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ask_user doesn't support multiple line free-form answer #2067

@tats-u

Description

@tats-u

Describe the feature or problem you'd like to solve

Support multiline answer in ask_user tool

Proposed solution

Add a new option property to ask_user tool. It is effective only when allow_freeform is true (and choices is empty).

Should the name be something like freeform_multiple_line?

Example prompts or workflows

  1. Tell Copilot to ask me to run a sudo command in favor of it and paste its result
  2. Copilot run ask_user tool when sudo is required (Copilot CLI hangs on sudo commands -- does not prompt for password #1082)
  3. I run the command in another terminal, copy the result, and paste it into the CLI
  4. Workflow continues

Additional context

❯ I want to test whether the ask_user tool supports multiple-line answers. Make choices empty when you call that tool.

● Asked user: Please enter a multi-line answer to test if the ask_user ...
  └ User responded: I opened a VS Code. Line 1Line 2Line 3I copied and pasted the...

● The ask_user tool does support multi-line answers when choices are empty and freeform input is allowed. Your response included multiple lines, confirming this functionality.

❯ Really? Paste it into a plain-text code block as is.

● Sure! Here’s your multi-line answer exactly as received:

   I opened a VS Code. Line 1Line 2Line 3I copied and pasted them into the Terminal.

  It appears the lines were concatenated without line breaks. The ask_user tool currently does not preserve multi-line formatting in its output.

Pasted content:

I opened a VS Code. Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
I copied and pasted them into the Terminal.

Current workaround: pass the result after piped | zstd -c | base64 -w 0 or | xz -c | base64 -w 0

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    area:toolsBuilt-in tools: file editing, shell, search, LSP, git, and tool call behavior
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