Summary

After /new session reset, the TUI footer displays stale token counts (e.g., 92k) that gradually converge to the correct value over several messages. session_status tool shows correct values immediately.

Observed Behavior

The 92k appears consistently after reset regardless of previous session size (tested with a 16k session → still showed 92k after reset).

Root Cause (via Codex investigation)

1. sessions.reset doesn't clear token counts

src/gateway/server-methods/sessions.ts creates a new entry but omits inputTokens/outputTokens/totalTokens instead of explicitly setting them to 0.

The listing code in src/gateway/session-utils.ts then falls back to:

entry.totalTokens ?? (inputTokens + outputTokens)

...which can pick up stale values from the store.

2. TUI shows stale state during refresh

After reset, the TUI doesn't immediately clear its local sessionInfo. It shows the old cached total until refreshSessionInfo() completes.

3. Token totals are per-run, not cumulative

Each agent run in src/auto-reply/reply/agent-runner.ts overwrites totalTokens with that run's prompt tokens. This explains the decrease pattern (92k → 21k → 16k) — the 92k is from a previous heavy run that got cached somewhere.

Key Files

Suggested Fix

1. sessions.reset should explicitly set inputTokens: 0, outputTokens: 0, totalTokens: 0 on the new entry
2. TUI should clear sessionInfo token fields immediately on reset (before waiting for refresh)

Related

• Session totalTokens and context percentage stuck at 0 #1516 (session token tracking shows 0) — may share root cause in session metadata handling