User observation: "it doesn't scroll line by line/row by row."
Was right. Two places hardcoded big deltas:
1. WHEEL_SCROLL_STEP = 6 (config/limits.ts)
Each wheel event scrolled 6 rows. A mechanical wheel notch emits
3-5 events → 18-30 rows per click, which visually teleports past
content instead of smooth-scrolling it. Drop to 1. Trackpads
emit 50-100 events per flick — at step=1 that's still a fast flick
(a whole viewport in one flick) but each intermediate frame is
visible. Porting claude-code's wheel accel state machine is the
right next step if this feels sluggish on precision scrolls.
2. pageUp/pageDown = viewport - 2 (useInputHandlers.ts)
Full-viewport jumps replace the entire screen — no visual
continuity, can't scan content — AND land right at Ink's fast-path
threshold (`delta < innerHeight`), which disqualifies the DECSTBM
blit on every press. Half-viewport keeps 50% continuity AND
drops well under the threshold. Two presses still cover the same
total distance.
Profiled against the 1106-msg session, holding the key at 30Hz for
6s:
wheel_up (step 6 → 1):
frames 142 → 163 (+15%)
throughput 10.7 → 15.8 fps (+48%)
patches tot 53018→ 36562 (-31%)
gap p50 5ms → 16ms (actual rendering ~60fps now)
<16ms frames 93 → 76
16-33ms 82 → 76
hitches 3 → 1
pageUp (viewport-2 → viewport/2):
throughput 10.7 → 9.5 fps (same ballpark — smaller delta × same
event rate = less total scroll)
Ink's proportional drain caps at `innerHeight - 1` per frame to keep
the DECSTBM fast path firing. With these smaller deltas every event
comfortably fits under that cap, so fast-path hit rate goes up and
patch volume per frame drops — the measured 31% reduction in total
patches-sent correlates with users perceiving smoother scrolling
because the outer terminal (VS Code / xterm.js / tmux) isn't drowning
in ANSI between paints.
Tests/type-check/build clean; 352 tests pass.
The ephemeral no-tools side-question variant of /btw confused users who
expected 'by-the-way' to mean 'run this off to the side with tools' —
they'd type /btw and get a toolless agent that couldn't do the work.
/bg worked because it was /background with full tools.
Collapse the two: /btw and /bg both alias to /background. One command,
one behavior, no more gotchas about which variant has tools.
Removed:
- _handle_btw_command in cli.py and gateway/run.py
- _run_btw_task + _active_btw_tasks state in gateway/run.py
- prompt.btw JSON-RPC method + btw.complete event in tui_gateway
- BtwStartResponse type + btw.complete case in ui-tui
- Standalone /btw slash tree registration in Discord
- Standalone btw CommandDef in hermes_cli/commands.py
Updated:
- background CommandDef aliases: (bg,) -> (bg, btw)
- TUI session.ts: local btw handler merged into background
- Docs and tips updated to describe /btw as a /background alias
PR #16046 added /busy and /verbose hints to the classic CLI and the
gateway runner but skipped the Ink TUI (and therefore the dashboard
/chat page, which embeds the TUI via PTY). This extends the same
latch to the TUI with TUI-native wording.
The TUI's busy-input model is not the /busy knob from the CLI —
single Enter while busy auto-queues, double Enter on an empty line
interrupts. The new busy-input hint teaches THAT gesture instead of
telling the user to flip a config that does not apply.
Changes:
- agent/onboarding.py — add busy_input_hint_tui() + tool_progress_hint_tui()
- tui_gateway/server.py — onboarding.claim JSON-RPC (Ink triggers busy
hint on enqueue) + _maybe_emit_onboarding_hint helper hooked into
_on_tool_complete for the 30s/tool_progress=all path. Same
config.yaml latch so each hint fires at most once per install across
CLI, gateway, and TUI combined.
- ui-tui/src/gatewayTypes.ts — OnboardingClaimResponse + onboarding.hint event
- ui-tui/src/app/createGatewayEventHandler.ts — render the hint event as sys()
- ui-tui/src/app/useSubmission.ts — claim busy_input_prompt on first
busy enqueue
- tests/agent/test_onboarding.py — +3 cases for TUI hint shape
- tests/tui_gateway/test_protocol.py — +4 cases for onboarding.claim
- website/docs/user-guide/tui.md — new 'Interrupting and queueing'
section explaining the TUI's double-Enter model and the hints
Validation:
scripts/run_tests.sh tests/agent/test_onboarding.py \
tests/tui_gateway/test_protocol.py \
tests/gateway/test_busy_session_ack.py
-> 66 passed
npm --prefix ui-tui run type-check -> clean
npm --prefix ui-tui run lint -> clean
npm --prefix ui-tui run build -> clean
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
- resolveEditor() now returns argv (string[]) so EDITOR='code --wait'
and VISUAL='emacsclient -t' tokenize correctly into spawnSync's
separate command + args. Previously the whole string was passed as
argv[0] and would ENOENT.
- Skip the POSIX X_OK PATH walk on Windows; return ['notepad.exe']
there since fs.constants.X_OK is not meaningful and PATHEXT-based
resolution would need its own implementation.
- Surface openEditor() rejections via actions.sys instead of letting
them become unhandled promise rejections in the useInput callback.
- Hotkey docs/comment now say Cmd/Ctrl+G to match isAction()'s
platform-action-modifier behavior (Cmd on macOS, Ctrl elsewhere).
- editor.ts: collapse two private helpers into one flatMap-driven lookup,
keep `isExecutable` as the only named primitive, document the fallback
chain with prompt_toolkit parity
- editor.test.ts: hoist the `exe` helper out of `describe`, drop the
empty afterEach + dead mkdir branch, materialize expected paths before
the resolveEditor call so argument evaluation order doesn't bite
- useComposerState.openEditor: rmSync the mkdtemp dir (was leaking),
early-return on bad exit / empty buffer, run cleanup in finally
- useInputHandlers: cheap `ch.toLowerCase() === 'g'` guard before the
modifier check
- hermes-ink/screen.ts: pick up `npm run fix` import-sort cleanup so
lint passes
The cherry-picked approach serialized the UI-shaped transcript on the Node
side, producing a third JSON format alongside cli.py save_conversation and
tui_gateway session.save. Simpler to call the existing session.save method,
which already writes the canonical agent history (raw OpenAI messages +
model) to an absolute-path file.
- /save still short-circuits before the slash worker
- Empty transcript -> 'no conversation yet'
- No active session -> 'no active session - nothing to save'
- Otherwise: rpc('session.save', {session_id}) and echo back the file path
- Tests updated to assert RPC contract; new test covers the no-sid case
prompt_toolkit's default editor list is: $VISUAL, $EDITOR, /usr/bin/editor,
/usr/bin/nano, /usr/bin/pico, /usr/bin/vi, /usr/bin/emacs — so when
neither env var is set, the base CLI launched nano. The TUI fell back
to a literal 'vi'. Same Ctrl+G keystroke, two different editors.
Pick the same chain on both surfaces:
$VISUAL → $EDITOR → vim → vi → nano
CLI: override input_area.buffer._open_file_in_editor on the TextArea
once at app build time. Local to that buffer; doesn't touch
os.environ or affect other subprocesses.
TUI: extract resolveEditor() into ui-tui/src/lib/editor.ts. PATH walk
with accessSync(X_OK), no shelling out. Six-line unit test verifies
the priority order and the multi-entry PATH walk.
VSCode and Cursor bind Ctrl+G to "Find Next" at the editor level, so
the keystroke never reaches the embedded terminal — Ctrl+G to open
\$EDITOR was effectively dead inside those IDEs.
Alt+G is unbound in both editors and reaches the TUI cleanly as
`\x1bg` → `key.meta && ch === 'g'` after parse-keypress. Accept it
alongside the existing isAction(key, ch, 'g') check, and document the
fallback in README + the hotkeys panel.
The Ctrl+G handler was toggling the alt-screen by hand
(`\x1b[?1049l` ... `\x1b[?1049h`) without releasing stdin or kitty
keyboard mode, so the launched editor would lose keystrokes (Ink kept
swallowing them) and editors that don't speak CSI-u (e.g. nano) would
print "Unknown sequence" for every Ctrl-key.
Switch to `withInkSuspended` from @hermes/ink, the same helper
`/setup` already uses. It pauses Ink, removes stdin listeners, drops
raw mode, disables kitty/modifyOtherKeys + mouse + focus reporting,
runs the editor, then restores everything with a full repaint.
- clamp selection highlight to real row content so blank drag margins do not render or copy
- keep successful copy actions quiet while preserving usage and failure feedback
- accept forwarded Cmd+C for selection copy in SSH sessions even when Hermes runs on Linux
- keep local Linux Alt+C from acting as copy and update TUI hotkey hints for remote shells
- run the requested ui-tui lint+format pass and include resulting formatting updates
- guard text-measure cache eviction key in hermes-ink so ui-tui type-check stays green
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
Inline diff segments were anchored relative to assistant narration, but the
turn details pane still rendered after streamSegments. On completion that put
the diff before the tool telemetry that produced it. When a turn has anchored
diff segments, commit the accumulated thinking/tool trail as a pre-diff trail
message, then render the diff and final summary.
Tolerating null top-level keys silently drops user settings (e.g.
`agent.system_prompt` next to a bare `agent:` line is gone). Probe at
session create, log via `logger.warning`, and surface in the boot info
under `config_warning` — rendered in the TUI feed alongside the existing
`credential_warning` banner.
