diff --git a/frontend/packages/swarm-ui/src/pages/agents/AgentTermPreview.tsx b/frontend/packages/swarm-ui/src/pages/agents/AgentTermPreview.tsx
index 2624bf06..4afc1aa4 100644
--- a/frontend/packages/swarm-ui/src/pages/agents/AgentTermPreview.tsx
+++ b/frontend/packages/swarm-ui/src/pages/agents/AgentTermPreview.tsx
@@ -64,9 +64,20 @@ export function AgentTermPreview({ agentName }: { agentName: string }) {
         <div class="live terminal" ref={logRef} onScroll={handleScroll}>
           {rows.length === 0 ? (
             <div class="row note">
-              {connection === "open"
-                ? "(connected — waiting for events)"
-                : CONNECTION_LABEL[connection]}
+              {/* Explicit `.row-content` wrapper, not a bare text child —
+                  `.live .row`'s CSS grid (terminal.css) has a narrow
+                  first column reserved for a row icon; a row's lone
+                  child with no explicit `grid-column` auto-places into
+                  that column instead of the content one, wrapping the
+                  text one or two characters per line — mara reported
+                  exactly this on the live "connecting…" placeholder.
+                  `Row.tsx`'s own icon-less flat row already documents
+                  and avoids this same trap. */}
+              <span class="row-content">
+                {connection === "open"
+                  ? "(connected — waiting for events)"
+                  : CONNECTION_LABEL[connection]}
+              </span>
             </div>
           ) : (
             rows.map((row) => <Row key={row.key} row={row} />)