Brennan Benson
c893048aeb
* feat(native-chat): show which agent a chat message is from A message another agent sends into a native chat (today the orchestration mail notice) looked exactly like the person's own: a right-hand bubble and a queued card identical to theirs. The sender was recorded only on the queue row, so a message sent to an idle chat, or a card once it was sent, had no sender at all. The sender now lives on the message itself (`from` on the message body): - The send path carries it on both deliveries; an idle chat records it too, and it survives the queue, /clear's carry, restart and history. - No fingerprint covers it: one shared payload projection leaves it out at every fingerprint site, so stored digests are unchanged and the provider's echo still folds into the same bubble. The provider never receives it. - A client cannot set it: its send params stay strict. - One reader normalizes it where it is read (journal load, queued row, client projection); a newer message kind keeps the sender an agent's. - Each sender keeps a name snapshot from names Orca controls: a chat's conversation name or agent label, a terminal's own tab title or agent, a federated sender's task name. Never an agent-set terminal title. - The separate queued-row sender column and its plumbing are removed; it never shipped. Desktop shows such a message as a left-aligned "Message from <name>" row; the name opens the sender: its chat through the existing open-chat flow (after a host lookup that follows /clear and dispatch addresses), or its terminal through the terminal-link path, with the existing feedback when it is gone. A queued card shows a plain "From <name>" line. Mobile shows the same attribution, not yet clickable. * fix(native-chat): name and open an agent's message by what Orca shows for it Review fixes for showing who an agent message is from. - Names: a sender is named by its dispatch's task (local workers too, not only federated ones), else a chat by the label its tab shows, else a terminal by its tab's stored title, else its agent. The conversation name the snapshot read before has no writer, so every chat read "<Agent> Chat". - One sender builder (agentMessageSender) and a public runtime naming object (orchestrationSenderNames) any send site can use; the terminal naming moves out of the unrelated runtime layer into its own module. - Opening a terminal sender always asks the chat's host: a terminal handle is issued per run, so the host finds an earlier run's terminal again through the pane its mail was sent from. The pane key never leaves the host. - Feedback follows what the host found: a gone chat or a gone pane by the kind it lost, "pane no longer available" only when the terminal answer proves it, and the existing "couldn't reach" / "needs a newer Orca" words otherwise. - Another agent's message is not offered rewind (it would put the agent's text in the person's composer), and a Codex rewind keeps the sender on the messages it retains. - The queued card and mobile name every sender, two that share a name included, and count in "+N" only those left out; the transcript row separates names with ", ". - The host no longer normalizes the sender when loading the journal or the queue: nothing on the host reads it, and clients read it through the one reader at their projections. * fix(native-chat): name a worker's final report by its task; clearer open-sender failures - A worker's own worker_done settles its dispatch before the mail lane names who the report is from, so a terminal worker's completion read "Codex". A local worker is now named by the dispatch it holds, else the one it last held (handles are per run, so that is this run's). The coordinator mail rig now attests the worker's process, so its report is accepted and settles as it does in production. - Opening a sender: a version block or an unknown answer says "Update Orca to open it.", since either side may be the older one; "This needs a newer Orca on the computer running this chat" stays only for a host that predates the lookup. "Orca couldn't reach the agent." is followed by "Try again.", each sentence translated on its own. No new copy. * fix(native-chat): name a worker only by work it holds or just reported A worker with no active dispatch was named by the newest dispatch ever assigned to its terminal, at any status and any age: one that failed before it ran, or a task finished long ago that its later, unrelated mail kept showing. Now a worker is named by its active dispatch, else by the dispatch its own worker_done in the announced mail names (only if that dispatch is its own), else by its tab or agent as any terminal is. * fix(native-chat): restore a rewound message's sender through its typed body; mobile card fixtures name their attribution - The rewind's held-sender restore lives with the retained rows and reads both bodies through the journal's message-body check, instead of a shared helper taking any object (anti-slop: no-object-parameters). - Mobile queued-card test fixtures carry the attribution field the card gained. * fix(native-chat): never call a sender gone without proof; the sender builder moves out of the mail lane - A federated sender (dispatch:<id>) runs on another host, which the chat's host cannot open: its name is plain text, and the host's lookup answers 'not found' rather than 'gone' for a dispatch it does not run. Not seeing a worker is no evidence it stopped. - The lookup calls a chat gone only when the identity is proven lost; any other failure reaches the client as 'could not reach'. - A sender open that throws shows 'couldn't reach the agent' instead of an unhandled rejection. - agentMessageSender, the one sender builder, lives in its own module, so the runtime's naming no longer imports from the mail lane.
Orca Mobile
React Native companion app for Orca. Monitor worktrees, view terminal output, and send commands from your phone.
Local development uses two processes:
- Orca desktop/Electron from the repo root. This hosts the mobile WebSocket RPC server on port
6768. - Expo Metro from
mobile/. This serves the React Native app on port8081.
Unless a command says otherwise, run mobile app commands from the mobile/ directory.
Prerequisites
- Node.js 24+
- pnpm
- Xcode and/or Android Studio tooling for simulator or device builds
- Expo Go on your phone, or a development client build when native modules are needed
- Phone and desktop on the same LAN when testing a physical phone
Start Desktop Orca
From the repository root:
pnpm install
pnpm dev
Confirm the mobile RPC server is listening:
lsof -nP -iTCP:6768 -sTCP:LISTEN
Restart pnpm dev after changing Electron main-process code. Metro hot reload only applies to the mobile JavaScript bundle.
Start The Mobile App
cd mobile
pnpm install
pnpm start
Scan the Expo QR code with your phone's camera on iOS, or Expo Go on Android.
For a native dev-client build:
pnpm exec expo run:android
pnpm exec expo run:ios
pnpm start --dev-client
Pair With Desktop Orca
- Open Orca desktop.
- Go to Settings > Mobile.
- Scan the pairing QR code from the mobile app.
- Confirm the mobile host endpoint is
ws://<desktop-ip>:6768.
For the Android emulator, use ws://10.0.2.2:6768. For a physical phone, use the desktop LAN IP, for example ws://192.168.0.179:6768.
If the phone has a stale host entry, remove it from the app and pair again.
Development Paths
Android Phone
- Install Expo Go from Google Play
- Run
pnpm start, scan QR with Expo Go - For native modules:
pnpm exec expo run:android - Run with
pnpm start --dev-client
iOS Simulator
- Install Xcode from the App Store
- Run
pnpm start --iosto open in iOS Simulator
Physical Phone Debugging
The phone can be inspected through the connected device tooling:
orca snapshot --json
orca click --element @e3 --json
orca fill --element @e1 --value "ls" --json
orca screenshot --json
Use snapshot first to find the current element refs, then click/fill those refs. After mobile file edits, Metro usually hot reloads automatically, but navigating out of and back into the session screen can be useful because it re-runs terminal.subscribe.
Terminal Streaming Repro Without A Phone
Use this when terminal output does not render on device and you need to split server streaming bugs from WebView/UI bugs:
cd mobile
ORCA_MOBILE_WS_URL=ws://127.0.0.1:6768 pnpm exec tsx scripts/test-subscribe.ts <deviceToken> <serverPublicKeyB64>
You can pass a worktree selector as the third argument:
pnpm exec tsx scripts/test-subscribe.ts <deviceToken> <serverPublicKeyB64> "id:<worktreeId>"
pnpm exec tsx scripts/test-subscribe.ts <deviceToken> <serverPublicKeyB64> "path:/absolute/worktree/path"
pnpm exec tsx scripts/test-subscribe.ts <deviceToken> <serverPublicKeyB64> "name:my-worktree"
The expected result includes:
streamSawMarker: true
readSawMarker: true
If this repro fails, debug the desktop runtime/PTY path before the mobile WebView. If it passes but the phone is blank, debug the session screen or TerminalWebView readiness/queueing path.
Terminal Color Repro Without A Phone
Use this when terminal colors disappear after switching tabs. Open a Claude Code terminal and at least one other terminal in the target worktree, then run:
cd mobile
ORCA_MOBILE_WS_URL=ws://127.0.0.1:6768 pnpm exec tsx scripts/repro-terminal-colors.ts \
<deviceToken> <serverPublicKeyB64> "id:<worktreeId>"
The script captures terminal.subscribe snapshots in an A → B → A sequence and writes raw snapshots to mobile/terminal-color-repro/. If the two A snapshots have different sgrColor counts, the desktop snapshot changed during the switch. If they match, the ANSI color data is still present and the bug is in mobile replay/rendering.
Validation
Run these checks before committing mobile terminal changes:
cd mobile
pnpm exec tsc --noEmit
pnpm run check:tests-typecheck
pnpm lint
cd ..
pnpm typecheck:node
tsc --noEmit reads tsconfig.json, which excludes test files so Metro never bundles them.
tsconfig.test.json puts them back, and pnpm run typecheck:tests shows their errors in full.
check:tests-typecheck is the gate over it: a ratchet against tests-typecheck-baseline.txt, the
127 test files that do not typecheck yet. It fails when a file that checks today stops checking,
and when a baseline entry starts checking (prune it with
node scripts/check-tests-typecheck-ratchet.mjs --prune). The list may only shrink.
The same gate censuses the program first: every *.test.ts(x) on disk must be in it, or named in
the script's TESTS_OUTSIDE_PROGRAM with a reason. Without that, a test excluded from
tsconfig.test.json — or a Foo.test.tsx shadowed by a Foo.test.ts beside it, which a wildcard
include drops for the higher-priority extension — would leave the ratchet silently.
Protocol Version Compatibility
Mobile and desktop talk over a versioned protocol. Because mobile updates lag desktop by 24-48h via the App Store, both sides exchange version numbers on status.get so a genuinely incompatible combo can hard-block instead of silently misbehaving.
Constants live in two files (Metro can't resolve outside mobile/):
src/shared/protocol-version.ts—DESKTOP_PROTOCOL_VERSION,MIN_COMPATIBLE_MOBILE_VERSIONmobile/src/transport/protocol-version.ts—MOBILE_PROTOCOL_VERSION,MIN_COMPATIBLE_DESKTOP_VERSION
Today all four are set so evaluateCompat always returns { kind: 'ok' } — nothing blocks. The wire format is in place to flip a switch when needed.
When to bump
Bump DESKTOP_PROTOCOL_VERSION (and the mobile mirror MOBILE_PROTOCOL_VERSION when relevant) for breaking changes:
- Removed RPC method or required parameter that mobile uses
- Changed meaning (units, nullability) of an existing field mobile reads
- Changed encryption, framing, or auth handshake
Do not bump for additive changes:
- New RPC methods
- New optional fields on existing methods
- New event types in
terminal.subscribe
Set MIN_COMPATIBLE_MOBILE_VERSION (kill-switch) when desktop ships a change that requires a minimum mobile version to function safely. Same for MIN_COMPATIBLE_DESKTOP_VERSION from the mobile side.
When a verdict is blocked, mobile/src/components/ProtocolBlockScreen.tsx renders a screen pointing the user at the update that clears it. When mobile is too old it opens the newest release if the installed app's update check knows one, otherwise the App Store (iOS) or GitHub Releases (Android). When desktop is too old it opens GitHub Releases.
To exercise the block screen locally: set MIN_COMPATIBLE_DESKTOP_VERSION = 999 in mobile/src/transport/protocol-version.ts, rebuild, pair to any desktop. Revert before merging.
Mock Server
Develop the mobile app without a running Orca desktop instance:
pnpm mock-server # starts mock WebSocket server on port 6768
Connect from the app using endpoint ws://localhost:6768 and token mock-device-token.
Environment variables
MOCK_NATIVE_CHAT=1— serve the native-chat scenario (one live agent tab, empty transcript, image upload) instead of the default terminal fixtures.MOCK_CHAT_AGENT=omp— withMOCK_NATIVE_CHAT=1, present an OMP tab and four decoded transcript messages, including a tool call and result, instead of the default Claude scenario. It deliberately omitstranscriptPathto exercise legacy-hook readability discovery; current OMP hooks may report a path.MOCK_SERVER_KEY_FILE— persist the server keypair across restarts so a paired device keeps its public-key pin. A missing or invalid file is re-keyed with a warning, which forces a re-pair.
Scenario control files
Read on every request, so behaviour can be flipped mid-session without a restart (a restart would re-key E2EE and force a re-pair). Write the mode into the file, or delete it for the default.
MOCK_SEND_MODE_FILE(defaultorca-mock-send-modein the system temporary directory) —accept(default) accepts the send,errorfails it withmobile_input_floor_unavailable, anything else reports the send as rejected.MOCK_TERMINAL_LIST_MODE_FILE(defaultorca-mock-terminal-list-modein the system temporary directory) —omitreturns an empty terminal list,otherreturns a list that omits the chat handle, anything else lists it.MOCK_TERMINAL_STREAM_MODE_FILE(defaultorca-mock-terminal-stream-modein the system temporary directory) —deadanswers a subscribe withsubscribedthenend(a gone PTY), which is what exercises the rearm bound and terminal prune; anything else streams normally.
Connecting to Real Orca
- Start Orca desktop with WebSocket transport enabled
- In Orca, go to Settings > Mobile and scan the QR code with this app
- The QR encodes the connection endpoint, device token, and TLS fingerprint
Project Structure
mobile/
├── app/ # Expo Router screens (file-based routing)
│ ├── _layout.tsx # Root layout with navigation stack
│ ├── index.tsx # Home screen — paired hosts list
│ └── pair-scan.tsx # QR code scanning screen
├── src/
│ ├── terminal/ # Terminal WebView and xterm bridge
│ └── transport/ # WebSocket RPC client
├── scripts/
│ ├── test-subscribe.ts # Desktop streaming repro without a phone
│ └── mock-server.ts # Standalone mock WebSocket server
└── assets/ # App icons and splash screen