feat(desktop): multi-terminal panel with read-only agent terminals - #54517
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Multiple persistent in-app terminals managed by a thin VS Code-style icon rail docked on the terminal pane's outer edge. Each tab is its own live xterm+PTY that survives tab switches, session switches, and hiding the pane (VS Code parity: only an explicit close or `exit` kills a shell). Terminals own their state independent of the session — the sole thing they inherit is an initial cwd snapshotted at creation. - Rail: icon-only tabs (name + live hotkey on hover), +/hide controls, context menu. Sits at z-40 above the collapsed sidebars' hover-reveal triggers and marks itself data-suppress-pane-reveal, so reaching for a tab can't summon the file-browser/review panel. - Lifecycle: PersistentTerminal latches mounted on first open so shells stay alive while hidden; ensureTerminal re-creates one on reopen. - Agent reader: id-keyed registry drives read_terminal off the active tab. - Keybinds (Ctrl-family, OS-aware): toggle Ctrl+`, new Ctrl+Shift+`, next/prev Ctrl+Shift+Down/Up, close Ctrl+Shift+W.
Hide inactive terminal tabs with `visibility` (absolute-stacked at full size) instead of `display:none`. A display:none host is 0×0, so its ResizeObserver fit bails and the terminal stops tracking pane resizes — re-showing it at a changed size reflowed the buffer into a garbled prompt. Visibility-hidden hosts keep their layout size, stay in sync, and switch instantly.
Fold terminal close into the existing ⌘/Ctrl+W handler so focus decides the target: a focused terminal takes ⌘W (closes the active tab) and otherwise the keystroke closes the active preview tab as before. Only the ⌘ gesture is intercepted — Ctrl+W stays the shell's werase — and a focused terminal never lets ⌘/Ctrl+W close a preview out from under it.
Replace the one-off isTerminalFocused with isFocusWithin(selector) in the
keybinds lib (beside isEditableTarget) — the reusable primitive for any
focus-scoped shortcut. The terminal marks itself data-terminal and the ⌘W
handler routes via isFocusWithin('[data-terminal]'); future surfaces just add
their own marker.
A WebGL terminal doesn't paint while visibility:hidden, so switching to it (e.g. after closing the active tab) revealed a stale/garbled frame. On activation, clear the glyph atlas and force a full term.refresh against the live buffer (after the refit), then focus.
alt-glitch
added
type/feature
When the agent runs terminal(background=true) — Hermes's equivalent of
Cursor's is_background — surface it as a read-only "agent" tab in the rail
(distinct sparkle icon), alongside the glanceable status-stack row, which now
links to the tab. The tab is a write-only xterm (no PTY, no input) fed by the
process output tail, appended live (faster poll while a tab is open) and
env-agnostic (works for local/docker/ssh shells alike).
- terminals.ts: TerminalEntry gains kind ('user'|'agent') + procId; agent tabs
auto-surface once (closing one doesn't resurrect it) and the status row can
reopen/focus them. ensureTerminal now guarantees a user shell specifically.
- use-agent-terminal.ts: slim read-only xterm hook, delta-appended.
- workspace: render user vs agent instances; auto-surface from the background
store; tail faster while an agent tab exists.
- composer-status: $backgroundOutputByProc selector; status row links to the tab
instead of an inline disclosure.
Replace the 5s output_tail poll (which often showed nothing) with a real push
stream. The process registry gains an on_output sink called from its reader
threads with each chunk; the tui_gateway wires it to emit agent.terminal.output
{process_id, chunk} (write_json is _stdout_lock-guarded, so emitting from the
reader thread is safe). The desktop routes chunks by process id straight into
the read-only agent xterm via a small writer registry, with a capped backlog so
a tab opened mid-stream (or reopened) replays what it missed.
Drops the fragile poll/tail path: no session-key matching, no truncation, no
lag — full-fidelity ANSI, env-agnostic (local/docker/ssh).
Contributor
🔎 Lint report:
|
| Rule | Count |
|---|---|
unresolved-attribute |
2 |
invalid-assignment |
1 |
First entries
tests/run_agent/test_credits_notices_toggle.py:76: [unresolved-attribute] unresolved-attribute: Unresolved attribute `_credits_session_start_micros` on type `AIAgent`
tests/tools/test_process_registry.py:239: [invalid-assignment] invalid-assignment: Object of type `_FakeProcess` is not assignable to attribute `process` of type `Popen[Unknown] | None`
run_agent.py:3040: [unresolved-attribute] unresolved-attribute: Object of type `Self@get_credits_spent_micros` has no attribute `_credits_session_start_micros`
✅ Fixed issues (2):
| Rule | Count |
|---|---|
unresolved-attribute |
1 |
invalid-assignment |
1 |
First entries
tools/process_registry.py:908: [unresolved-attribute] unresolved-attribute: Attribute `read` is not defined on `None` in union `IO[Any] | None`
tests/run_agent/test_credits_notices_toggle.py:76: [invalid-assignment] invalid-assignment: Object of type `None` is not assignable to attribute `_credits_session_start_micros` of type `int`
Unchanged: 6140 pre-existing issues carried over.
Diagnostics are surfaced as warnings — this check never fails the build.
Read-only agent terminal tabs now consume both live agent.terminal.output chunks and the process-list/status snapshot. The snapshot seeds tabs opened after output already exists and acts as a fallback if the live stream races startup, so agent background tabs don't sit blank while the status stack already knows the tail.
Seed read-only agent terminal tabs with the background command immediately, so they never open as a blank pane while stdout is pending or a live stream races startup. Snapshot fallback now preserves that command header and appends only missing output without duplicating live chunks.
Make the read-only agent terminal mirrors stream in real time and give the agent a desktop-only way to dismiss its own tabs. - Stream background output live: the local reader used a blocking read(4096) that buffered small periodic output until EOF, so agent tabs only "filled in" at process exit. Switch to buffer.read1(4096) (decoded) for incremental chunks. - Route agent.terminal.output / terminal.close to the window that owns the process (its gateway session) instead of an empty session id, so events actually reach the desktop renderer. - Add close_terminal: a HERMES_DESKTOP-gated tool (sibling of read_terminal) that drops a process's read-only tab WITHOUT killing it via process_registry.on_close; output keeps buffering and the user can reopen from the status stack. - ⌘W now closes a focused agent tab: mark the agent instance data-terminal and focus it on activation so isFocusWithin routes there. - ensureTerminal() no longer spawns an extra user shell when a tab already exists (e.g. opening a background task from the status stack).
OutThisLife
changed the title
Register read-only agent terminals with the same renderer-side terminal reader as user terminals so read_terminal works on whichever tab is active. Also bring agent xterm rendering closer to user-terminal parity (unicode 11, web links, font weights/spacing) and make the gateway sink wiring resilient if only one terminal event sink was already installed.
Keep read-only agent terminal tabs visually and behaviorally aligned with normal terminal tabs by using the same 1,000-line scrollback cap.
Remove the prompt-gap cleanup that sent Ctrl-L into the user's shell; it could render as literal ^L and create the exact top-line gap it was meant to hide. Keep first-prompt cleanup renderer-side only, and parse short ESC charset sequences so the initial newline stripper does not disarm early. Also add a Close all action to the terminal tab context menu.
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Summary
Adds a real multi-terminal experience to the desktop app and wires Hermes into it as a first-class, read-only participant.
exit, middle-click, the context menu (Close,Close others,Close all), or hotkeys.cwd; switching chats or hiding the pane never kills a shell.terminal(background=true)process is mirrored as a distinct read-only tab (theagentcodicon, primary tint) that streams output live, is readable throughread_terminalwhen active, and is linked from the composer's background status stack.close_terminaltool without killing the process. Output keeps buffering and the user can reopen from the status stack.Ctrl+\``), new (Ctrl+Shift+`), next/prev (Ctrl+Shift+↓/↑), close active (Ctrl+Shift+W), and⌘W` to close the focused terminal on macOS.Why These Fixes Matter
@xterm/addon-serialize) plus launch details, then replaying history while reviving/relaunching the process. This PR now mirrors the useful renderer-level behavior: restored tabs plus recent history, without pretending app-quit processes can remain alive.stdout.buffer.read1(4096)instead of blockingstdout.read(4096), andagent.terminal.output/terminal.closeevents are routed to the owning desktop session.read_terminalreads whichever terminal tab is active.\f) into the user's shell, which could render as literal^L.Footprint / Design Notes
close_terminalisHERMES_DESKTOP-gated, likeread_terminal, so it is invisible outside desktop.@xterm/addon-serializefor lossless-ish scrollback replay; lockfile change is limited to the new dependency entry.Test Plan
Automated
scripts/run_tests.sh tests/tools/test_process_registry.py— 98/98 pass.npm run test:ui -- --run src/app/right-sidebar/terminal/terminals.test.ts— terminal store persistence tests pass:npm run typecheck --workspace hermes— desktop TypeScript clean.Manual QA
+.Ctrl+Shift+\`` opens more tabs;Ctrl+Shift+↑/↓cycles; typeexit`, middle-click, or context-menu to close.Close allcloses every terminal tab and hides the terminal pane.agenttab appears and streams live.⌘Wcloses it on macOS. Opening a background task from the status stack does not spawn a second empty shell.close_terminala process → its tab disappears but the process keeps running; reopen it from the status stack and output is intact.Ctrl+\`` → the first prompt starts at the top without literal^L` output.