diff --git a/vscode/src/chat/agentic/CodyChatAgent.ts b/vscode/src/chat/agentic/CodyChatAgent.ts
index 237efb9940c..822c99e47fc 100644
--- a/vscode/src/chat/agentic/CodyChatAgent.ts
+++ b/vscode/src/chat/agentic/CodyChatAgent.ts
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ import {
     type ContextItem,
     type Message,
     type PromptMixin,
-    PromptString,
+    type PromptString,
     newPromptMixin,
 } from '@sourcegraph/cody-shared'
 import { getCategorizedMentions } from '../../prompt-builder/utils'
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ export abstract class CodyChatAgent {
         message: Message[],
         signal?: AbortSignal,
         model?: string
-    ): Promise<PromptString> {
+    ): Promise<string> {
         const stream = await this.chatClient.chat(
             message,
             { model: model, maxTokensToSample: 4000 },
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ export abstract class CodyChatAgent {
             }
         }
 
-        return PromptString.unsafe_fromLLMResponse(accumulated)
+        return accumulated
     }
 
     protected getPrompter(items: ContextItem[]): DefaultPrompter {
diff --git a/vscode/src/chat/agentic/DeepCody.ts b/vscode/src/chat/agentic/DeepCody.ts
index dc3c92287b4..e492b6fd8f3 100644
--- a/vscode/src/chat/agentic/DeepCody.ts
+++ b/vscode/src/chat/agentic/DeepCody.ts
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ export class DeepCodyAgent extends CodyChatAgent {
 
         try {
             const res = await this.processStream(promptData.prompt, chatAbortSignal, model)
-            if (res?.toString().includes('CONTEXT_SUFFICIENT')) {
+            if (!res || res?.includes('CONTEXT_SUFFICIENT')) {
                 // Process the response without generating any context items.
                 for (const tool of this.toolHandlers.values()) {
                     tool.processResponse?.()