hhdebb 2f63a01f7b fix(terminal): report the terminal as the focused element
A terminal draws its own glyphs, so nothing outside the window can read
what is on screen. That much is a terminal being a terminal. What is not
is that the window reports no focused element at all.

gpui sets accessibility focus in exactly one place: a `div` that tracks a
focus handle and has an a11y node of its own. The terminal surface tracks
the focus handle and never asks for a role, so it has no node, so
`set_focus` is never reached — and a client asking the window what has
focus is handed the window.

Measured on Windows 11 26200 with a UI Automation probe: the window
answers with `WindowPattern` and nothing else, publishes zero
descendants, and `FocusedElement` is the top-level window, supporting
neither `ValuePattern` nor `TextPattern`. A screen reader has nothing to
say about a tty7 window for the same reason.

It reaches past screen readers. A dictation tool pastes its transcript
and then asks the focused element what it now says, to check the text
arrived. Against tty7 it gets no element to ask, concludes the paste
failed, and hands the transcript back for the user to paste by hand —
while the bytes it sent are already in the pty and the text is on screen.
That is what led here.

The fix is the surface asking for a role: it gets a node, and focus lands
on it. `MultilineTextInput` rather than `Terminal` because `Terminal`
maps to a document that reports itself as not editable, and "is this
something text can be put into" is the question these clients are
actually asking. The node carries no text of its own yet — reading the
grid out is a separate change with a cost per frame, and this one has
none: gpui builds the a11y tree only once something attaches to it, so a
window nobody is inspecting still builds nothing.

The path this fixes is platform-independent; it was verified on Windows,
where the dictation tool that surfaced it runs.
2026-09-11 11:09:36 +08:00
2026-09-10 11:50:47 +08:00
2026-09-10 11:50:47 +08:00
2026-09-10 11:50:47 +08:00

tty7

tty7

A terminal workbench: persistent sessions, remote work, agents.

Pure Rust · GPU rendering on Zed's gpui · VT core from Alacritty


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tty7 with a tab sidebar of agent sessions across several repos, running Claude Code

Why

A background server owns your shells and panes — not the window. Everything below follows from that.

  • Performance — ~2× the throughput of Alacritty, Ghostty, or Kitty (benchmarks)
  • Persistent sessions — quit or reboot; your shells and supported agent sessions keep running, no tmux
  • Agent-aware — Claude Code, Codex & co.: status, notifications, and git context for every repo at once
  • Scriptable by agents — one agent opens a pane for another, hands off a task, waits, and reads the result, with or without the GUI running
  • Editor-grade input — suggestions, completion, highlighting, history search, with no plugin to install
  • Remote development — files, repos, panes, and git data stay on the remote machine, over a native SSH stack
  • Git beside the terminal — source control, diffs, and worktrees without leaving the window

Install

Native builds for macOS, Windows, and Linux on Releases:

macOS …-macos-arm64.dmg · …-x86_64.dmg drag into Applications
Windows …-setup.exe · portable ….zip
Linux …-x86_64.AppImage chmod +x and run — X11/Wayland libraries bundled

What's inside

Agent-aware per-pane detection (20 CLIs) · status dot · notifications · branch + diff · tray icon when input is needed · resume after reboot · tab sidebar grouped by repository
CLI + Skills bundled tty7 CLI · agent skill · run streams a command and exits with its code · split · send · wait --until free · capture
Editor-grade input ghost suggestions from history · explained tab completion · syntax highlighting · multi-line editing · click places the caret · ⌃ R fuzzy history
Window tabs & splits · ⌘ P palette · ⌘ F scrollback search · ⌘ J panel with process tree and listening ports · 13 themes, your own YAML, iTerm2 import · IME
Shell integration injected when a pane starts, nothing to install · prompt marks · working directory · exit codes · command-finished notifications · zsh, bash, fish, PowerShell, WSL, remote panes
Remote workspaces remote files, repos, changes, diffs, worktrees, tabs, and panes · reconnect from any client and continue where you left off
SSH native russh stack: profiles with keychain secrets · SFTP panel · port forwarding · jump hosts · one-time, unprivileged tty7-server install
Git panel follows the focused pane · stage, commit, amend, branch, push, stash · side-by-side or unified diffs · commit graph with cherry-pick, revert, and reset · a new worktree opens its own tab

Supported agents

Detection is free: brand avatar, branch + diff, tab title. Status takes one click under Settings → Agents to install that agent's hook, and brings the status dot, notifications, the tray icon, tty7 wait, and resume after a reboot. Fork needs both — the agent's own fork command, and the hook that tells tty7 which session to fork.

The full support matrix, all twenty
Agent Detected Status · resume Fork
Claude Code
Codex
TraeCode
Grok
OpenCode
Oh My Pi
Droid
Qwen Code
Goose
Gemini
Copilot
Kimi Code
Pi
Aider
Amp
Cursor
Auggie
Hermes
Vibe
Antigravity

None of them are wrapped or proxied — the agent you start is the agent you get, in a normal PTY, with its own interface. An agent launched through a wrapper script can be mapped to one by name with agent_commands in config.json.

Documentation

Full documentation lives in docs/keyboard shortcuts · config.json · CLI reference. The agent-facing CLI interface is also documented in skills/tty7/SKILL.md.

Install the skill with:

npx skills add l0ng-ai/tty7    # install
npx skills update tty7         # update later

Benchmarks

Same machine, same day, same 155×40 grid — Apple M1 Pro, macOS 26.3.1, five-run averages (2026-07-04):

tty7 Alacritty Ghostty Kitty
Plaintext I/O — 11 MB cat (lower = better) 95 ms 239 ms 179 ms 185 ms
DOOM-fire frame rate (higher = better) 888 fps 485 fps 552 fps 617 fps
Cold-launch memory 116 MB¹ 105 MB 128 MB 130 MB

¹ GUI 105 MB + the persistent server 11 MB.

Methodology and one-command reproduction: scripts/bench/.


S
Description
A terminal workbench in pure Rust: shells, persistent sessions, SSH, coding agents. GPU-rendered on Zed's gpui, VT core from Alacritty.
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