l0ng-ai ac90f6c212 fix(doctor): say when the server is running panes nothing holds
An interrupted `tty7 run` strands a pane. So does a window reconciling its
layout while something else edits the tree — measured at 17 from 160
operations, every one a live `zsh` holding a pty and its descriptors, and
`tty7 pane close --orphans` ended all 17.

None of that was news to tty7: `pane ls --all` names them, the switcher lists
them, and the reaper works. What was missing is that nothing volunteered they
existed. `doctor` printed `status  pid …, up 6s, 2 panes` and counted the
stray among them, so the one verb somebody runs when something feels wrong had
the number and did not say what it meant.

A row and a `server.orphans` count. Deliberately not an exit code: one stray
after an interrupted `run` is ordinary and the reference documents it as such,
so `tty7 doctor || alert` firing on it would cry wolf. What was missing was
the sentence, not an alarm.

Counted inside the arm that already has the machine tree in hand for the
dangling-context row, so it costs no extra round trip, and under `server`
because it takes a server to have panes at all.

The first draft put the count at the top level of the JSON, and
`the_doctor_json_sections_are_the_ones_the_reference_names` — added earlier
today for exactly this — caught it as an undocumented section before it went
anywhere.
2026-08-23 08:13:50 +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 (19 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, nushell, 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 nineteen
Agent Detected Status · resume Fork
Claude Code
Codex
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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