A coding-agent conversation is a single thread: to try a risky direction you either lose the one that got you there, or you don't try it. Every agent tty7 resumes already knows how to branch — `codex fork <id>`, `claude --resume <id> --fork-session`, `opencode --session <id> --fork`, `grok --resume <id> --fork-session` — but nothing in tty7 reached them, so the capability was invisible from the terminal that already knows every pane's session id. Fork is a per-agent capability beside the existing resume table (`CLIAgent::fork_command`), not a Codex special case: it is the same `match self` shape, it reuses the same id validation and the same launch-flag replay, and four installed agents qualify today. Every command was checked against that CLI's own `--help`; agents with no fork tty7 could verify return `None` and are never offered the action, since a guessed flag shape would only ever produce a usage error in the pane. Flag replay needed one correctness fix to survive this. A forked pane's own argv *is* a fork command, so relaunching it would replay the stale subcommand and id (`codex fork <old>` → an old id as a positional prompt) or double the modifier (`--fork-session --fork-session`). `codex fork` now sheds its subcommand exactly as `codex resume` did, and `--fork-session` / `--fork` join their agents' stale session-targeting lists. That also settles restore: a forked pane restores through `resume_command`, which now drops the fork flag — a restart continues the fork rather than branching it again. Placement follows where the user asked from. A pane-level ask is spatial, so the pane right-click menu offers Split Right / Left / Down / Up (pane splits gained a `before` slot for the Left/Up half, which the tree had no way to express). A tab-level ask isn't, so the tab context menu — inherited verbatim by the sidebar rows, which is where the request came from — opens the fork in a new tab with no placement question. The bare action behind the palette, the File menu and Settings → Keybindings takes the tab-level meaning. The three ways a fork can't run all surface rather than no-op: no session id yet (hooks not installed) and a remote pane (the command would shell the *local* agent) render the row disabled instead of hiding it, so the capability stays discoverable, and the action paths that have no row to grey out say so in a notification. Forking mid-turn is allowed but announced — agents fork from the persisted transcript, so the turn in flight is absent from the copy — and the parent is untouched either way. Copy Session ID sits beside Copy Working Directory. Codex has no copy-or-duplicate subcommand, so "copy the session" is the id: paste it into `codex resume`, a bug report, or another tool. Deliberately not built: any reading or writing of an agent's own session files. tty7's exposure stays the public CLI contract plus the hook payload's session id, so a change to Codex's rollout format or its version-numbered SQLite index costs at most a visible shell error. Forked tabs also look exactly like their parent, by decision — "Rename Tab" is the answer. Closes #211
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Features
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Input
- Ghost suggestions — your history completes the whole line as you type; → 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_completioninconfig.json) - Syntax highlighting — as you type, nothing to install
- Fuzzy history search — ⌃ R shows what you ran, where, and whether it failed; turn it off (Settings → Terminal → Keyboard, or
history_searchinconfig.json) and ⌃ R 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
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
cds never move a row (sidebar_groupinginconfig.json:repodefault,nonefor a flat list) - Command palette ⌘ P · scrollback search ⌘ F
- ⌘/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_separatorsinconfig.json) - Nine themes, plus your own — YAML seed themes with solid, gradient, or image backgrounds; iTerm2
.itermcolorsimport; 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_darkinconfig.json) - Window opacity & blur — Settings → Appearance → Window; applies to every theme, Follow theme returns to the theme's own
opacity/blur - CJK / IME input
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_familyandfont_fallbacksinconfig.json; optionalfont_family_bold/font_family_italicfor distinct faces, andfont_featuresto 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.jsonwritten 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 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_commandsinconfig.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 oncdand when a command finishes - 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 — 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 diffto 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)
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]:portsupported - Saved profiles — full connection config with passwords / passphrases in the OS keychain, never on disk
~/.ssh/configaliases — 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:PORTto 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 ⌘ as Ctrl. The essentials:
| ⌘ T · ⌘ W · ⌘ ⇧ T | new tab · close tab · reopen closed tab |
| ⌘ 1…⌘ 9 · ⌃ ⇥ · ⌃ ⇧ ⇥ | jump to tab 1–9 · next tab · previous tab |
| ⌘ D · ⌘ ⇧ D | split right · split down |
| ⌘ ] · ⌘ [ | next pane · previous pane |
| ⌘ ⌥ ←→↑↓ | focus the pane in that direction |
| ⌘ ⏎ · ⌘ ⇧ ⏎ | toggle fullscreen · maximize / restore the pane |
| ⌘ K | clear the screen and scrollback |
| ⌘ P | command palette |
| ⌘ F | search the scrollback |
| ⌃ R | fuzzy-search shell history |
| ⌘ + · ⌘ − · ⌘ 0 | font size up · down · reset |
Settings → Keybindings (⌘ ,) lists every shortcut. Click one, press the new keys (Esc cancels, Backspace 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 ⌃ B):
⌃ B C opens a tab, ⌃ B % splits,
⌃ B 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
catnever waits on drawing - The daemon buffers up to 16 MiB ahead of the window before backpressure applies