Merge pull request #17190 from NousResearch/bb/tui-cold-start-profiling

perf(tui): cut visible cold start ~57% with lazy agent init

ui-tui/src/app/useConfigSync.ts

@@ -5,8 +5,7 @@ import type { GatewayClient } from '../gatewayClient.js'
 import type {
   ConfigFullResponse,
   ConfigMtimeResponse,
-  ReloadMcpResponse,
-  VoiceToggleResponse
+  ReloadMcpResponse
 } from '../gatewayTypes.js'
 import { asRpcResult } from '../lib/rpc.js'
 
@@ -118,7 +117,11 @@ export function useConfigSync({ gw, setBellOnComplete, setVoiceEnabled, sid }: U
       return
     }
 
-    quietRpc<VoiceToggleResponse>(gw, 'voice.toggle', { action: 'status' }).then(r => setVoiceEnabled(!!r?.enabled))
+    // Keep startup cheap: voice.toggle status probes optional audio/STT deps and
+    // can run long enough to delay prompt.submit on the single stdio RPC pipe.
+    // Environment flags are enough to initialize the UI bit; the heavier status
+    // check still runs when the user opens /voice.
+    setVoiceEnabled(process.env.HERMES_VOICE === '1')
     quietRpc<ConfigMtimeResponse>(gw, 'config.get', { key: 'mtime' }).then(r => {
       mtimeRef.current = Number(r?.mtime ?? 0)
     })

ui-tui/src/app/useSubmission.ts

@@ -126,6 +126,13 @@ export function useSubmission(opts: UseSubmissionOptions) {
         return sys('session not ready yet')
       }
 
+      // Plain prompts are the common path and should not pay an extra RPC
+      // before prompt.submit. File-drop detection still runs for absolute,
+      // tilde, file://, and explicit relative paths.
+      if (!looksLikeSlashCommand(text) && !/(?:^|\s)(?:file:\/\/|~\/|\.?\.\/|\/)[^\s]+/.test(text)) {
+        return startSubmit(text, expand(text), showUserMessage)
+      }
+
       gw.request<InputDetectDropResponse>('input.detect_drop', { session_id: sid, text })
         .then(r => {
           if (!r?.matched) {