Brennan Benson
da57f47353
* fix(native-chat): say a refused chat write in plain words, and keep it with the write it describes A send's refusal now lives on the queued message and goes when that message is sent again or delivered, so a resend that succeeds after an agent restart no longer leaves a red line under the composer. Stop, answers, option and goal changes report a refusal once as a toast; a conversation command answers inline. One shared table turns every refusal code into copy with a next step, on desktop and mobile, instead of showing the host's diagnostic text. * test(native-chat): pin the refused-then-restarted send in the order the live app sees it * fix(native-chat): tell the phone to send a refused message again, not to press Retry The phone puts a refused message back in the composer and has no Retry control, so "Retry to send it again." named something that is not there. A phone send now reads "Your message was not sent. Send it again." Also types the rejection-cause test's empty submissions without a cast. * fix(native-chat): keep why a message failed as a fact, and say only what is true A queued message saved the words of its failure to local storage, so the copy lived in users' data. It now saves the fact: the refusal code (with the host's words only for a failed restart, which the host writes for people), the provider's rejection reason, or that the host could not be reached. The Retry row chooses the words when it shows the message. A saved failure this build cannot read is dropped, and the row says only that the message was not sent. The words are true for every host path behind each code: - A refusal whose code does not say why (a cleared conversation, a pending question, a provider's own rejection) says only what did not happen, with no next step that could repeat the refusal. - An unsettled owner no longer claims the agent was restarting; it says Orca could not confirm which agent process owns the chat. - A code from a newer host says only what did not happen. Desktop translates each sentence whole, with the shared English as the fallback the phone shows as is, so the two never say it differently. The phone no longer shows transport or host text when a request fails without a refusal. * fix(native-chat): never show a host refusal message, including a failed restart's Every refusal code has at least one host path that writes its message for a log or carries a marker. A replayed refusal, for one, says "Operation <id> was already refused: <code>." because the ledger stores no message. A failed restart's message also embeds the resume's own refusal text, which can be the ledger's. So no code's message is safe to show, and the failed-restart exception goes. The Retry row now says "The agent couldn't restart. Your message was not sent." with no next step, because some restarts need a new chat. The cause is still in the chat's own status row. The saved failure keeps only the code. The test lists one such emitter per code, so a code that later becomes safe to show has to be argued against that list. * fix(native-chat): offer only a next step that works, on the phone too A message the agent turned away on the phone said "Retry to send it again", but the phone has no Retry control; it now says "Send it again." like every other refused phone message, built from the same sentences as the other notices. The capacity refusal said Orca was handling too many requests "for this chat" and offered a retry. The limit is counted across every chat over a day, so an immediate retry would likely be refused again. It now says so, with no next step. * chore: restore pnpm-lock.yaml A local install rewrote it and it was committed by mistake. * fix(native-chat): say only what is true for every host path behind a refusal No refusal notice says how to try again any more: the control that sent the write already does that, and a sentence per code was false for some of the host situations the code covers. The phone keeps "Send it again." where a resend under the same operation id can go through, and an older host still gets "Update Orca, then try again." A cause is named only for codes whose every emitter means it. The owner codes and identity_required now say only what did not happen, the outcome-unknown sentence no longer claims the write itself is in doubt (a send behind an unconfirmed rewind is refused outright), and a request that failed without a refusal is recorded as `failed` rather than `unreachable`, since most such failures are host or compatibility errors. The census test now pins the cause allowlist and the absence of retry sentences, and the unused sentences leave every catalog. * fix(native-chat): don't say a chat write failed when its request may have run A desktop Stop, answer, option, goal or conversation command whose request threw said the write did not happen, for every error. A timeout or a lost connection can come after the host ran the write, so a timed-out /compact said "The command didn't run." while it ran. Only an RPC error the host answers before running the method proves that; any other failure now says Orca couldn't confirm what happened. The phone already drew this line; both clients now read it from one shared rule. * fix(native-chat): say a refused background-task stop is about the task, not the agent A background-task stop goes through agentSession.cancel, so a refusal of it said "The agent wasn't stopped." although the agent was never asked to stop. The write kind now reads the cancel's scope and names the task or tasks. * fix(native-chat): say a Stop refused over a moved-on question did not stop the agent A Stop pressed while a question or approval is pending names that prompt, so the host can refuse it as already resolved or stale. The notice then spoke only about the question and never said the agent kept running. * test(native-chat): check every refusal notice cell against one spec Replaces the per-rule loops with one table of every failure (each refusal code, a failed or unconfirmed request, and a code from a newer host) by every write kind, and five rules each cell must keep: a certain refusal says that write did not happen, once; a write that may have run never says it did not; only "Update Orca" and the phone's resend where it can work say to try again; a cause is named only for allowlisted codes; no cell is empty or shows the host's text. * fix(native-chat): the launch path drops a message's old failure when it sends it again The first message of a new chat is sent by the launch path, which staged it without removing the failure saved by an earlier attempt. A message that failed through the outbox and was then refused again through the launch path showed the earlier reason in its Retry row. Both paths now stage through one shared step that removes it.
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 either the App Store (mobile too old) or GitHub Releases (desktop too old).
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