l0ng-ai 8adebdf24d perf(ssh): prove the remote server once per connection, not once per pane (#695)
Opening a second tab on a machine tty7 was already connected to and already
serving cost the same wait as the first one. The SSH connection is reused, so
none of that wait was handshake cost: every route called `ensure_remote_server`
unconditionally, and that runs the whole installer probe again — `uname -sm`,
an SFTP realpath for the home directory, an SFTP stat, a control probe that
spawns the server binary, and `check_running_build`, which walks `/proc/[0-9]*`
with a `readlink` per PID and shells out to `ps` on the machines that have no
`/proc`. Five serial round trips before the pane's own channel opened, to
re-learn what the pane before it had just learned.

WSL fixed exactly this in #479 by remembering where a distro's server was last
proved to be. SSH now does the same, with one difference that matters: a distro
name is the whole identity of a WSL target, but an SSH connection can die and
be replaced under the same key, so the note is kept on the `SshConnection`
rather than in a map beside its key. Keying by connection generation is then
not a discipline anyone has to keep — a reconnect is a new `SshConnection` with
an empty slot, and nothing has to remember to forget.

Memoizing must not quietly cancel the version check, which is the one thing
that could make this a bad trade. Three things keep it honest. The note carries
the build mismatch the probe found and re-files it on every hit, because the
warning is raised inside `Installer::run` and each route drains its own sink —
without that, only the first pane on a connection would ever hear that a
different build is serving the machine, and every window after it would attach
in silence. `replace_remote_server` and `restart_remote_daemon` forget before
they act, not after, so a restart that fails halfway leaves the next pane
looking rather than trusting a note written before the upheaval. And the router
forgets when a routed link closes without the remote sending a byte, the way it
already does for a WSL bridge: `exec` succeeds whatever the command turns out
to be, so a binary deleted or moved since the probe is discovered exactly
there.

A failed probe is deliberately not remembered. A host that was briefly
unreachable, or an install the user declined once, must not pin every later
pane on that connection into the same failure — the slot is written only when
the probe got all the way through. The note carries the binary path and the
mismatch and nothing else: `installed`, `launched` and `confirmed` describe an
event rather than a state, and serving them again to a later pane would only
make the log lie.

Left alone on purpose: the probe itself, which is unchanged and still the only
thing that decides what a pane runs; the WSL memo, which keeps its own shape;
and the macOS-server half of #695, which shipped in v26.9.1.

Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01UUyWQXzcBAoBzaSX8pc7nU
2026-09-09 17:54:45 +08:00
2026-09-07 21:00:55 +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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