This PR groups the TUI fixes that restore macOS Terminal usability and clean up the theme/composer regressions:
- copy transcript selections on macOS drag-release so Terminal.app users can copy while mouse tracking is enabled
- copy composer selections on macOS drag-release; composer selection is internal to TextInput and does not use the global Ink selection bus
- keep IDE Cmd+C forwarding setup macOS-only, and make keybinding conflict checks respect simple when-clause overlap/negation
- force truecolor before chalk initializes (unless NO_COLOR / FORCE_COLOR / HERMES_TUI_TRUECOLOR opt-outs apply) so the default banner keeps its gold/amber/bronze gradient in Terminal.app
- move TUI surfaces onto semantic theme tokens and preserve skin prompt symbols as bare tokens with renderer-owned spacing
- render focused placeholders as dim hint text in TTY mode instead of inverse/selected-looking synthetic cursor text
Adds four fields to FrameEvent.phases and the matching profile
summary:
optimizedPatches post-optimize patch count (what's actually
written to stdout; the .patches field is
pre-optimize)
writeBytes UTF-8 byte count of the write this frame
backpressure true when Node's stdout.write returned false
(Writable buffer full — outer terminal can't
keep up)
prevFrameDrainMs end-to-end drain time of the PREVIOUS frame's
write, captured from stdout.write's 2-arg
callback. Reported on the next frame so the
measurement reflects "time until OS flushed
the bytes to the terminal fd", not "time until
queued in Node".
writeDiffToTerminal() now returns { bytes, backpressure } and
accepts an optional onDrain callback. Only attached on TTY with
diff; piped/non-TTY stdout bypasses flow control so the callback
would fire synchronously anyway.
Initial measurements under hold-wheel_up against 1106-msg session
(30Hz for 6s):
patches total 28,888
optimized total 16,700 (ratio 0.58 — optimizer cuts ~42%)
writeBytes 42 KB / 10s = 4.2 KB/s throughput
drainMs p50 0.14 ms terminal accepts bytes instantly
drainMs p99 0.85 ms
backpressure 0% of frames
This rules out the terminal-parse hypothesis — Cursor's xterm.js
drains our output in sub-millisecond time at only 4 KB/s. The
remaining lag has to be in the render pipeline, not the wire.
Profile output now includes the bytes+drain+backpressure lines to
keep this visible on every subsequent iteration.
Follow-up on #16020 salvage. Three corrections:
1. Truth signal for /copy
Before: success was 'OSC 52 sequence was emitted to stdout'. That's
false on local Linux inside tmux (emitSequence=false), so /copy kept
printing 'clipboard copy failed' to users whose xclip/wl-copy had
already succeeded fire-and-forget.
Fix: setClipboard() now returns { sequence, success } where success =
native-fired OR tmux-buffer-loaded OR osc52-emitted. copyNative()
returns a boolean telling setClipboard whether a native attempt was
made. /copy only shows 'failed' when literally no path was taken.
2. Dashboard keybinding
Before: Ctrl+C for copy on non-Mac (Ctrl+Shift+C for paste).
That swallows SIGINT when a stale selection is present and breaks
the xterm/gnome-terminal/konsole/Windows-Terminal convention where
Ctrl+C in a terminal emulator is always SIGINT. The real bug was
that clipboard writes lost user-gesture through OSC-52 round-trips,
which the direct writeText already fixes.
Fix: revert copyModifier to Ctrl+Shift+C on non-Mac. Direct
writeText in the keydown handler preserves user gesture. term.write
Escape replaced with term.clearSelection() (works without relying
on TUI input mode).
3. Error toast text
Before: 'see HERMES_TUI_DEBUG_CLIPBOARD' — tells users how to
debug but not how to fix.
Fix: point users at HERMES_TUI_FORCE_OSC52=1 first (the actual
escape hatch), mention the debug var second.
- Dashboard copy: direct Clipboard API on Ctrl+C/Cmd+C (user gesture);
send Escape to TUI to clear selection; Ctrl+Shift+C kept as fallback.
- TUI /copy: copySelection() async; only reports success if OSC52 emitted.
- Add HERMES_TUI_FORCE_OSC52 env var to override native-tool detection.
- Fixes "copied N chars" false-positive when clipboard backend absent.
Changes:
web/src/pages/ChatPage.tsx — direct navigator.clipboard.writeText
ui-tui/packages/hermes-ink/src/ink/ink.tsx — async copySelection
ui-tui/packages/hermes-ink/src/ink/termio/osc.ts — HERMES_TUI_FORCE_OSC52
ui-tui/src/app/slash/commands/core.ts — async /copy with honest feedback
Problem: Ctrl+C in Hermes TUI shows 'copied' but clipboard often empty.
Root causes:
- Native Linux tools (xclip, wl-copy) require DISPLAY/WAYLAND_DISPLAY; in
headless Docker/SSH they fail or hang.
- OSC 52 fallback requires terminal emulator support; when absent, sequence
is dropped silently.
- Dashboard OSC 52 → Clipboard API path fails due to missing user gesture;
errors were silently caught.
- User feedback 'copied selection' was shown unconditionally, regardless of
success.
Solution implemented:
- Short-circuit Linux native clipboard probing when no display server is
present (no DISPLAY and no WAYLAND_DISPLAY). Avoids futile attempts and
timeouts.
- Add HERMES_TUI_DEBUG_CLIPBOARD env var (1/true). When set, TUI logs to
stderr which clipboard path is used, probe results on Linux, and whether
OSC 52 was emitted. Greatly improves diagnosability.
- Improve dashboard clipboard error handling: replace empty catch blocks
with console.warn messages for OSC 52 decode/Write failures and direct
copy/paste errors. Makes browser permission/user-gesture failures visible
in DevTools.
- Add comprehensive clipboard troubleshooting documentation to README and
AGENTS, covering OSC 52 verification, tmux config, Docker/headless
constraints, env vars, dashboard caveats, and fallback strategies.
Technical details:
- in ui-tui/packages/hermes-ink/src/ink/termio/osc.ts:
- Early return on Linux if both DISPLAY and WAYLAND_DISPLAY unset.
- Refactor probe sequence to async with 500ms timeout,
caching result; subsequent copies use cached tool immediately.
- Emit debug logs when HERMES_TUI_DEBUG_CLIPBOARD=1.
- in ink.tsx: log when OSC 52 not emitted (native
or tmux path in use) in debug mode.
- : OSC 52 handler and Ctrl+Shift+C handler now
log warnings to console on Clipboard API rejection with error message.
- Documentation: new 'Clipboard Troubleshooting' section in README; new
'Clipboard environment variables and pitfalls' subsection in AGENTS.md
(Known Pitfalls).
Tests: full ui-tui test suite (292 tests) passes; clipboard and OSC tests
unaffected. No breaking changes.
Files changed:
- ui-tui/packages/hermes-ink/src/ink/termio/osc.ts
- ui-tui/packages/hermes-ink/src/ink/ink.tsx
- web/src/pages/ChatPage.tsx
- README.md
- AGENTS.md
- CHANGELOG.md (new)
On Windows WSL2, ConPTY implicitly enables mouse event injection when
the alternate screen buffer (DEC 1049) is entered, causing raw escape
sequences to appear in the transcript as ghost characters.
Fix (two parts):
1. ConPTY fix: send DISABLE_MOUSE_TRACKING immediately after entering
alt screen when mouse tracking is off (AlternateScreen.tsx)
2. Runtime toggle: add /mouse [on|off|toggle] slash command with config
persistence (display.tui_mouse) so users can manage this at runtime
The env var HERMES_TUI_DISABLE_MOUSE continues to work as the initial
default, but can now be overridden via /mouse and persisted to config.
Closes: upstream ConPTY mouse injection issue
Credits: OutThisLife / PR #13716 for the toggle concept
Trim comment noise, remove redundant typing, normalize sticky prompt viewport args to top→bottom order, and reuse one sticky viewport helper instead of duplicating the math.
Broaden the settle repaint from xterm.js-only to all alt-screen terminals. Ink upstream and ConPTY/xterm reports point to resize/reflow desync as a general stale-cell class, not a host-specific quirk.
Replace 28-line guard + nested queueMicrotask + pendingResizeRender flag-reuse with a named canAltScreenRepaint predicate and a single flat paint. setTimeout already drained the burst coalescer; the nested defer and flag dance were paranoia.
- run the xterm.js settle-heal pass through a full render commit instead of diff-only scheduleRender
- guard against overlapping resize renders and clear settle timers on unmount
- force full alt-screen damage in xterm.js hosts to avoid stale glyph artifacts
- skip incremental scroll optimization there and repaint from a cleared screen atomically
- tui_gateway: route approvals through gateway callback (HERMES_GATEWAY_SESSION/
HERMES_EXEC_ASK) so dangerous commands emit approval.request instead of
silently falling through the CLI input() path and auto-denying
- approval UX: dedicated PromptZone between transcript and composer, safer
defaults (sel=0, numeric quick-picks, no Esc=deny), activity trail line,
outcome footer under the cost row
- text input: Ctrl+A select-all, real forward Delete, Ctrl+W always consumed
(fixes Ctrl+Backspace at cursor 0 inserting literal w)
- hermes-ink selection: swap synchronous onRender() for throttled
scheduleRender() on drag, and only notify React subscribers on presence
change — no more per-cell paint/subscribe spam
- useConfigSync: silence config.get polling failures instead of surfacing
'error: timeout: config.get' in the transcript
