Compact default CLI and MCP output

[andrei-hasna]

Summary

• Make noisy CLI list/status/search-style output compact by default with capped human row counts, truncation, pagination hints, and --verbose/--json detail paths.
• Add compact defaults and explicit full-detail affordances to MCP list/search/status tools (brief: false, verbose: true, include_raw: true, or detail/get tools).
• Add coverage for compact defaults, full JSON/detail behavior, MCP context caps preserving target logs, and compact issue payloads.
• Document compact output defaults and detail flags in the README.

Compatibility notes

• Existing --json / --format json list paths continue to return full records where possible.
• logs health now prints a compact human summary by default; use logs health --json for the full health object.
• MCP status tools now return compact objects by default; use verbose: true for the full previous status payloads.

Before / after

Worst noisy path: logs list --limit 1 with a long log message plus large metadata.

Before:

2026-06-24T04:44:35.167Z  ERROR  checkout-automation-worker-with-long-name  checkout failure repeated during browser automation with a nested payload that includes route history request traces serialized context window retry diagnostics and verbose environment metadata repeated repeated repeated repeated repeated repeated repeated repeated repeated repeated end {"request_id":"req-example-123","payload":"metadata metadata metadata ...","nested":{"context":"browser route state retry diagnostics ..."}}

1 log(s)

After:

2026-06-24T04:44:35  ERROR  checkout-automa...  checkout failure repeated during browser automation with a nested payload that includes route history request traces serialized context w...  id=pr-example-log-1 trace=pr-example-trac...

showing 1 log(s).
Use --verbose for full messages/metadata or --json for full records.

Full machine-readable output remains available:

logs list --limit 1 --json

Adversarial review reconciliation

A read-only adversarial reviewer focused on CLI compatibility, output ergonomics, and token bloat found several issues. Reconciled in this branch:

• MCP log_context_from_id capped results now preserve the requested target log; brief: false returns full context unless a limit is explicit.
• CLI event/test-report list rows keep full IDs for events get <event_id> and test-reports get <report_id> workflows.
• MCP include_raw: true now forces raw/full event rows for search/watch instead of requiring brief: false too.
• MCP list_issues compact output truncates long issue messages.
• Explicit logs list --format compact remains footerless/line-oriented.
• MCP tool descriptions now advertise verbose and capped context parameters.

Validation

• bun test src/cli/compact-output.test.ts src/mcp/index.test.ts
• bun test
• bun run lint
• bun run build
• git diff --check