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
The TUI had drifted from the CLI's voice model in two ways:
- /voice on was lighting up the microphone immediately and Ctrl+B was
interpreted as a mode toggle. The CLI separates the two: /voice on
just flips the umbrella bit, recording only starts once the user
presses Ctrl+B, which also sets _voice_continuous so the VAD loop
auto-restarts until the user presses Ctrl+B again or three silent
cycles pass.
- /voice tts was missing entirely, so users couldn't turn agent reply
speech on/off from inside the TUI.
This commit brings the TUI to parity.
Python
- hermes_cli/voice.py: continuous-mode API (start_continuous,
stop_continuous, is_continuous_active) layered on the existing PTT
wrappers. The silence callback transcribes, fires on_transcript,
tracks consecutive no-speech cycles, and auto-restarts — mirroring
cli.py:_voice_stop_and_transcribe + _restart_recording.
- tui_gateway/server.py:
- voice.toggle now supports on / off / tts / status. The umbrella
bit lives in HERMES_VOICE + display.voice_enabled; tts lives in
HERMES_VOICE_TTS + display.voice_tts. /voice off also tears down
any active continuous loop so a toggle-off really releases the
microphone.
- voice.record start/stop now drives start_continuous/stop_continuous.
start is refused with a clear error when the mode is off, matching
cli.py:handle_voice_record's early return on `not _voice_mode`.
- New voice.transcript / voice.status events emit through
_voice_emit (remembers the sid that last enabled the mode so
events land in the right session).
TypeScript
- gatewayTypes.ts: voice.status + voice.transcript event
discriminants; VoiceToggleResponse gains tts; VoiceRecordResponse
gains status for the new "started/stopped" responses.
- interfaces.ts: GatewayEventHandlerContext gains composer.setInput +
submission.submitRef + voice.{setRecording, setProcessing,
setVoiceEnabled}; InputHandlerContext.voice gains enabled +
setVoiceEnabled for the mode-aware Ctrl+B handler.
- createGatewayEventHandler.ts: voice.status drives REC/STT badges;
voice.transcript auto-submits when the composer is empty (CLI
_pending_input.put parity) and appends when a draft is in flight.
no_speech_limit flips voice off + sys line.
- useInputHandlers.ts: Ctrl+B now calls voice.record (start/stop),
not voice.toggle, and nudges the user with a sys line when the
mode is off instead of silently flipping it on.
- useMainApp.ts: wires the new event-handler context fields.
- slash/commands/session.ts: /voice handles on / off / tts / status
with CLI-matching output ("voice: mode on · tts off").
Backward compat preserved for voice.record (was always PTT shape;
gateway still honours start/stop with mode-gating added).
When the user runs /voice and then presses Ctrl+B in the TUI, three
handlers collaborate to consume the chord and none of them dispatch
voice.record:
- isAction() is platform-aware — on macOS it requires Cmd (meta/super),
so Ctrl+B fails the match in useInputHandlers and never triggers
voiceStart/voiceStop.
- TextInput's Ctrl+B pass-through list doesn't include 'b', so the
keystroke falls through to the wordMod backward-word branch on Linux
and to the printable-char insertion branch on macOS — the latter is
exactly what timmie reported ("enters a b into the tui").
- /voice emits "voice: on" with no hint, so the user has no way to
know Ctrl+B is the recording toggle.
Introduces isVoiceToggleKey(key, ch) in lib/platform.ts that matches
raw Ctrl+B on every platform (mirrors tips.py and config.yaml's
voice.record_key default) and additionally accepts Cmd+B on macOS so
existing muscle memory keeps working. Wires it into useInputHandlers,
adds Ctrl+B to TextInput's pass-through list so the global handler
actually receives the chord, and appends "press Ctrl+B to record" to
the /voice on message.
Empirically verified with hermes --tui: Ctrl+B no longer leaks 'b'
into the composer and now dispatches the voice.record RPC (the
downstream ImportError for hermes_cli.voice is a separate upstream
bug — follow-up patch).
Selected rows in the model/session/skills pickers and approval/clarify
prompts only changed from dim gray to cornsilk, which reads as low
contrast on lighter themes and LCDs (reported during TUI v2 blitz).
Switch the selected row to `inverse bold` with the brand accent color
across modelPicker, sessionPicker, skillsHub, and prompts so the
highlight is terminal-portable and unambiguous. Unselected rows stay
dim. Also extends the sessionPicker middle meta column (which was
always dim) to inherit the row's selection state.
Python's slash worker already prints every echo/panel command through Rich.
TS was reformatting the same data client-side for 23 commands. Delete those
shadows; let the `slash.exec` fallback in `createSlashHandler` route the
worker's text (via `<Ansi>`) and page-wrap long output.
TS registry now contains 23 commands (down from 45) — only those that:
- mutate React-local state (composer, transcript, overlays, uiStore)
- touch the terminal (OSC52 copy, `$EDITOR`, clipboard)
- open pickers (`/model`, `/resume`)
- trigger history surgery (`/undo`, `/retry`, `/compress`, `/personality`)
- need TS-only composition (`/help` merges HOTKEYS + catalog)
Deleted shadows:
session: yolo, skin, verbose, reasoning, provider, stop, reload-mcp,
save, title, insights, debug, fast, platforms, snapshot,
usage, history, profile
ops: plugins, rollback, agents, tasks, cron, config, toolsets,
browser, skills (list/browse only; `/tools configure` kept
for its history-reset side effect)
Side effects:
- Drops `slash/shared.ts` + `SlashShared` + `shared`/`SLASH_OUTPUT_PAGE` —
generic slash.exec fallback handles titled paging via `createSlashHandler`.
- Prunes 17 now-unreferenced `*Response` interfaces from gatewayTypes.ts.
- `createSlashHandler` fallback now pages long output (len>180 || lines>2)
and uses the command name as title.
session.ts: 670 -> 199 (-70%)
ops.ts: 460 -> 52 (-88%)
gatewayTypes.ts: 450 -> 302 (-33%)
Hoist turn state from a 286-line hook into $turnState atom + turnController
singleton. createGatewayEventHandler becomes a typed dispatch over the
controller; its ctx shrinks from 30 fields to 5. Event-handler refs and 16
threaded actions are gone.
Fold three createSlash*Handler factories into a data-driven SlashCommand[]
registry under slash/commands/{core,session,ops}.ts. Aliases are data;
findSlashCommand does name+alias lookup. Shared guarded/guardedErr combinator
in slash/guarded.ts.
Split constants.ts + app/helpers.ts into config/ (timing/limits/env),
content/ (faces/placeholders/hotkeys/verbs/charms/fortunes), domain/ (roles/
details/messages/paths/slash/viewport/usage), protocol/ (interpolation/paste).
Type every RPC response in gatewayTypes.ts (26 new interfaces); drop all
`(r: any)` across slash + main app.
Shrink useMainApp from 1216 -> 646 lines by extracting useSessionLifecycle,
useSubmission, useConfigSync. Add <Fg> themed primitive and strip ~50
`as any` color casts.
Tests: 50 passing. Build + type-check clean.
