-15-intel (x64). The screens of ubuntu-22.04, ubuntu-26.04, ubuntu-24.04-arm and ubuntu-26.04-arm were also compared.

What was measured

  1. On macos-26-intel, the pane was empty at the step 02-after-20s: 40 empty lines. On the other nine labels, Kilo Code CLI showed its input box at that step.

  2. At that step on macos-26-intel, the TUI process .kilo had a child process npm list with no tty (??). On the five other labels whose processes were read, no npm list process was there at that step.

  3. On each of the six labels whose files were read, Kilo Code CLI made .npm/_logs/<time>-debug-0.log and .npm/_update-notifier-last-checked below HOME. The time in the name of the npm log came after the line "version:" of the scenario log:

    Label Delay of the npm log
    ubuntu-24.04 3 s
    ubuntu-22.04-arm 4 s
    macos-26 5 s
    macos-15 7 s
    macos-15-intel 8 s
    macos-26-intel 19 s

  4. On macos-26-intel, the TUI already held .local/share/kilo/kilo.db (with -wal and -shm) and two logs in .local/share/kilo/log/ open, as on the other labels.

Mechanism

Kilo Code CLI starts npm on each first start. On the slowest runner, the npm child still ran when the other labels had drawn the box, and the pane stayed empty. This suggests that the TUI waits for npm before it draws. The source of Kilo Code CLI was not read, and one run does not prove the cause.

A tool must not read an empty pane of a new agent process as a dead or idle agent. The state is NO_BOX: the agent has not drawn its box yet.

Incident

None.

Screens

Not measured

Screens in the corpus that name this fact