tty7/docs/features.md

# Features

<sub>English · [简体中文](features.zh-CN.md)</sub>

## Input

- **Ghost suggestions** — your history completes the whole line as you type; <kbd>→</kbd> to accept
- **Explained tab completion** — every flag and subcommand with its description, for ~100 common commands; when tty7 has nothing to offer the Tab falls through to your shell's own completion, and the whole feature can be turned off (Settings → Terminal → Keyboard, or `tab_completion` in `config.json`)
- **Syntax highlighting** — as you type, nothing to install
- **Fuzzy history search** — <kbd>⌃ R</kbd> shows what you ran, where, and whether it failed; turn it off (Settings → Terminal → Keyboard, or `history_search` in `config.json`) and <kbd>⌃ R</kbd> goes to your shell instead, so an fzf / percol binding keeps working
- **History from day one** — your existing shell history works as-is and carries across sessions
- **Line editing** — click to place the caret, mouse selection, word motion, undo
- **Multi-line editing** — wrapped and multi-line commands edit in place; the grid shifts to keep the caret visible. <kbd>⇧ ⏎</kbd> · <kbd>⌥ ⏎</kbd> insert a newline instead of submitting (rebindable as `InsertNewline`); a plain <kbd>⏎</kbd> submits the whole buffer

## In the window

- **Tabs & splits** — always open in the current directory
- **Repo-grouped sidebar** — the left tab sidebar groups rows under a header per git repository, non-repo tabs in a trailing *Scratch* section; branch switches and in-repo `cd`s never move a row (`sidebar_grouping` in `config.json`: `repo` default, `none` for a flat list)
- **Command palette** <kbd>⌘ P</kbd> · scrollback search <kbd>⌘ F</kbd>
- **⌘/Ctrl-click links** (⌘ on macOS, Ctrl on Windows/Linux) · desktop notifications · copy on select (opt-in, Settings → Terminal → Clipboard)
- **Smart double-click selection** — double-click grabs the whole URL, file path, bracket/quote pair, or dictionary-segmented CJK word under the cursor; Shift-click extends a selection (toggle in Settings → Terminal → Mouse; word separators via `word_separators` in `config.json`)
- **Nine themes, plus your own** — YAML seed themes with solid, gradient, or image backgrounds; iTerm2 `.itermcolors` import; in-app color editor with a background-image picker
- **Sync with system** — Settings → Appearance; pick separate light and dark themes and tty7 follows the OS appearance live (`theme_follow_system`, `theme_preset_light` / `theme_preset_dark` in `config.json`)
- **Window opacity & blur** — Settings → Appearance → Window; applies to every theme, *Follow theme* returns to the theme's own `opacity` / `blur`
- **CJK / IME input**
- **Windows Explorer menu** — the installer offers *Add “Open in tty7” to the folder context menu* as a setup task, off by default, and the uninstaller always takes it back out. Writing shell verbs is an install-time decision, so there is no runtime setting; a portable-zip install can do it itself with `tty7-app.exe --register-explorer-menu` (or `--unregister-explorer-menu`). Either way the keys land under `HKCU`, so only your own Windows account is affected

## Fonts

- **Hack is bundled** — it ships inside the binary, so the default renders identically everywhere without relying on a system install
- **Primary + ordered fallbacks** — `font_family` and `font_fallbacks` in `config.json`; optional `font_family_bold` / `font_family_italic` for distinct faces, and `font_features` to pass OpenType features through (contextual ligatures stay off unless you ask for them)
- **Platform-aware defaults** — the fallback list names faces the host OS actually ships (PingFang SC / Apple Color Emoji on macOS, Microsoft YaHei / Segoe UI Emoji on Windows, Noto on Linux). Those stock names are appended to a hand-written list too, so a `config.json` written on another platform still resolves

### CJK and the two-column grid

A cell is one advance of the primary face, and a wide (CJK) character is pinned
to exactly two of them. A CJK fallback therefore sits flush in its slot only if
its ideographs advance **twice** the primary's Latin advance.

Bundled Hack advances 0.60205em, so a two-column slot is 1.2041em — while every
stock CJK face (Microsoft YaHei, PingFang SC, Noto Sans CJK) advances 1.0em.
Those glyphs get left-aligned in the slot and the leftover ~0.2em lands as a gap
on the right of every character.

[Maple Mono NF CN](https://github.com/subframe7536/maple-font) is tried first on
every platform for exactly this reason — 0.6em Latin, 1.2em CJK, an exact
two-cell fit against Hack. It is referenced by name only, never bundled (~20MB
per weight): install it and tty7 picks it up with no config change.

For CJK set *tight* rather than merely even, change the primary face instead —
one that advances 0.5em (Sarasa Mono SC, say) makes two columns exactly 1.0em.

## Coding agents

tty7 recognizes third-party coding agents running in a pane (Claude Code,
Codex, Gemini CLI, Aider, Amp, OpenCode, and ~10 more) and adds around them —
it never wraps or replaces the agent.

- **Brand avatars** — the tab chip / sidebar row shows which agent runs where; custom wrappers map in via `agent_commands` in `config.json`
- **Status dot** — working (blue) / needs your input (amber) / done (green), driven by agent-reported events over an OSC channel; Settings → Agents installs the hooks that feed it (Claude Code, Codex, Copilot CLI, OpenCode, Pi, Grok Build)
- **Notifications** — "needs your permission…" the moment an agent blocks on you, and "finished after Ns" per turn, honoring your notification policy
- **Branch at a glance** — each sidebar row shows its pane's git branch and working-tree diff (`+N −M`), refreshed on `cd` and when a command finishes; clicking the counts opens the diff overlay, and turning that off (Settings → Window & Tabs, or `sidebar_diff_preview: false` in `config.json`) keeps the readout while making it non-clickable
- **Session resume** — panes lost to a reboot re-launch their agent conversation on restore, carrying the original launch flags (`claude --dangerously-skip-permissions --resume …`) (`restore_agent_sessions`, on by default)
- **Fork session** — branch a live agent conversation into a second, independent one by shelling the agent's own fork command (`codex fork <id>`, `claude --resume <id> --fork-session`, also OpenCode and Grok Build); the original is untouched and both continue separately. Right-click a pane to pick a split placement, or right-click the tab / sidebar row to open the fork in a new tab. Needs the agent's hooks installed, since the fork targets the session id they report; a remote pane can't fork, because the command would run against the local agent — and note a fork copies the whole transcript, so repeated forking costs real disk in the agent's own session store
- **Copy Session ID** — put the agent's native session id on the clipboard, beside *Copy Working Directory*, for pasting into `codex resume`, a bug report, or another tool
- **Context feed** — palette commands send the current selection or the repo's `git diff` to the running agent as a ready-made prompt
- **Tray icon** — a system tray / menu bar item that flips to an attention state the moment any agent needs your input; its menu lists every agent pane (brand avatar + status dot, click to reveal), switches the notification policy, and offers *Quit and Stop Daemon* alongside the plain session-keeping quit (`show_tray_icon`, on by default)
- **`tty7 wait`** — the CLI's orchestration primitive: block until a pane's agent needs input or finishes its turn (`tty7 wait %3 --until waiting,done --changed --timeout 600`, exit 124 on timeout), so one agent can sleep until its peer blocks on a permission prompt instead of screen-scraping — then `tty7 capture %3 --plain` to read the result. The agent status is a level, not an event, so `--changed` ignores the state the pane was already in when the wait began; without it, the JSON's `stale` flag says whether the answer might belong to the previous turn
- **Orchestration skill** — a switch (Settings → Agents) that installs a Claude Code skill (`~/.claude/skills/tty7-orchestration`) teaching a *primary* agent the delegation loop — spawn a worker pane, send it a bounded task, `wait` on it, capture the result. A skill rather than a global instruction on purpose: only its one-line description rides in context until explicitly invoked, and worker agents never inherit orchestration authority
- **`tty7` on PATH** — the CLI ships inside every installer and is put on PATH at launch, so a script or a coding agent can drive tty7 from any terminal. Inside a tty7 pane it works regardless, since panes inherit the app's environment. On Unix it is a symlink into whichever of `/opt/homebrew/bin`, `/usr/local/bin`, `~/.local/bin`, `~/bin`, `~/.cargo/bin` your PATH already covers; on Windows the install directory is appended to your user PATH, and the uninstaller takes it back out. A `tty7` you installed yourself is left alone, never replaced. Off via Settings → Agents or `install_cli_on_path: false` in `config.json`

## SSH

A native Rust SSH stack (russh) is the **only** path — profiles, credentials,
and SFTP without shelling out to `ssh`. There is no system-ssh compat mode.

- **QuickConnect** — type `user@host[:port]` in the palette and connect; IPv6 `[::1]:port` supported
- **Saved profiles** — full connection config with passwords / passphrases in the OS keychain, never on disk
- **`~/.ssh/config` aliases** — type one to connect (resolved natively — common fields, best-effort — over russh), or import them as profiles in Settings
- **GUI auth** — in-pane sheets for password, key passphrase, 2FA, and host-key confirmation (new vs. changed)
- **Built-in SFTP** — a slide-in file panel: browse, upload / download, rename / delete / chmod, drag to Finder
- **Port forwarding** — Local / Remote / Dynamic, preconfigured or added live, plus ⌘/Ctrl-click `localhost:PORT` to auto-forward
- **Jump hosts & proxies** — multi-hop via profile references or `ProxyJump`, ProxyCommand, SOCKS5 / HTTP

| Entry point | Connects via |
|---|---|
| Saved profiles · QuickConnect · typed `user@host[:port]` | Native russh — SFTP · keychain · GUI auth · L/R/D forwards |
| `~/.ssh/config` aliases | Resolved natively, then russh (`Match`/canonicalize/GSSAPI unsupported — no fallback) |

## Keybindings

Keys are shown in macOS notation — on Windows and Linux, read <kbd>⌘</kbd> as
<kbd>Ctrl</kbd>. The essentials:

| | |
|---|---|
| <kbd>⌘ T</kbd> · <kbd>⌘ W</kbd> · <kbd>⌘ ⇧ T</kbd> | new tab · close tab · reopen closed tab |
| <kbd>⌘ 1</kbd>…<kbd>⌘ 9</kbd> · <kbd>⌃ ⇥</kbd> · <kbd>⌃ ⇧ ⇥</kbd> | jump to tab 1–9 · next tab · previous tab |
| <kbd>⌘ D</kbd> · <kbd>⌘ ⇧ D</kbd> | split right · split down |
| <kbd>⌘ ]</kbd> · <kbd>⌘ [</kbd> | next pane · previous pane |
| <kbd>⌘ ⌥ ←→↑↓</kbd> | focus the pane in that direction |
| <kbd>⌘ ⏎</kbd> · <kbd>⌘ ⇧ ⏎</kbd> | toggle fullscreen · maximize / restore the pane |
| <kbd>⌘ K</kbd> | clear the screen and scrollback |
| <kbd>⌘ P</kbd> | command palette |
| <kbd>⌘ F</kbd> | search the scrollback |
| <kbd>⌃ R</kbd> | fuzzy-search shell history |
| <kbd>⌘ +</kbd> · <kbd>⌘ −</kbd> · <kbd>⌘ 0</kbd> | font size up · down · reset |

**Settings → Keybindings** (<kbd>⌘ ,</kbd>) lists every shortcut. Click one,
press the new keys (<kbd>Esc</kbd> cancels, <kbd>Backspace</kbd> resets to
default), and it takes effect immediately. Pane resize and swap have no default
keys — bind them here or run them from the command palette.

**tmux preset** — remaps pane/tab actions onto a prefix (default <kbd>⌃ B</kbd>):
<kbd>⌃ B</kbd> <kbd>C</kbd> opens a tab, <kbd>⌃ B</kbd> <kbd>%</kbd> splits,
<kbd>⌃ B</kbd> then an arrow moves focus. A bare prefix reaches the shell after
a brief pause; `prefix` + an unbound key passes straight through.

## Performance notes

- The PTY is read at device speed and parsed in large batches, off the render path
- Hot paths are lock-free — a big `cat` never waits on drawing
- The daemon buffers up to 16 MiB ahead of the window before backpressure applies

## macOS privacy

Panes are forked from the bundled executable, so macOS attributes a program's
request for a protected resource to tty7.app. tty7 declares the matching TCC
usage strings (camera, microphone, contacts, calendar, reminders, photos,
location, local network, Bluetooth, speech recognition, Apple Events, system
administration) so that program gets the normal one-time prompt instead of
being denied outright with no prompt at all.

Not covered by usage strings:

- **Full Disk Access** — Apple defines no usage-string key for it. Reaching
  `~/Library/Mail`, `~/Library/Messages`, `~/Library/Safari` or
  `~/Library/Containers` needs a manual grant in System Settings.

Declaring a usage string is not the same as holding the permission: tty7.app
itself is granted none of these resources. Every prompt you see belongs to
whatever you ran in the pane, and you can revoke it under Privacy & Security.

## Localization

The GUI ships English, Simplified Chinese and Japanese strings. Pick one in
Settings → Appearance → Language, or in `config.json`:

```json
{ "gui_language": "zh-CN" }
```

`en`, `zh-CN` and `ja-JP` are the only accepted values; anything else falls back
to `en`.
The choice is explicit — the system language is never inferred. CLI output stays
English so agent and script integrations keep a stable, predictable surface.