Refined Chat

A Paseo plugin that redraws the chat of your coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Oh My Pi and others that Paseo drives): tool calls, reasoning, prompts, approvals and checklists become typed, syntax-aware cards that follow the active Paseo theme, and you decide how big the text is, what folds, and how it is coloured. Coverage of specialised events can differ by provider.

• Three independent text sizes for replies, tool cards and code, plus reply line spacing.
• You choose what folds: which card kinds start collapsed, which fold when they finish, and how long an output must be before it folds at all. Long prompts, code blocks and tool output fold too.
• Colours: a custom accent, a colour for bold text, and optional ==highlight== marks, all from one palette or any hex.
• Readable cards for shell, git, read, write, edit, MCP, eval, subagents, hub and Paseo tools, with a one-line summary of what each did.
• Images in replies and image reads, with a viewer.
• Links that show where they go and warn when the text disagrees with the target.
• A read-only file preview in the side panel for a path in a reply or on a tool card, with the line marked.
• Its own find bar (Ctrl/Cmd+F) that searches the whole chat, tool cards included.

Refined Chat is an independent fork of Beautiful Chat by ABorakati. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the upstream developer or Paseo. Both plugins intercept Paseo timeline items, so disable Beautiful Chat before enabling Refined Chat. See Credits.

Install

From the Paseo catalog:

paseo plugin add genodevelop/refined-chat

The plugin installs under the ID refined-chat. If you already have a plugin with that ID (an earlier install from Git, say), Paseo refuses with Plugin ID "refined-chat" is already configured: remove the old one with paseo plugin remove refined-chat, or give the new one another ID with --id, for example paseo plugin add genodevelop/refined-chat --id refined-chat-catalog.

The catalog installs a revision a reviewer has checked, and a new version reaches it only when it is submitted again. To follow main instead, install from the public GitHub repository:

paseo plugin add git:GenoDevelop/paseo-refined-chat

Or pin a published release by its tag:

paseo plugin add git:GenoDevelop/paseo-refined-chat --ref v0.5.0

Requires Paseo 0.11.0 or later. Everything below is configured in Settings → Plugins → Refined Chat, and each setting is stored on the client you change it on.

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Settings

The settings page is grouped into collapsible sections; a section remembers whether you left it open. A setting that depends on another dims when it cannot apply, and says why.

Appearance

Setting	Effect
Custom accent colour	Off follows the Paseo theme. On, pick a palette colour or Custom.
Colour bold text	Off keeps the surrounding text colour. On, pick a palette colour or Custom.
Interface font	Embedded Inter, or the system interface face.
Code font	Iosevka, Paseo's own Code font (followed live), or an installed font you name.
Code glyphs	Iosevka only: with ligatures, or literal glyphs.
Frosted glass	Blur card surfaces, or paint them solid.
Pointer glow	A soft light follows the pointer across each card (desktop and web).

Accent, bold text and marks draw from one palette of soft pastels (Rose, Orange, Yellow, Green, Sky, Violet), so a name means the same colour wherever you pick it. On a light theme, text colours use a deeper step of the same name so they stay readable. Custom opens a strip of 24 hues and a hex field, and each setting remembers its own custom colour when you switch to a preset and back.

Text size and spacing

Enter any percentage between 50% and 300%, decimals included (112.5), then press Enter or leave the field to apply it.

Control	What it scales
Assistant replies	Markdown text, headings, lists and their spacing.
Tool cards	Tool UI, labels, reasoning, checklists, statuses and metadata.
Code and terminal	Fenced code, diffs, line numbers and terminal output.
Reply line spacing	Line height in replies, 80% to 200%, apart from the text size. Gaps between blocks, tool cards and code do not change.

Each starts at 100%. Inline code follows the reply size so lines wrap naturally. The reply size applies to the plugin's own Markdown renderer; with Assistant markdown off, Paseo's appearance settings control that text.

Replies and prompts

Setting	Effect
Assistant markdown	The plugin's headings, lists and highlighted code blocks. Off hands replies back to Paseo, which also brings back mermaid diagrams, images and its file-path links.
Markdown style	Document (airy), Compact (tight) or Terminal (body in the code face).
File paths in replies	A file path in inline code opens a read-only side panel (default), or shows the file in your file manager. See Opening files.
Highlight marks	Draws ==text== as a highlighter mark, in a palette colour or a custom one. Off by default: it is not standard Markdown, and an assistant writes it only if your instructions ask for it. Off shows the equals signs as typed.
Enhanced prompt bubble	Off hands prompts back to Paseo, whose bubble shows pasted images.
Selection actions	Selecting text in a card raises Copy and Add to chat (desktop and web).

Tool card folding

Nothing folds on its own until you pick something here.

Setting	Effect
Cards that start collapsed	Kinds drawn folded from the start, even while running and when the call fails.
Cards to collapse when finished	Kinds that fold back up once they finish. A thinking stream stays open while it streams. A kind that already starts collapsed is dimmed here.
Only fold longer cards	Keeps a card open while its output, code and diff add up to fewer lines than the limit. Dimmed when no kind is left to fold.

The kinds are Shell and Git, Writes, Edits, Reads, Other tools and Thinking. A card you open or close yourself keeps its state, and an ask card never folds. Expanded cards have a Collapse control at the bottom, so you do not scroll back to the header.

Long content

Each limit is a switch plus a number that appears when it is on. A block that would hide fewer than five lines stays whole, and a running call is never folded.

Setting	Default	What it folds
Long terminal output	20 lines	Text results (command output, errors, eval output, GitHub replies). They keep their start and end and fold the middle, because the error and the summary are at the end.
Long code and diffs	30 lines	File reads, writes, diffs, structured data (MCP input and response, GitHub files and requests, eval code, subagent prompts) and code blocks in replies. They show their first lines and fold the rest. Hub cards are not folded.
Long prompts	15 lines	A prompt shows its first rows behind Show full prompt. A long paragraph with no line breaks counts about 70 characters a line.

Copy always copies everything, and the find bar opens the folded blocks that hold what you search for, then folds them again when it closes. Text selection covers only the lines on screen.

Advanced

Setting	Effect
Load remote images automatically (at your own risk)	Off by default. See Images.
Preview files outside the project (at your own risk)	Off by default. Lets the File preview panel read a text file outside the agent's working directory. See Opening files.
Let Paseo fold tool calls and turns	Off by default. With it on and Paseo's Chat display set to Collapse tool calls or Collapse turns, those rows are drawn by Paseo, which can only fold its own rows. Reload the plugin or restart the app after changing it.

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What the cards show

Card	What you get
Shell and Git	A terminal frame with Bash highlighting, exit code and duration. The header says what the command did: what git changed (+53 −0), how many lines it printed (8 lines), or no output. A failed call keeps its exit code.
Read	The file's language logo, a path that is a link (shown relative to the working directory when the file lies inside it), line numbers (real ones when the read starts mid-file), a copy button, and how many lines came back.
Write and Edit	Diffs with old and new line numbers, adjacent removed and added rows joined into one block, and the changed words highlighted. The header carries +X −Y. A failed call shows no count, and a failed edit labels its diff "Not applied". The path is a link, like on a read card.
Images	The picture itself instead of an empty code block. See Images.
Reasoning	Live thinking text, a token badge, numbered steps, a connected rail with per-step time.
MCP	Server badge, transport, input parameters and the response, each highlighted.
Eval	One card per kernel cell: the source that ran, then what it printed.
Ask	Option cards with the recommended badge, the chosen answer marked, and a typed reply labelled as typed.
Task	Subagent name, type, model and the delegated instructions.
Hub	Every hub op: process cards with launch line, readiness and output, message cards, job snapshots. They report only, because a plugin cannot restart or cancel anything.
Paseo tools	Paseo's mark leads the card, and a created agent's provider carries its brand mark.
Checklist	Phase name, per-task status and duration, and a blocked task with its reason.
Approval	Risk class, the exact command, target path and working directory, with the approve and deny actions the host owns.
Prompt	The authored turn on a raised surface with a copy button and the turn's token usage.

A tool the plugin has no typed card for still shows its output in the terminal frame, and a call that printed nothing says so. No card renders an empty panel.

Images

A read of a .png carries no bytes through the timeline, so the host draws an empty code block. The image card draws the file: a picture mark, the path as a link, the pixel and file size, and an eye control that hides the thumbnail. The bytes come from the plugin's own daemon-side RPC (file.image), the only side that can reach the file. PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, BMP, ICO and SVG are recognised, and anything past 3 MB reports its size rather than inlining it.

When an agent writes ![description](file:///path/to/image.png) on a line of its own, the reply shows the picture as a small thumbnail, several in a row when they follow one another, with the description, size and weight over it on hover. A click opens a viewer that never draws it larger than its own size; the wheel zooms around the pointer, a drag moves it, two fingers pinch it, and buttons give zoom, 1:1 and fit.

Local files and data: images load at once. A remote http(s) image waits as a tile that names the server and has a Load button: the agent writes the address, and a prompt injection can use it to send chat data off your machine. Load remote images automatically removes the wait.

Links

A link in a reply shows where it goes: an icon before the text (GitHub, mail or web), a dashed underline on hover, and the full address in a bubble above it. When the text reads as an address that differs from the real target, the icon turns into an amber warning and the bubble names both. File paths and links on tool cards get the same underline. On a touch screen the underline stays permanent.

Opening files

A file name in a read, write, edit or code block is a link, and so is a file path in a reply. What pressing it does follows the setting File paths in replies: it opens the read-only File preview panel (the default, described below), or shows the file in your file manager. A read card marks the line it began at, and an edit card the line it changed. The file manager is reached through the plugin's own daemon-side RPC (file.reveal), which resolves the path against the agent's working directory and asks the platform shell to show it:

Platform	Behaviour
Windows	explorer.exe /select,<file> selects the file.
macOS	open -R <file> selects the file in Finder.
Other	xdg-open <directory> opens the containing directory.

A file path in inline code in a reply works the same way: src/app.ts, C:\work\app.ts:55 or ./notes.md becomes a link (a :55 line selector marks that line in the panel, and the file manager ignores it). A bare file name needs a common source or text extension, so v1.beta stays text. The path comes from the agent, so network paths (\\host\share, //host/share) are never linked and the daemon refuses them. The link only shows the file; it never opens or runs it. A link carries a file icon and, on hover, a bubble saying what pressing does.

A path in command output is a link too: in the output and the error output of a shell tool (Bash, PowerShell and the like), git, an eval cell, or a tool whose result is plain text. The compiler errors, stack traces and test failures that name a file open it at that line: src/a.ts(12,5), app.js:10:5, File "t.py", line 12 and src\Program.cs(40,13) are read as :line[:column]. The same tests apply as for a reply, so a URL, a version number or a network path is never a link, and a path with a space in it is not found, because the output does not say where it ends. A relative path is resolved against the agent's working directory, so one printed by a command that ran in another folder may not exist; pressing it then does nothing.

By default pressing a file path opens a read-only File preview panel in Paseo's side view, with syntax colours and line numbers (a Markdown file opens rendered, with its local images beside it, and a button for its source); a second press replaces the file in the open panel. The panel reads the file through a second daemon-side RPC (file.read), which is stricter than file.reveal because it returns contents: the file must be inside the agent's working directory once symbolic links are resolved, at most 1 MB, and text. Any other file, and every folder, goes to the file manager instead (the panel says why and offers a button). A path with a line (app.ts:55) marks that line and scrolls to it; for a range the first line is marked. In a rendered Markdown file the block holding the line is tinted, and a link to another file beside it (docs/TESTING.md, ../README.md#L12) shows that file in the panel; Back returns. A link to a heading (#usage, docs/X.md#usage) scrolls to it and tints it. The same rules apply to the linked file as to a path pressed in a reply. A picture opens drawn, with a Full screen button, through the same image RPC that draws pictures on tool cards: it reads only recognised image types of up to 3 MB and, unlike file.read, is not limited to the working directory. The setting "File paths in replies" switches the whole thing back to the file manager. The Advanced setting "Preview files outside the project" lifts the working-directory rule for text files (network paths, the 1 MB limit and the text check still apply); it is off by default because the agent writes the path, so a prompt injection can link a private file such as ~/.ssh/config.

A folder in inline code links too, with a folder icon and the bubble "Open folder", when it cannot be mistaken for prose: it ends with a separator (src/, .\build\) or starts from a drive or ~ (C:\work\app, ~/app). and/or, /api/users and /compact stay text. A path from a root without an extension or a trailing separator (~/.gitconfig, C:\work\Makefile) shows the folder icon, because it cannot be told from a folder by its text; pressing it asks the daemon whether it is a file (file.kind, a stat and nothing more), and a file then opens in the side panel like any other.

A directory path opens that directory in the file manager. A path the daemon cannot stat does nothing in the file manager, and the panel says the file was not found. The link cannot open Paseo's own file editor, which plugins cannot target: see the first limitation. The side panel is the plugin's own viewer.

What the plugin reads

The plugin sends no telemetry and collects no credentials. Six things run on the daemon, each when a card or a pressed path needs it:

Purpose	What it reads
Image previews (file.image)	A local image file an agent names, up to 3 MB, and only a recognised image type. The bytes go to the connected client.
Edit line numbers	The file an edit refers to, up to 5 MB, to find where the text sits. Only a line number comes back.
Syntax highlighting	The code a card shows, parsed by libraries installed with the plugin.
Showing a file (file.reveal)	Nothing: it asks the platform file manager to select the path, without a shell command.
File or folder (file.kind)	Nothing: a stat of a path from a reply, answering file, folder or missing.
Side panel (file.read)	The text of the file you pressed, up to 1 MB, only inside the agent's working directory unless you turn on Preview files outside the project. The text goes to your own panel.

Image previews, edit line numbers, file.reveal and file.kind are not limited to the agent's working directory; file.read is, by default. Every call that takes a path from a reply refuses a network path (\\host\share) before any lookup. A remote image in a reply is not fetched until you press Load, unless you turn on automatic loading.

Finding text

Paseo's own chat find (Ctrl/Cmd+F) cannot reach a prompt or reply this plugin draws (see limitation 14). The plugin therefore takes Ctrl/Cmd+F on desktop and web and opens its own find bar over the chat. It searches everything the chat has rendered, tool cards included. Enter moves to the next match, Shift+Enter to the previous one, and Escape closes the bar. It searches only messages the chat has loaded, so scroll up first to include older history.

To keep Paseo's native search, which also searches unloaded history, turn off Assistant markdown and Enhanced prompt bubble. Paseo then draws replies and prompts itself, and Ctrl/Cmd+F opens Paseo's find. Tool, reasoning and checklist cards keep the plugin's styling, so Paseo's find still cannot reveal a match inside one of them.

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Plugin SDK limitations found while building this

Measured against @getpaseo/plugin 0.8.0 and the Paseo 0.8.0 desktop build; the plugin now builds against 0.14.0. Re-checked against 0.14.0: entry 1 now has a second workaround (see it), and entries 5 and 13 still hold. The others have not been re-measured. Each entry names the evidence and the workaround this plugin uses.

1. No file navigation. Timeline renderer props are exactly {agentId, theme, host, layout, timestamp, item}, and plugin navigation offers only openSettings, openSurface, openWorkspacePanel, openAgentPanel, openAgent, and openWorkspace. The host's own file tab target ({kind:"file", path}, reachable in-app through ?open=file:<path>) is not exposed, and the paseo:// scheme only carries agent deep links. Workaround: a daemon-side RPC that reveals the path in the operating system's file manager, and, through addWorkspacePanel and openPanel (both in the SDK since at least 0.9.1), the plugin's own read-only File preview panel in the side view. openPanel carries only the workspace, so the path reaches the panel through a store on the client.
2. Transformers see a stripped item. The app maps its stream item to the plugin item before any transformer runs, and a user message keeps only text, messageId, and clientMessageId. Pasted images never reach plugin code, and the daemon timeline row stores the same item, so a server RPC cannot recover them either. Workaround: the Enhanced prompt bubble setting returns prompts to the host.
3. Interception is all or nothing. A transformer replaces the host item completely. There is no way to decorate an item or keep host affordances that the plugin does not reimplement. Returning undefined is the only opt-out.
4. Transform results are cached per item. Changing a preference does not re-run transformers for items already on screen. New items follow the change; existing ones need a reload.
5. Renderers get no workspace. Props carry agentId only, so cwd and workspaceId need a second lookup through useAgent.
6. Token usage is live-only. Usage is not persisted on timeline items, so a turn this client did not observe live shows no figures.
7. RPC names are validated late. The host requires ^[a-z][a-z0-9._-]*$. A camelCase name such as revealPath typechecks, then fails the whole plugin at install or reload with Invalid plugin RPC method.
8. The React Native runtime module is a stub in the package. @getpaseo/plugin/client/react-native ships as export {}; the host injects the implementations. Bundling or testing plugin UI outside Paseo needs a shim, which is what .showcase/shims provides.
9. The theme carries six colours. PluginTheme exposes surface0–surface2, border, foreground, foregroundMuted, accent, accentForeground, and three status colours. Every other surface, including code backgrounds and diff tints, must be derived with alpha; that is what client/components/theme-tokens.ts exists for.
10. No CSS escape hatch. React Native styles drop unknown keys, so backdrop-filter is impossible through the style API. Frosted glass is a hand-injected <style> rule matched by a data attribute.
11. No font registration. Faces are embedded as data URIs in an injected @font-face rule, and every surface needs a wrapper that escapes the host's own font cascade.
12. A closed module allowlist, and no SVG renderer. Plugin client code may import only react, react/jsx-runtime, react-native, @tanstack/react-query, zod, @getpaseo/plugin, @getpaseo/plugin/client, @getpaseo/plugin/client/react-native, and @getpaseo/plugin/client/ui. Anything else throws Module "x" is not available in plugin client code when the bundle loads, so react-native-svg and lucide-react-native are out of reach. Lucide icons still work, because the host renders them: Icon from @getpaseo/plugin/client/react-native takes any Lucide name. Brand marks are not in Lucide, and React Native's <Image> decodes PNG, JPEG, GIF, and WebP but never SVG, so a data-URI SVG renders on web and stays blank on iOS and Android. Those marks ship as PNG rasters in client/components/mark-bitmaps.ts.
13. Settings are host-scoped only. defineSettings rejects any scope other than host, so per-workspace or per-agent presentation settings are impossible. This plugin keeps presentation preferences in client storage instead.
14. Paseo's chat find cannot reach replaced rows. Paseo 0.9.1 finds a match by its original message id, then waits for a row carrying that id. A transformed row always carries <pluginId>/<itemId> instead, so Ctrl+F on a styled prompt or reply never reveals the match. Workaround: the plugin's own find bar, described in Finding text.

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Project structure

refined-chat/
  paseo-plugin.json          # Manifest: id and Paseo requirement
  index.client.tsx           # Timeline transformers, renderers, settings screen
  index.server.ts            # Daemon-side RPCs (file.reveal, file.kind, file.read, file.locate,
                             #   file.image, highlighting)
  shared/                    # Contracts shared by client and server, one file per RPC
  client/
    live-renderers.tsx       # Timeline item to component mapping
    file-preview.tsx         # The File preview side panel and its store
    file-link.ts             # Parsing and resolving links to files, headings and lines
    settings-page.tsx        # Settings screen
    preferences.ts           # Client-side preferences, palette and migrations
    tool-collapse.ts         # Which cards fold, and when
    fold.ts                  # Long-content folding
    components/              # Cards, markdown, syntax block, glyphs, theme tokens
      mark-bitmaps.ts        # GENERATED PNG rasters of every brand mark
      devicon-data.ts        # Vendor SVG sources, read only by the generator
      lobe-marks.ts          # Vendor SVG sources, read only by the generator
  .showcase/                 # Offline harness for rendering cards outside Paseo
  docs/                      # Testing, releasing and upstream notes, screenshots

Development

npm ci
npm run typecheck
paseo plugin reload refined-chat

There is no automated test suite and no hosted CI: checks run locally, by hand, in a running Paseo (see docs/TESTING.md). For a manual release, see docs/RELEASING.md. Contributions are welcome: see CONTRIBUTING.md.

.showcase/ renders the cards offline with React Native Web. To rebuild it:

esbuild .showcase/showcase.tsx --bundle --outfile=.showcase/showcase.js --jsx=automatic \
  --alias:react-native=react-native-web \
  --alias:@getpaseo/plugin/client/react-native=./.showcase/shims/plugin-react-native.tsx

Credits and license

The original Beautiful Chat implementation is by ABorakati, and Refined Chat keeps its Git history and MIT license. Several features adapt work from open upstream pull requests, credited to their authors in NOTICE.md.

Code is MIT-licensed; embedded fonts keep their own SIL OFL 1.1 terms. See LICENSE, NOTICE.md and third-party notices.