--- name: l0ng-ai/tty7 source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/l0ng-ai-tty7@2/SKILL.md source_sha256: a5a1b5279067 --- # Driving tty7 from the command line `tty7` is a thin, non-interactive client of the tty7 server. Every verb returns and exits; `--json` makes the output machine-readable. The GUI never has to be running — the server is what owns the panes. ## First: where are you? ```bash tty7 doctor ``` One table, and it answers everything you need before doing anything else: whether a server is reachable, whether the dialect matches, whether each agent's status hooks are installed, and whether `TTY7_CONFIG_DIR` / `TTY7_WS` / `TTY7_PANE` are set — i.e. whether you are running *inside* a tty7 pane. Being inside a pane matters for two reasons: the address-taking verbs (`split`, `send`, `capture`, `procs`, `wait`, `pane close`) default to `$TTY7_PANE`, and `run --keep` files its pane into `$TTY7_WS`. Outside a tty7 shell you must name a target explicitly, and the error will say so rather than guessing. The hooks row matters if you intend to delegate to another agent: without them an agent reports no status, so `tty7 wait` on it will only ever time out. If `tty7 doctor` says the server is unreachable, stop and tell the user — do not run `tty7 server start` on your own initiative. Starting a server they didn't ask for changes what their GUI attaches to. ## When to use this instead of the Bash tool The Bash tool is right for anything that starts, does its job, and exits. Reach for tty7 when one of these is true: - **It shouldn't block you.** A dev server, a watcher, `tail -f`, a long test run you want to check on later. Put it in a pane, come back and read it. - **It's interactive or stateful.** A REPL, `ssh`, a database shell, anything where you send one thing, read the answer, then send the next. A pane keeps the session alive between your turns; a Bash call cannot. - **It needs a real TTY.** Programs that detect a pipe and change behaviour — colour, progress bars, TUIs, `top`, anything using raw mode. `tty7 run` gives a genuine PTY at 120×30. - **The user should be able to watch it.** Anything in a pane shows up in their tty7 window, live. That is often the whole point. - **You're being asked about something you didn't start.** "What's running in that pane?", "why is port 3000 taken?", "what are my agents doing?" — you can answer those from here without touching anything. - **Someone else should do the work.** Another coding agent can run in a pane, and you can wait on it and read its answer. See [Handing work to another agent](#handing-work-to-another-agent). ## Addresses | Shape | Means | Stable? | |---|---|---| | `%42` | a pane | yes — a pane keeps its id for its whole life | | `@7` | a tab, numbered across the **whole machine** in tree order | **no** — it shifts whenever a workspace or tab appears or disappears | | `api` / `76698a44` / a full UUID | a workspace, by name, by unique id prefix, or by id | yes | Re-resolve `@N` right before you use it; never cache one across a step that creates or removes a tab. Pane ids and workspace ids are safe to remember. Omitting the address inside a tty7 shell means "this pane" / "this workspace". An explicit address always wins over the environment. ## Running a command: two shapes ### Blocking, with a real exit code ```bash tty7 run -- cargo test # streams to your stdout, exits with cargo's code tty7 run --cwd /path -- make tty7 run --keep -- cargo build # leaves the pane as a new tab afterwards ``` The command's output streams to your stdout as it happens, and `tty7` exits with the command's own exit code. This is the closest thing to a Bash call — the difference is the PTY and the fact that the user can see it. Three things to know. `--keep` needs a workspace, so it only works inside a tty7 shell or with `--ws `. With `--json`, the streamed output comes first and the JSON object last — the combined stream is *not* parseable as JSON, so read the last line. And the pane is 120 columns wide with no way to change it, so output that assumes a wider terminal wraps. ### Non-blocking: a pane you talk to over time This is the one that makes tty7 worth reaching for. Get a pane, send it work, come back later. ```bash PANE=$(tty7 split --v) # or --h; splits $TTY7_PANE, prints "%83" tty7 send "$PANE" 'npm run dev' --enter ``` `split` prints the new pane's address on stdout, which is what you capture into a variable. Without an axis it is a usage error — `--v` stacks the new pane below, `--h` puts it to the right. Splitting `$TTY7_PANE` changes the user's visible layout, which is usually the point: they can watch the dev server you started. Say that you did it, and close the pane when you're done with it. If you are *not* inside a tty7 pane there is nothing to split, so make your own place to work first. `tty7 new --json /path/to/repo` hands you both ids at once — don't go digging through `ws tree` for the pane: ```bash read -r WS PANE < <(tty7 new --json /path/to/repo \ | python3 -c 'import json,sys; d=json.load(sys.stdin); print(d["id"], "%%%d" % d["pane"])') ``` `send` types text into the pane exactly as a keyboard would; `--enter` appends the carriage return, or presses Enter on its own when you give it no text (`tty7 send "$PANE" --enter` runs what is already typed there). It does not wait and it does not tell you what happened — reading is a separate step, and waiting is `tty7 wait`. For keystrokes rather than characters — Ctrl-C, Escape, the arrow keys — use `--key` (see [Answering a prompt](#answering-a-prompt)). Typing `^C` as text does nothing; it arrives as two characters. ## Reading a pane ### If you want the screen, use `--plain` ```bash tty7 capture %83 --plain ``` `capture` hands back what the daemon stored — the pane's bytes, escapes and all — and `--plain` replays them through a terminal grid and prints the resulting text instead. Not a stripper: colour and cursor escapes are gone, but also a line the shell wrapped at column 249 comes back as one line, a progress bar that rewrote itself with `\r` reads as its final value, and a TUI's screen lands where it was drawn. Use it whenever a human would want to read the output. Two details about what you get back either way: capture returns a *snapshot*, not a stream — call it again for a newer one. And by default it prints the newest scrollback segment (the ring splits on resize); `--scrollback` prints the whole ring, which for a pane that was never resized is the same thing. ### If you want the result, redirect to a file `--plain` gives you the screen, and a screen is a rectangle: whatever scrolled past the top of a long build log is gone, and the exit code was never on screen at all. So when what you want is the *answer* rather than the view, have the shell write it somewhere clean: ```bash tty7 send "$PANE" 'cargo test > /tmp/t.log 2>&1; echo $? > /tmp/t.rc' --enter # ...wait for it to finish (below), then: cat /tmp/t.rc /tmp/t.log ``` Complete output, a real exit code, no terminal in the middle. ### Knowing when a command has finished Don't poll the screen and don't write your own loop — block on it: ```bash tty7 wait "$PANE" --until free --changed --timeout 900 ``` `free` means the foreground command has exited and the pane is back to its bare shell. `--changed` adds "and something actually ran while I watched", which is what you want on the line right after a `send`: without it, a command that has not started yet leaves the pane looking finished. The whole shape, end to end: ```bash tty7 send "$PANE" 'cargo test > /tmp/t.log 2>&1; echo $? > /tmp/t.rc' --enter tty7 wait "$PANE" --until free --changed --timeout 900 cat /tmp/t.rc /tmp/t.log tty7 pane close "$PANE" ``` Exit codes are built for this: `0` means a state you asked for was reached, `124` means the timeout ran out (the `timeout(1)` convention, so "not yet" is distinguishable from "broken"), `1` means the pane died first. One trap in `--changed`: a command that finishes inside a single poll (500ms by default) is never *seen* running, so the wait keeps going until it times out. For something that quick, `--interval 100`, or drop `--changed` and read the `.rc` file. The timeout message says so when it happens. If you want the process tree itself — "what is running in there", "which port is this pane serving" — that is `tty7 procs %83`: indented by depth, `*` on the foreground process, then the ports those processes are listening on. ## Handing work to another agent Everything above also works when the thing in the pane is a coding agent, and that is where this stops being a terminal wrapper and starts being useful. An agent reports its own status, so you can wait on *it* rather than on its process tree: ```bash PANE=$(tty7 split --v) tty7 send "$PANE" 'claude -p "add tests for the parser"' --enter tty7 wait "$PANE" --until waiting,done --changed --timeout 900 tty7 capture "$PANE" --plain | tail -40 tty7 pane close "$PANE" ``` Five steps: give it a pane, hand it the task, sleep until it needs you or finishes, read what happened, clean up. The third is the one worth understanding. ### What the states mean | State | The pane is | |---|---| | `working` | mid-turn | | `waiting` | **stopped, needing you** — a permission prompt, a question | | `done` | finished its turn | | `idle` | an agent that has not started a turn | | `free` | no agent: the foreground command exited (see above) | | `no-agent` | nothing reports status here — a plain shell, or hooks not installed | | `exit` | the pane is gone; ends every wait whether you asked for it or not | `--until waiting,done,exit` is the default because those are the three that mean "your turn again". Note that `idle` is something an agent says about *itself* — a pane running a build is `no-agent`, never `idle`, so `--until idle` is never the way to ask "is the command finished". That is `free`. Mixing the two is safe: `--until waiting,done,free` covers a pane whose kind you don't know, because `free` is only consulted when none of the agent states you named matched first. ### `--changed` is not optional in a loop The status is a **level, not an event**: `done` stands until the next turn begins. So a `wait` issued right after a `send` will happily answer with *last* turn's `done` before the worker has even read the input, and you will read a stale screen and think it failed. `--changed` refuses the state the pane was already in. Every round after the first needs it; the JSON's `stale` flag tells you when it mattered. ### Answering a prompt A worker that stops at `waiting` is usually showing something that text cannot answer — a permission prompt driven by arrow keys, a menu, a TUI. Look first, then press keys: ```bash tty7 capture "$PANE" --plain | tail -20 # what is it asking? tty7 send "$PANE" --key down --key enter # answer it tty7 send "$PANE" --key C-c # or stop it ``` `--key` takes `enter escape tab backtab space backspace delete up down right left home end pageup pagedown`, plus `C-` for Ctrl and `M-` for Alt. Repeat it for a sequence; text and keys compose, text first. This is also how you interrupt a runaway command in a pane you own — `--key C-c` — which plain `send` cannot express. ### Running several at once Panes are independent, so fan out and then collect: ```bash for task in parser lexer codegen; do P=$(tty7 split --v) tty7 send "$P" "claude -p 'add tests for the $task'" --enter echo "$P" >> /tmp/workers done while read -r P; do tty7 wait "$P" --until done,exit --changed --timeout 1800 || echo "$P did not finish" tty7 capture "$P" --plain | tail -40 tty7 pane close "$P" done < /tmp/workers ``` Splitting repeatedly makes the user's window very busy; `tty7 new` gives each worker its own workspace instead if you would rather not. ### When a worker never moves A `wait` that times out while `tty7 agents` shows a status that never changes almost always means the agent's status hooks are missing or out of date — the worker is fine, it just has no way to say so. `tty7 agents` names the agent when it can see the gap, and `tty7 doctor` reports where every agent's hooks stand. Hooks are installed from the GUI's **Settings → Agents**; tell the user rather than trying to install them yourself. ## Looking around ```bash tty7 ls # every workspace: tabs, panes, who's attached tty7 ws tree api # one workspace as a tree — tabs, splits, panes, cwds tty7 pane ls # panes with their workspace, tab, cwd, live flag tty7 pane ls --all # + orphans: panes the server runs that no workspace holds tty7 agents # every coding agent on the machine and its status tty7 status # server pid, uptime, pane count, build, socket tty7 machine ls # this machine plus any linked remotes tty7 events # stream server events, one per line, until interrupted ``` `tty7 agents` is worth knowing about: it reports each pane running a recognised coding agent as `idle` / `working` / `waiting` / `done`, with the agent's own message beside it. If you are one of them, you are in that list too. It also prints a diagnostic — `diagnostics` in the JSON — when it can see an agent running whose status hooks are missing or outdated, which is the explanation for any agent that appears frozen. Add `--json` to any of these to parse instead of eyeball. `-q` suppresses output on success but never suppresses errors. ## Don't break the user's session The panes on this machine are the user's real work, and some of them are other coding agents mid-task. Treat anything you did not create as read-only: - **Never `send` into a pane you didn't open.** Keystrokes into another agent's pane, or into a shell the user is typing in, land in the middle of whatever is happening there. Check `tty7 agents` before you touch a pane. This goes double for `--key`: a stray `C-c` kills somebody's work. - **Never `pane close` / `tab close` / `ws rm` something you didn't create.** - **Never `pane close --orphans`.** It closes every abandoned pane on the machine, and an abandoned pane can still be running a real command. It is the user's broom; point them at it, don't swing it. - **Never `server stop` or `server restart`.** Every pane on the machine dies with the server, including yours. If the server genuinely seems wedged, say so and let the user decide. - **Clean up what you did create.** `tty7 pane close %83` when you're done with a scratch pane; it takes several ids at once. `ws rm` hangs up the panes the workspace held, so removing a scratch workspace is enough on its own. What does leak is an interrupted `tty7 run` — that pane keeps running with nothing referencing it, and shows up under `tty7 pane ls --all`. ## Remote machines `-m ` routes any command over a link the local server already holds: ```bash tty7 -m devbox ls tty7 -m devbox run -- cargo test ``` The name matches the full link key (`me@devbox:22`) or just the host. The CLI will not dial a fresh connection — if the link is down, or it's a jump/proxy chain, it says so and you should hand that back to the user, who can connect it from the GUI. ## Not wired up yet `ws stop`, `machine connect` and `machine disconnect` exit with a message saying they're not implemented. Don't build a plan around them. ## Full command reference `references/commands.md` has every verb, subcommand and flag in one table, plus the JSON shape each one emits. Read it when you need a verb that isn't above, or when you're about to parse `--json` output and want to know the field names.