Summary

Fixes #211. The new Kiro CLI TUI renders the idle-prompt placeholder (Ask a question or describe a task) before the ● Initializing... phase completes. CAO's get_status() matched the placeholder and declared IDLE ~1s into launch, so the first user message was sent before Kiro could accept input — the message was silently dropped and the session appeared stuck.

Root cause

get_status() had three processing-related checks:

1. TUI_PROCESSING_PATTERN (Kiro is working) — position-aware (lingers as ghost text in buffer after in-place redraws).
2. Idle-prompt presence check — if absent, return PROCESSING.
3. Default IDLE.

Nothing covered the startup phase: the TUI paints the full layout (separator, agent header, idle-prompt line) while Initializing... is still animating, so the naive idle match fires and the caller sees IDLE before Kiro is ready.

Fix

Add TUI_INITIALIZING_PATTERN = r"Initializing\.\.\." and check for it at the top of get_status() — before any idle-prompt match. Unlike Kiro is working, Initializing... is always cleared by Kiro once startup completes, so its presence unconditionally means PROCESSING. No position-aware logic needed.

Failing session (before fix)

19:43:16 - send_keys: kiro-cli chat --agent agent-ops
19:43:17 - Waiting for {idle, completed}, status: PROCESSING
19:43:18 - Waiting for {idle, completed}, status: IDLE        ← false IDLE
19:43:28 - ERROR: No Kiro CLI response found - no Credits marker or green arrow detected

After fix

19:55:08 - send_keys: kiro-cli chat --model claude-sonnet-4.6 --agent agent-ops
19:55:08 - PROCESSING
19:55:09 - PROCESSING    ← correctly stays PROCESSING during Initializing
19:55:11 - IDLE          ← real IDLE after init completed (~3s)

Changes

src/cli_agent_orchestrator/providers/kiro_cli.py:

• Add TUI_INITIALIZING_PATTERN constant with a comment explaining the asymmetry with Kiro is working.
• In get_status(), add a pre-idle check: if Initializing... is present anywhere in the buffer, return PROCESSING.

test/providers/test_kiro_cli_unit.py:

• test_tui_initializing_yields_processing_despite_idle_placeholder — reproduces issue fix(kiro_cli): false IDLE detection during TUI initialization #211: buffer contains Initializing... + separator + idle-prompt placeholder, must return PROCESSING.
• test_tui_initializing_cleared_allows_idle — once Initializing... is gone, IDLE resolves normally.
• test_tui_initializing_pattern — pattern matches expected forms; rejects bare Initializing / Initialized to avoid false positives on agent output.

Test plan

• test/providers/test_kiro_cli_unit.py passes (94 tests, +3 new)
• Full unit/integration suite passes (1522 passed, 14 skipped)
• black --check clean on changed files
• Live cao launch on a fresh kiro-cli 2.x session: first user message arrives after the real idle, not during Initializing...