Reasoning Language

Guide · 简体中文

agent.reasoning_language controls the preferred language of visible reasoning or thinking text when a provider exposes it.

It does not set the final answer language, rewrite code, translate identifiers, or change hidden model reasoning. The user's explicit language request in a turn still wins for the final answer.

Why It Exists

Some users read visible reasoning more comfortably in Chinese or English even when the task itself mixes languages. This setting makes that preference explicit without changing the stable system prompt or tool definitions.

The setting is intentionally small:

auto anchors visible reasoning to Chinese when the raw user prompt is clearly Chinese, ignoring injected reference context such as @file contents; English and ambiguous turns add no extra instruction.
zh asks visible reasoning to prefer Simplified Chinese.
en asks visible reasoning to prefer English.

Desktop

Open:

Settings -> Models -> Usage -> Agent runtime -> Thinking language

The desktop setting writes the user-level default. A project can still override it with ./reasonix.toml.

CLI And TUI

For shell scripts or one-off configuration:

reasonix config reasoning-language auto
reasonix config reasoning-language zh
reasonix config reasoning-language en

By default this writes the user config. To write a project-local override:

reasonix config reasoning-language --local zh

Inside reasonix, use the slash command:

/reasoning-language auto
/reasoning-language zh
/reasoning-language en

The slash command writes the user-level setting and updates the current chat controller for subsequent turns. It does not rewrite the current project's reasonix.toml; use the shell command with --local for that.

Headless runs also use the same setting:

reasonix run "explain this module"

Config File

User or project config:

[agent]
reasoning_language = "auto" # auto|zh|en

Resolution order for this setting:

./reasonix.toml > user config.toml > built-in defaults

There is currently no command-line flag for this setting. Prefer config because the value is a user or project preference rather than a per-invocation task argument.

Cache Behavior

auto is still cache-friendly. When the raw user prompt clearly looks Chinese, Reasonix adds the same small transient <reasoning-language> block for that turn; English and ambiguous turns inject nothing and rely on the existing stable language policy. Injected reference context such as @file contents is ignored for this auto decision.

When set to zh or en, Reasonix always adds a small transient <reasoning-language> block to the user turn. In all modes, this does not change:

the system prompt
tool schema bytes or ordering
the stable provider-visible prefix

This keeps high prompt-cache hit rate intact while still letting an explicit preference affect the next model call.

Boundaries

The setting only matters when visible reasoning text exists.
It is a preference, not a hard translation layer.
Code, identifiers, file paths, shell commands, and untranslated technical terms should remain in their original form.
If a user asks for a final answer in a specific language, that request remains authoritative for the final answer.

3.4 KiB Raw Permalink Blame History