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fix(cli): remove nonfunctional interactive terminal tool - #13793

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marius-kilocode merged 5 commits into
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remove-unwanted-feature
Sep 8, 2026
Merged

marius-kilocode merged 5 commits into
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remove-unwanted-feature

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What Problem This Solves

The interactive_terminal tool promises to open an interactive terminal and hand keyboard control to the user. In the failure reported in #13746, it does neither: it starts a real PTY and captures output, but no usable terminal panel appears and keystrokes never reach the process. The transcript shows a tool summary instead of a terminal the user can operate.

That defeats the entire purpose of the feature. Login flows, passphrase prompts, installers, and REPLs need human input. Starting those commands without showing an interactive terminal is not useful support for them. It is worse than leaving them unsupported: the agent believes it handed control to the user, while the session stalls until the command exits or times out. The issue reproduces this with a 30-second read that returns NO-INPUT, including under an isolated configuration.

Fixes #13746 by removing the unsupported feature rather than claiming to repair the terminal handoff.

Why This Change Was Made

The feature is incomplete and is being retired now. This is deliberately not an attempt to finish or redesign it. Keeping the tool advertised, merely hiding its panel, or leaving a disabled implementation behind would preserve misleading behavior and unnecessary maintenance work.

Remove the dedicated tool, runtime, terminal UI, transport, API endpoints, generated SDK surface, permissions, and obsolete tests together. Preserve the general PTY infrastructure that other working terminals and smoke tests still use.

The code can be recovered from this PR and Git history later. A future implementation can reuse appropriate parts, but it must actually display the terminal, reliably hand over keyboard input, restore chat input on exit, and prove the real user flow works. No replacement is being built or shipped in this PR.

User Impact

  • Agents can no longer select interactive_terminal, including when an old configuration explicitly allows it. Commands that need human keyboard input must run in the user’s own terminal.
  • The dedicated interactive-terminal API endpoints, events, and SDK methods are removed. The changeset marks this as a breaking removal.
  • Normal Bash commands, background processes, the CLI chat interface, and general PTY APIs used by editor terminals remain supported.

Evidence

  • Regression coverage verifies that the tool is absent from CLI, VS Code, and JetBrains tool definitions, and that its API surface is absent while general PTY routes remain.
  • Isolated live backend checks confirm that the tool catalog omits interactive_terminal but retains Bash and background processes. The live API schema omits the removed routes and retains PTY creation and connection.
  • Real CLI and --mini PTY smoke tests passed rendering, typing, and cursor editing. Focused tests, CLI/TUI/SDK/VS Code consumer typechecks, API coverage checks, and repository guards passed. Lint completed with warnings and no errors.
  • Broader local test runs exceeded command time limits; the observed failing cases passed in isolation. This is not a claim of a complete local suite pass. The original WSL failure is documented in the issue; local smoke tests validate the removal and preserved behavior, not a new reproduction of that failure.

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marius-kilocode merged commit 6fc3a96 into main Sep 8, 2026
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marius-kilocode deleted the remove-unwanted-feature branch September 8, 2026 11:25
@ivanbaldo

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I remember it worked before and it was useful to have, specially for sysadmins and devops.

A bit sad that instead of fixing it or better yet, avoiding to break it in the first place, the feature is being removed altogether.

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interactive_terminal never renders its dialog; keyboard control is never handed over

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