Description

Two issues with truncate_output() in interpreter/core/utils/truncate_output.py:

1. Output permanently lost: When command output exceeds max_output_chars, the middle portion is replaced with [...] and discarded. Neither the user nor the LLM can recover the full output. For commands like ls -la on a large directory or grep -r results, the most useful data is often in the discarded portion.

2. Truncation message references non-existent method: The message tells users to use computer.ai.summarize(result), which does not exist in the CLI context. Users follow this suggestion and get an error.

3. ANSI escape codes counted as content: Raw ANSI codes are counted toward the character limit, meaning the visible content is shorter than max_output_chars suggests.

Current code

message = (f"Output truncated ({len(data):,} characters total). "
           f"Showing {chars_per_end:,} characters from start/end. "
           "To handle large outputs, store result in python var first "
           "`result = command()` then `computer.ai.summarize(result)` for "
           "a summary, search with `result.find('text')`...")

Suggested fix

• Strip ANSI escape codes before measuring length
• Save full output to a temp file (e.g. /tmp/oi-output-latest.txt) before truncating, so users can review it
• Reword the truncation message to reference practical shell commands (head, tail, grep) instead of non-existent Python methods

Related: #1588

Environment

• open-interpreter 0.4.3
• Python 3.10, Linux