Experimental vim editing in the prompt, plus fail-closed hooks

Terminal editing habits, safety hooks and a busy transcript all pull in different directions when you work with several agents at once. This week the prompt learns vim, hooks learn to fail safely, and the transcript turns subagents, task ids and file paths into things you can click.

This update covers October 26 to 28, 2026 (week 44): versions 1.0.71 to 1.0.73, three releases with 51 changelog entries. The most visible change is in the prompt, so we start there.

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Vim editing in the prompt, if your fingers expect it

Modal editing arrives, marked experimental. Set vim to all in the [keys] table of config.toml and the prompt gets Insert and Normal modes. You get vim motions, operators, counts and undo, so the prompt behaves like an editor buffer instead of a plain text field.

You can see which mode you are in. The prompt’s info line shows NORMAL or INSERT. The cursor changes too: a block in Normal mode, a bar in Insert mode. The ui.cursor_blink setting decides whether the cursor blinks.

Conditions to keep in mind:

• The feature is labeled experimental, so treat the behavior as something that may still shift.
• It is off by default and needs the [keys] entry in config.toml.
• The settings are listed in the settings reference. Check there for the exact options.

The changelog gives no list of supported motions beyond the general categories above. If you rely on a specific vim command, test it before you trust it.

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Changes for everyday work

Hooks can fail closed. A hook now accepts the failClosed field set to true. When such a PreToolUse or UserPromptSubmit hook times out or crashes, the tool call is denied or the prompt is blocked instead of going ahead. If you use a hook as a guard, this closes the gap where a crashed guard silently let things through. Details are in the hooks documentation.

One Ctrl+C can quit. Set ui.single_ctrl_c_quit = true and a single Ctrl+C quits when no draft or unfinished work would be lost. The same switch sits under Editor in /settings. The default still asks for a second press.

Multiline from the start. The new Start in multiline setting ([ui] multiline_default, also in /settings) starts new sessions and the dashboard in multiline mode. In that mode Enter inserts a newline. Combined with the vim prompt, it suits people who write longer instructions. Both options are in the settings reference.

Keyboard and mouse in /workflow runs. In the detail view, → or a click focuses a phase’s agent list. ↑/↓ pick an agent, Enter opens it, and ← returns to the phases.

Subagent traffic shows up in the main transcript. Once delivered, messages between two subagents appear as centered rows, such as find callers → scan src/. Subagent and background task ids mentioned in the transcript open that subagent’s view or the task’s output on click. A subagent named in a reply shows as its label instead of the raw id once the reply finishes, as a link that opens its transcript. More on this in the subagents documentation.

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Technical notes

Transcript and clickable references

• Hovering an image chip in the transcript shows the image that was sent, or why it was not attached.
• Inline images now display in Noctty on Windows.
• Relative file paths in agent output, such as src/app/main.rs, open on click when the file exists under the session’s folder.
• Pull-request numbers like #123 in replies open that pull request on the session repository’s forge.
• Feedback draft rows show on their own. Opening one shows the /feedback Drafts tab with that draft selected.

Pickers, dialogs and themes

• The /delete confirmation now starts on Cancel, so pressing Enter no longer deletes the session. Press 1 to delete.
• Page Up/Page Down, Home and End move the selection in /skills and other pickers.
• A new Gruvbox dark theme, gruvbox-dark-hard, is selectable with /theme.
• Plan review notes accept every key, so a note starting with a no longer approves the plan.

MCP, updates and restore

• MCP tools built with FastMCP or the official MCP SDK now send their result once instead of twice. That uses about half the context per call.
• Automatic updates stop retrying a new version that fails to start on this machine. Each launch says to run grok update to see why.
• --restore-code keeps your uncommitted and untracked files in the working tree if the restore fails, and it handles stash changes from other worktrees.

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What to take away

If you live in the terminal:

• Try the vim prompt by setting vim to all under [keys], and watch the NORMAL/INSERT indicator on the info line.
• Decide whether you want ui.single_ctrl_c_quit and Start in multiline. Both are one setting each.
• The new /delete default is safer, so check that any muscle memory around Enter still does what you expect.

If you run parallel sessions and subagents:

• Open /workflow runs and move through phases and agents with the arrow keys instead of hunting with the mouse.
• Click subagent labels and task ids in the transcript to jump to their output.
• Watch the centered subagent-to-subagent rows to see what your agents are telling each other.

If you administer integrations or company deployments:

• Review your PreToolUse and UserPromptSubmit hooks and decide which ones should get failClosed set to true. A fail-closed hook that crashes will block work, so check how reliable the hook is first.
• If you ship MCP tools built with FastMCP or the official MCP SDK, expect about half the context use per call after updating.
• The update behavior changed: a version that fails to start is no longer retried, and grok update shows why. Check that your support notes mention it.

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Sources: the Grok Build changelog, versions 1.0.71 to 1.0.73 (October 26 to 28, 2026), and the Grok Build documentation on settings, hooks and subagents. Vim editing in the prompt is experimental, so its availability and behavior may change.