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Let third-party dictation tools insert into terminals - #15262
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Cover what third-party dictation tools need from the terminal's accessibility element: AXValue shows the screen so a tool can confirm its insertion (#722), setting AXSelectedText types at the cursor (#4953), a multi-line value arrives as one bracketed paste, and an unbound Command chord posted by another process does not type into the terminal (#4153). These fail before the fix that follows. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Dictation tools that insert through accessibility could not confirm their insertion, could not use AXSelectedText, and a multi-line dictation ran each line as its own command. - AXValue now returns the active screen from a 500 ms snapshot, with NumberOfCharacters, VisibleCharacterRange, Line(for:) and String(for:) getters, and posts valueChanged after an AX insertion (#722). - setAccessibilitySelectedText commits at the cursor, and both setters are reported as settable (#4953). A client that writes back the value it read with its text spliced in gets only its text typed, not the whole screen. - Text with an interior line break goes through the paste path, so a bracketed-paste-aware shell or agent gets one block. Single-line text, including a trailing newline sent as Return, keeps typed semantics. - A Command chord that misses the menu and every Ghostty binding is dropped when another process posted it, so a dictation hotkey such as Cmd+Option+C no longer types a stray character (#4153). The accessibility overrides move to GhosttyNSView+Accessibility.swift. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Included review availability: This review used your included allowance. Your plan provides up to 10 included reviews per hour; 1 remain after this review. 📝 WalkthroughWalkthroughGhosttyNSView now exposes terminal text and selection through accessibility APIs and accepts accessibility text writes. A text model caches snapshots and interprets edits. The key-equivalent retry path now filters foreign-process Command+Option events. ChangesTerminal accessibility text
Foreign Command+Option chord filtering
Priority: ➖ Normal Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~25 minutes Change: Feature · Severity of issue fixed: Medium Sequence Diagram(s)sequenceDiagram
participant AXClient
participant GhosttyNSView
participant TerminalAccessibilityText
participant TerminalSurface
AXClient->>GhosttyNSView: Set accessibility value or selected text
GhosttyNSView->>TerminalAccessibilityText: Interpret write using recently served text
TerminalAccessibilityText-->>GhosttyNSView: Return inserted text or supplied value
GhosttyNSView->>TerminalSurface: Commit text through typed input or paste
Merge Risk: 🟡 Moderate · up to Dictation tools can still interpret delayed terminal echo as failed insertion. Resolve the notification timing issue before merging, or explicitly accept this limitation. Security Architecture ReviewSecurity architecture risk: 🟡 Moderate · up to Accessibility clients can now read the active terminal screen and write edits back. The normal edit path avoids retyping the screen, but delayed writes can lose their edit history and insert screen contents as input. Paste handling reduces accidental execution, but does not eliminate it in every terminal program. Retained concerns
Security review detailsSecurity Blast Radius
Security Findings and Attack Paths
Trust Boundaries and Controls
Resilience and Maintainability Implications
Hardening Proposals
Important Pre-merge checks failedPlease resolve all errors before merging. Addressing warnings is optional. ❌ Failed checks (5 errors, 1 warning, 1 inconclusive)
✅ Passed checks (18 passed)
Full details: Out of Scope Changes checkExplanation
Full details: Docstring CoverageExplanation Docstring coverage is 32.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 50 functions across 5 files. (2 skipped: 1 unsupported, 1 too large.) Full details: Cmux Swift Blocking RuntimeExplanation The production diff adds a Resolution Remove the production timer and trigger the accessibility notification from a real completion signal, such as terminal input/output completion or an explicit state transition. If no signal exists, post the notification without timing-based synchronization and invalidate the snapshot at the appropriate completion point. Full details: Cmux Algorithmic ComplexityExplanation The new accessibility history uses a scalable collection without a count bound or index. In Resolution Use an explicit small count bound or an indexed history. Maintain a dictionary or hash index to shortlist candidate snapshots, use a deque/ring buffer instead of Full details: Cmux Swift Package BoundariesExplanation The diff keeps independently testable terminal-accessibility domain logic in the app target. Resolution Extract the pure accessibility-text model into a small macOS SwiftPM target, such as Full details: Cmux Architecture RethinkExplanation The change adds a production timing repair path for an output race. Resolution Remove the production Full details: Cmux No Test Or Debug Seam In Production SourceExplanation
Resolution Remove ✨ Finishing Touches 💡 1📝 Generate docstrings 💡
🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)
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Dogfood build of cmux DEV pr-15262-38094201.app The link opens this exact commit in the cmux dev menu bar app. The build starts on each push and the page waits until it is ready; a newer push replaces it. It signs in against production, so Cloud or backend changes still need a tagged build with a development backend. Dogfood tours of
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CI failure attributionCI failed on
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Fleet dogfoodBuilds (fleet, exact SHAs, built without a dev backend, so there is no one-click HQ link;
Both ran on a fleet Mac at 1920x1080, driven through Cua Driver from another process (the same position a dictation tool is in), with a clean zsh prompt.
Step 3, main (runs line by line):
Step 3, PR (one pasted block, not executed; step 2's
Step 4, main (
Step 4, PR (only the
Control, PR: synthetic Cmd+T still opens a second tab.
Window recordings of each run: main, PR. Not run: the physical-keyboard Cmd+Option+C control (no hands on the fleet Mac), Cmd+V and Cmd+C-with-selection checks, Accessibility Inspector's "Settable" flags, and the real dictation tools (none installed). One oddity in the tool, not the app: on the PR the driver reported the Verdict: pass. Every step that ran matches the expected result on both sides. — Hazelnut g1 🐝 (run_worker_20260928_778e63d5) |
Review follow-ups: - Diff an AXValue write against the last 8 distinct values handed to AX clients, so a tool that writes back an older read after the screen changed still gets only its text typed. Short values need a pure insertion, so a literal isn't trimmed to match a two-character prompt. - Take the multi-line paste path only on a live surface, where the paste and the trailing Return share one input sequence, and end any IME preedit first. - Drop only Command+Option chords posted by another process, the push-to-talk hotkey case, so remote-control and automation tools keep their other unbound Command chords. - Cover a stale read, a multi-line value with a trailing newline, and assert the keyboard chord in the foreign-chord test is local. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Pre-merge review (subagent, read-only, diff
The reviewer confirmed the paste and the trailing Return go through the same clipboard-read input sequencer in order on a live surface. It also found that cmux's own replays ( |
Catch-up merge by scripts/ci/catch_up_pr.py (RFC #14631). Merged by scripts/merge-main.sh: origin/main at ee20686, the newest commit with green CI fast guards (1 newer skipped). Resolved conflicts: - cmux.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj: union of added entries, then normalize-pbxproj.py Catch-up-previous-head: 1a0569c Catch-up-base: ee20686
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Inline comments:
Review comments at @Sources/TerminalAccessibilityText.swift:
- Line 61: Update the delayed `.valueChanged` notification in the timer callback
to use the terminal screen-update path as the source of truth, posting only
after `AXValue` reflects echoed input. Preserve a separate acknowledgement path
for inputs that produce no screen echo.
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Sources/GhosttyNSView+Accessibility.swiftSources/GhosttyNSView+ForeignCommandChord.swiftSources/GhosttyTerminalView.swiftSources/TerminalAccessibilityText.swiftcmux.xcodeproj/project.pbxprojcmuxTests/TerminalAccessibilityTextTests.swiftcmuxTests/TerminalDictationAccessibilityTests.swift
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Cross-model review (Codex gpt-5.6-sol)
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Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Withdrawing the re-dogfood request for dc84a08: this is a logic fix in the accessibility input path, and under the current rule that needs tests and green CI, not a manual dogfood. The fleet dogfood of b789610 already passed steps 1-4. Still to do before merge: the fix for the cross-model finding (AX history drops a value after 8 newer reads, so a slow dictation write could paste the old screen), with its regression test, which is in progress. Then a review, green CI, and the merge. |
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Fixed the cross-model review finding in de1775a: retain AX screen reads for 30 seconds since last vended, with oldest-first eviction at a 4 MiB UTF-8 cap. |
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
With 30 s of history, a write spliced into an older read could match a newer screen that shares most of its text and paste the older screen's differing tail. Look for a pure insertion across the whole history first. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Review of the cross-model fix (ef053ac, f6047c8), by a review subagent: Fixed:
Left, as nits:
Head is now 854681d, merged with main. No dogfood is needed under the current rule. This merges on green CI. |
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Summary
Dictation tools that insert through accessibility (Typeless, Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, Willow) now work in cmux terminals. Before this, a terminal's
AXValuewas always empty, so a tool that re-reads it to confirm an insertion decided the insertion failed and fell back to "Copy last transcription" (#722). Tools that insert by settingAXSelectedTexthad nothing to call (#4953). The reports were filed on 0.61.0, before the terminal had any AX text-area support (#857), so some of the original symptoms are already gone; this covers what was still missing.Readable value (#722).
AXValuereturns the terminal's active screen, read throughTerminalSurface.readText(region: .active)and cached for 500 ms so a burst of AX queries copies the grid once.AXNumberOfCharacters,AXVisibleCharacterRange,AXLineForIndexandAXStringForRangeread the same snapshot. After an AX insertion the snapshot is dropped and onevalueChangedis posted 150 ms later, so a tool that checks again sees its text. I left out postingvalueChangedon every output change, since that would make VoiceOver announce every line a program prints.Settable selected text (#4953).
setAccessibilitySelectedTextcommits at the cursor, the only place a terminal accepts input, through the same path assetAccessibilityValue.isAccessibilitySelectorAllowedreports both setters as settable. Now thatAXValuehas content, a client may write back a value it read with its text spliced in. Typing that back would paste the whole screen into the shell, so the write is compared with the last 8 distinct values handed to AX clients (a tool may write back an older read after output arrived). When it keeps one of them around a single edit, only the edited middle is typed. Short values need a pure insertion, so a literal isn't trimmed to match a two-character prompt. Any other value is typed as-is, the same as before.Privacy. Before this, AX clients only saw selected text. Now any app the user has granted Accessibility access can read the visible terminal screen, the same as upstream Ghostty and most text views.
Multi-line dictation. The AX path used typed-input semantics, so every newline became Return and a multi-line dictation ran line by line. On a live surface, text with a line break before its end now goes through
TerminalSurface.sendText, the sameghostty_surface_textpaste path the socketsendand the mobile composer use. A shell or agent with bracketed paste on gets one block. Leading escape sequences are still stripped, and other control characters are dropped so an ESC can't end the bracketed paste early. Single-line text keeps typed semantics, including a trailing newline sent as Return, because that's what the existingtestAccessibilityValueSanitizesLeadingEscapeSequencepins and what a tool's "press enter" relies on. A trailing newline after a multi-line block also still submits once, after the paste, through the same input sequence. A cold surface keeps the typed path, because it would queue the paste but send the Return at once. I didn't route everything through paste: for one line, typed input keeps shell autosuggestions and matches what Apple's own dictation does throughinsertText.Stray hotkey characters (#4153). #8895 and #14557 fixed plain Cmd+C. A tool that posts Cmd+Option+C (Option held as push-to-talk) still missed the menu and every Ghostty binding, then went through
performKeyEquivalentAfterMenuMissintokeyDownand typed a character. That path now drops a Command+Option chord when itsCGEventsource PID is another process. Hardware events carry PID 0 and events cmux makes carry its own PID, so keyboard chords, menu shortcuts and Ghostty bindings are untouched. Command chords without Option pass through as before, so remote-control and automation tools keep them. The remaining cost: an unbound Command+Option chord that another app deliberately sends to a terminal program, for example over Screen Sharing, is dropped.The accessibility overrides move out of
GhosttyTerminalView.swiftintoGhosttyNSView+Accessibility.swift.#14587 also exposes the screen through
AXValueand makes the terminal theAXFocusedUIElement. The value parts overlap, and whichever lands second should keep one implementation. Its focus change complements this one.Testing
Commits:
e7105110ac0addsTerminalDictationAccessibilityTests(Swift Testing, live terminal running a raw Python receiver with bracketed paste on),b7896103a90is the fix, and1a0569c7140hardens it after review. The tests check that:AXValuecontains the program's output andAXStringForRangereturns itAXSelectedTexttypes the text onceAXValueto the value it read plus text types only that text"first line\nsecond line"reaches the PTY asESC[200~first line\nsecond line ESC[201~with no Return key, and with a trailing newline, one Return follows the pasteTerminalAccessibilityTextTestscovers the splice diff (including a stale read), line-break split, paste payload, snapshot expiry and PID check.CI on
b7896103a90withfull-ci: Release build and compile passed, and both new suites ran and passed in the app-host unit lane (shard 7/7 and the shard 2/7 rerun). The other app-host failures on that head were runners losing contact, plusLiveAgentIndexRelevantChurnTestsandTabManagerPullRequestProbeTeststiming failures in suites this PR doesn't touch;LiveAgentIndexRelevantChurnTestspassed on rerun. I didn't run the red commit on its own. This was written on a host without Xcode, so nothing native ran locally; Swift syntax, wiring and file-length checks passed throughscripts/verify-local.py, and the pure helpers were compiled and run standalone. On merge head38094201b7b(with1a0569c7140), CI passed in full: Release build, CLI product tests and all seven app-host unit shards. Both suites passed, including the new stale-read and trailing-newline tests. The first attempt's failures in shards 2, 4 and 6 were lost runners and GUI-less minis. They hit TabManager, font-zoom and portal suites this PR doesn't touch, and passed on retry.Dogfood on a tagged build of
b7896103a90against maina98c560063fpassed the AXValue read, the AXSelectedText insert, the multi-line AXValue paste, the synthetic Cmd+Option+C from another process, and a Cmd+T control sent through System Events (results). Not checked live yet: the same chord from the physical keyboard, Cmd+V and Cmd+C with a selection, the settable flags in Accessibility Inspector, and the real dictation apps. The1a0569c7140changes weren't re-dogfooded.Changelog
Fixed: Dictation tools such as Typeless, Wispr Flow and Superwhisper can insert into terminals, read back what they inserted, and no longer run a multi-line dictation line by line or leave a stray character from their hotkey
Checklist
accessibilityHelptext only moved filesFixes #722
Refs #4953
Refs #4153
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