github / github/copilot-cli

Ctrl+T thinking toggle provides no screen reader feedback for state changes

Open Beginner friendly
#3,005 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
area:input-keyboard area:theming-accessibility
Dominant language
Shell
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Description

### Describe the feature or problem you'd like to solve

When pressing Ctrl+T to toggle the reasoning/thinking display on or off, there is no textual or audible feedback indicating the current state of the toggle. Screen reader users have no way to know whether thinking mode is enabled or disabled after pressing the shortcut.

The status bar does not change to reflect the thinking state -- it shows the same content (`/ commands . ? help` and the model name) regardless of whether thinking is on or off. The only way to discover the current state is to submit a prompt and observe whether reasoning text appears in the response.

This was tested on Windows with NVDA and Copilot CLI v1.0.36, with the `screenReader` setting enabled in `settings.json`. Pressing Ctrl+T produces no speech output and no visible text change that the screen reader can detect.

### Proposed solution

When Ctrl+T is pressed, output a brief status message to the terminal indicating the new state, for example:

- "Thinking: enabled"
- "Thinking: disabled"

This would allow screen readers to announce the change and give all users confirmation that the toggle took effect. The `beep` setting could also optionally produce distinct tones for each state.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start at the Ctrl+T keyboard shortcut handler and trace how the screenReader setting and terminal status output are handled. Confirm the toggle's enabled and disabled states, then verify that each press produces an audible or textual state message for screen readers; the status bar or terminal output should make the change clear.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
shell
Domain
accessibility, cli
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
68/100

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