nwhitehouse pulls search results out of the activity log and into the answer

When the model returns sources but little prose, the sources now show up as the answer instead of hiding behind a 'completed in steps' toggle.

searchchat-ui

nwhitehouse's fork now treats every result from a legal or web search as a reference card in its own right - a title, where it came from (CourtListener and Federal Register for case law and rulings, plain web for the rest), a date, and a snippet, each linking out to the source. The cards stream in as they're found rather than waiting for the assistant to finish thinking.

The more interesting move is the bug fix behind it. Those cards were being tucked inside a collapsible disclosure, so on multi-source research questions - where the model often hands back citations but thin write-up - the user saw an empty-looking reply unless they manually expanded it. The fix breaks references out into the main conversation, on the candid logic that the sources are the answer when the model under-explains.

So what Worth a look for anyone building a research or search-backed chat tool who wants citations treated as results, not buried in a tool-activity log.

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Spotted something wrong? Or know the PR text has fresher detail than the writeup above?

Commits in this thread

2 commits from nwhitehouse/mike, oldest first. Source extracted verbatim from the harvested git log.

SHA	Subject	Author	Date
`e7f59072`	[feat-004] References inline display	Nick Whitehouse	2026-05-04	↗ GitHub
commit body Surfaces every legal_search and web_search result as a clickable card in the assistant message, decoupling source-link visibility from Olava's synthesis. Even when the model under-summarises (which it does because it's a small reasoning model), the user sees every source and can click through. Backend - chatTools.ts: new ReferenceResult type, accumulated by runToolCalls, returned alongside docsRead/docsCreated/etc. legal_search and web_search dispatch cases push one ReferenceResult per result and emit a "reference_added" SSE event for each (live streaming so cards appear as soon as fetched). - runLLMStream's runTools callback iterates references and pushes reference_added events into the assistant message's events array, so reloading a chat keeps the cards visible. - Backend AssistantEvent union extended with reference_added shape. Frontend - types.ts: AssistantEvent union extended to mirror the backend shape. - useAssistantChat.ts: handles reference_added SSE events live. - AssistantMessage.tsx: new ReferenceBlock card component (title + source label + date + snippet, blue dot connector, hover state, opens URL in new tab). Dispatch case interleaves cards chronologically with content and other tool events. Same card style works for both legal and web sources - feat-005's multi-pass orchestrator will produce many of these per turn and they'll all render with one component. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
`3785d7f2`	[bug-003] Render references outside the collapsible step wrapper	Nick Whitehouse	2026-05-04	↗ GitHub
commit body feat-004's reference_added events were getting grouped into the PreResponseWrapper alongside other tool chatter, which collapses to "Completed in N steps" by default. References were invisible until the user expanded the disclosure - which is exactly backwards: references ARE the answer when Olava under-synthesises (which it does on multi-source research queries; see Lawyer Tech Misuse Case test where Olava emitted only "\n\n" three times alongside 11 web references). Fix: extend the EventGroup discriminated union with a "reference" kind that breaks the pre-wrapper just like content does. Reference cards now render inline at top level, never hidden behind a disclosure. Verified against the chat that motivated the fix - same 11 references will now render as cards instead of collapsing into "Completed in 5 steps" wrappers. Synthesis quality (Olava emitting empty content) is a separate problem addressed by feat-005. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

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