list working and idle agents most recent first within a status, the menu, panel, search, and `dingger status` listed done and blocked agents oldest first (the queue), and the rest by place. now working and idle agents are most recent first: the first idle row is the agent that finished, or that the user looked at, last. @dingger_since now means when the pane entered its current status, for every status (it was set only while the pane needed the user), and survives a daemon restart. the queue selects done and blocked panes by status, no longer by having a stamp. one ordering rule each in Rust (watcher::list_order) and Swift (listedBefore), with tests that fail on the old order; e2e step 11 makes an agent finish while watched and checks it moves to the top of the idle rows. agents idle since before this change share one stamp and keep their place order until they next change.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Fri, 23 Oct 2026 17:58:24 +0300
restore Claude Code agents in their own sessions
`dingger install claude` adds a SessionStart hook to Claude's settings
(every other key and hook kept, in order; the original backed up; written
through a symlink; installing again changes nothing). The hook is
`dingger hook claude`: it reports the session's transcript for its tmux
pane, prints nothing (Claude adds SessionStart output to the conversation)
and always exits 0. Claude's state still comes from its screen.
restore types `claude --resume <id>` in the directory the session ran in
(elsewhere, Claude moves the conversation there). it resumes an agent only
when its session file exists: a Claude session that never got a message
has no transcript, and `--resume` fails ("No conversation found"). the
snapshot now keeps an agent's command line too, so such a pane gets it
retyped instead of nothing.
- the hook receiver takes a report without a state: only the session.
- a report that arrives after the watcher listed the panes is not dropped
as "agent gone": Claude reports once, as it starts.
- serde_json preserve_order (indexmap is already a dependency, via toml).
e2e step 18: install against a settings file like a real one, a fake
claude running the exact installed hook command, resume by id, retype
without a transcript, the resumed agent reporting again. a server that
restore starts now gets the test's plain shells: it got the user's login
shell, whose profile put the real claude first, which started (stuck at
its trust dialog) during development. every test restore now checks that
no real pi or claude runs in a test pane.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:08:53 +0300
write a pane's options in one tmux command list the watcher wrote @agent_state, then @dingger_hook, as separate tmux calls. a daemon stopped between them left a done display state next to a stale "working" hook state, which the restarted daemon trusted: the agent came back as working. now every changed option of a pane is one command list, which tmux applies as a unit (and one process instead of several). tests/kill-race.sh kills the daemon the instant an agent shows done: 24 of 40 kills left the options inconsistent before, 0 of 40 now. e2e step 17 runs it 20 times; the previous binary fails it.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:07:15 +0300
restore: log an offer's withdrawal only when one was offered
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:01:35 +0300
restore, step 3: offer it in the panel, menu, and status line when tmux stops (and its sessions are missing from the running server, or no server runs), the daemon publishes the restore offer: offer.json for the menu bar app and @dingger_restore for the status line, withdrawn once restored or dismissed. - panel: a first row "↺ Restore 9 sessions · 22 agents" with when it was saved and how many agents were mid-turn; clicking restores, "Not now" dismisses. an offer shows the panel like a waiting agent; off stays off. - menu: the offer on top; restore all, one session, or not now. - status line: a clickable blue ↺N before the clock. - restore runs through the user's login shell, as a terminal starts tmux, so restored panes get a real environment, not launchd's; --report writes restore.log and notifies a summary. restore --dismiss. - commands log only warnings by default; SIGPIPE ends them quietly. e2e: the offer through the real menu bar binary, the summary notification, the offer clearing, a restore with no tmux running, and not now staying dismissed when a terminal starts tmux. the second test daemon is started directly (it leaked through a function's $! before, and dozens of leaked daemons fought over the test socket and loaded the machine); each run uses its own socket and checks its daemons stop.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Fri, 23 Oct 2026 13:59:59 +0300
restore, step 2: resume agents, retype command lines - the pi extension reports its session file; the daemon keeps it in the pane option @agent_session, and snapshots carry it. restore runs `pi --session <file>` in the rebuilt pane, one agent every 0.5s, then reports which agents run and which were interrupted mid-turn. - other panes: the command line running in them is typed at the new prompt but not run. exactly as typed with the zsh hook (dingger install zsh: preexec/precmd keep @dingger_cmd), else the foreground program's exact argv from the kernel (KERN_PROCARGS2), shell-quoted. - "at a prompt" is the pane's own shell owning the terminal's foreground process group, not a name check: `sh -c ...` is a running program. - an agent or command that exits keeps its place in snapshots for 60s, so a shutdown that stops programs before tmux still restores them. - typing waits for each new prompt (text typed earlier echoes twice). e2e step 16 covers resume with a session path containing a space, the interrupted report, an agent that exits just before the server dies, a quoted command retyped not run, and the hook's text; dropping the grace period, judging prompts by name, running retyped commands, or not storing the session reference each fail it. the test's fake pi is guarded so a real pi never starts.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Fri, 23 Oct 2026 13:20:11 +0300
restore, step 1: layout snapshots and dingger restore the daemon saves the tmux layout when it changes: sessions, windows (index, name, automatic-rename, layout, size, zoom, active), and panes (directory, active, agent). a new history file for layout changes, a rewrite for details, the last 50 kept, nothing saved while tmux is down. when a different server runs (or none), the old server's last snapshot is pinned as the restore candidate before the new server's snapshots start. dingger restore rebuilds missing sessions by tmux id: panes split from the newest so they keep their order, the saved layout applied at the saved size, then the size released so windows follow clients again. a bare session of the same name (a terminal's `new-session -As 0`) is replaced, its clients switched over first; used sessions are kept. --dry-run, --list, --from, --session. e2e step 16 kills a server with a client attached like ghostty's, restarts it, restores, and compares every window and pane; splitting the wrong pane, not replacing bare sessions, not pinning, or keeping the saved size each fail it. e2e keeps its state in its temp dir.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Fri, 23 Oct 2026 13:01:52 +0300
roadmap: restore, raise the right window, search preview
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Fri, 23 Oct 2026 12:37:22 +0300
agent search: spotlight-style fuzzy finder on ctrl+opt+cmd+shift+u a centered, non-activating key panel that lists every agent and jumps to the chosen one through the same dingger focus path as a row click. - fzf-style matching: each word must match one of name, session, window, harness, status, or directory, letters in order; the best alignment wins (word starts and consecutive runs score higher), matched title letters are highlighted. - empty query keeps the menu's order, so enter jumps to the top waiting agent. - the selection follows the agent, not the position, as states change; the list scrolls to keep it visible. - keys: arrows, ctrl+n/p, ctrl+j/k, enter, esc, ctrl+u; the shortcut again or clicking elsewhere closes it. - search_hotkey setting; an unedited config file is upgraded. menu item "Search Agents...". rows carry the pane's directory. - --print-search and --snapshot-search debug flags; the panel's background and snapshot code are shared. selftest covers matching, ranking, highlighting, and selection; e2e step 15 checks queries through the real binary (fails when search only looks at titles). e2e resolves relative binary paths, which tmux hooks need.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Thu, 22 Oct 2026 18:01:04 +0300
panel: on/off is persistent; what it shows is a separate setting
hiding the panel with the shortcut used to last only until another agent
started waiting: one action meant both "not now" and "off", with an
invisible override on top of a three-way mode. now there are two visible
settings: the panel is on or off (ctrl+opt+cmd+e and a checkmarked "Show
Panel" item), and while on it shows always or only when agents are waiting
("Panel Shows"). off stays off. turning it on with nothing to show peeks
for 3 seconds. the old mode setting migrates.
selftest covers the rules; it fails if a waiting agent can show a panel
that is off.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Thu, 22 Oct 2026 00:02:16 +0300
fix clicks from the menu bar app: find tmux without homebrew on PATH launchd starts the menu bar app with PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin, so the `dingger focus` it runs for every click (panel rows, menu rows, the jump shortcut) could not find homebrew's tmux and failed with a misleading "no tmux client attached"; the app discarded the error. dingger now finds tmux on PATH or in the usual install locations (DINGGER_TMUX overrides), reports a missing tmux as such, and the app logs failed jumps. also: panel rows own every click inside them (labels took the clicks and counted as window-drag background). e2e step 14 repeats the menu bar row click and dingger focus under launchd's environment; both fail with the previous binaries.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Tue, 20 Oct 2026 15:01:18 +0300
panel: readable everywhere, compact/full toggle, change-driven; jump shortcut - contrast: the summary used attributed-string colors (never vibrant) and the subtitles a vibrant system color, so they blended differently over light and dark desktops. the panel now uses herdr's mocha colors explicitly over a dark tint, identical on any background. - layout: compact in "when agents are waiting"; in "always" a show all / show less toggle switches to the full list (waiting, separator, rest). - rows are single-line with a trailing ellipsis instead of wrapping. - render only when the content changes, and log each render, instead of rebuilding every view every second. - --snapshot-panel renders the real panel offscreen over white and black after a different first render (stale content would show). - jump shortcut ctrl+opt+cmd+u (jump_hotkey) runs dingger focus; shortcuts are registered by id. an unedited first config file is upgraded. selftest covers the layout rules and content; e2e step 13 checks the full list, its separator, and the toggle labels.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:51:07 +0300
floating panel: always-on-top agent HUD with a global shortcut a non-activating HUD panel (every Space, over full-screen apps, never takes focus) listing the agents waiting for you, with working and idle summarized on one line; rows jump to the agent, drag moves the panel and it remembers its place. modes: when agents are waiting (default), always, off; ctrl+opt+ cmd+e shows or hides it on top of the mode, and a manual hide lasts until another agent starts waiting. the shortcut is a carbon hotkey (no accessibility permission; clashes are reported in the menu) configured in ~/.config/dingger/config.toml, reloaded on save. the menu bar app is split into model, panel, hotkey and main. tested: --selftest checks the visibility rules (it fails if a newly waiting agent no longer re-shows a dismissed panel); e2e step 13 checks the panel content through the real binary.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:24:11 +0300
menu rows lead with the agent's session name; harness and place move below
herdr's sidebar shows the session name in place of the harness label (via
the user's herdr-session-name extension). dingger reads it from the title
pi already sets ("π - <name> - <dir>"); other agents use herdr's
terminal_title_stripped rule, and claude's default "Claude Code" title or
tmux's host-name title count as no name. the daemon stores it as
@agent_name for every surface.
menu rows: colored status symbol + name as the title (the harness, dimmed,
only when unnamed), and a native subtitle "session · window · harness",
plus how long done/blocked agents have been waiting; one separator between
agents waiting for you and the rest. dingger status shows the same.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Tue, 20 Oct 2026 13:59:29 +0300
pi extension: identify the pane from TMUX_PANE the extension asked tmux for "the current pane", which resolves to the session's active pane, not the pane pi runs in, so agents in background windows reported their state onto another pane. tmux sets TMUX_PANE for every process it starts in a pane; use it. e2e step 12 loads the shipped extension with a fake pi from a pane that is not its session's active pane and asserts the report lands there; it fails against the previous extension. hook reports log at info again.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Tue, 20 Oct 2026 13:04:18 +0300
rebuild the status model as herdr's state machine, event-driven and tested the seen logic was inverted: first observations were marked done and real completions idle, so the menu showed teal for agents that did nothing and green for agents that finished, and attending changed nothing visible. - watcher::advance is herdr's apply_pane_state_change + mark_active_tab_seen as a pure function, unit-tested against herdr's own cases; attendance is window-level like herdr's active tab - hook reports are events applied in order, so a turn shorter than a poll is still a completion - event-driven: hook reports, dingger focus, and tmux focus hooks wake the watcher; notifications are delivered off-thread (the macos call blocked ticks for 2+ seconds) after the pane options are written - all per-pane state persists in tmux pane options, so restarts and deploys lose nothing, including the authoritative hook state - every click goes through dingger focus: the menu bar shells out to it and the status-line binding runs it; it picks the right client, skips the window already shown, and activates the terminal app hosting the client - the ready queue is ordered like the menu (blocked first, then oldest done) - menu bar and tmux segment render herdr's symbols in herdr's palette - tests/e2e.sh: 60 assertions against an isolated tmux server with a real client, a 30s poll interval, and a slow fake notifier
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Tue, 20 Oct 2026 12:43:07 +0300
write @agent_state on attendance changes, not just transitions the seen demotion (done -> idle when the user focuses the pane) only updated the daemon's internal track; @agent_state stayed done forever, so the menu bar and status line never reflected attendance. the display status is now written whenever it differs from the pane option, regardless of what triggered it.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Tue, 20 Oct 2026 12:06:03 +0300
adopt herdr's five-status model with symbols style and focus detection statuses are now herdr's verbatim: working (yellow), blocked (red), done (teal, finished and unattended), idle (green, attended since its last transition), unknown (gray) - priority blocked > done > working > idle > unknown. the daemon watches tmux focus (pane_active of attached clients) to mark panes attended, which is what separates done from idle. menu bar renders symbols-style glyphs with herdr's colors in priority order; the tmux segment stays after the clock and renders done/blocked/ working counts from numeric options. deployment note: do not strip the binary - it invalidates the ad-hoc signature and macOS kills it on launch.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Tue, 20 Oct 2026 11:53:23 +0300
menu bar: herdr-style colored state glyphs; tmux segment before the clock the design panel's monochrome template rendering made every row look alike; restore herdr's agent-panel visual language - green ready, yellow working, red blocked, filled when unseen in the queue. the tmux segment moves left of the clock so it is visible at a glance; the status item logs what it observes for diagnosis.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Mon, 19 Oct 2026 19:30:03 +0300
menu rows show window names, not indexes display target is session:window-name (pane index only when split); switching keeps using the pane id. add --print debug mode to inspect the rendered rows without opening the menu.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Mon, 19 Oct 2026 19:14:17 +0300
ready-queue fifo with click-to-focus; redesign presentation per design panel daemon tracks when each agent became ready (idle/blocked, unacked) and publishes fifo queue + numeric counts as server-global options; unknown to idle transitions stay out of the queue (restart spam). new dingger focus subcommand jumps to the longest-waiting pane and acks it, bound to status-right clicks in tmux. menu bar redesigned per two-model design panel: monochrome sf-symbol bell + queue depth, queue-ordered rows with state glyphs and right-aligned targets, row clicks ack like focus does. tmux segment renders glyph+count with a single red accent for blocked; fixes unescaped comma in the conditional format that truncated the segment entirely.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Mon, 19 Oct 2026 16:55:30 +0300
menu bar app: live agent states from tmux pane options single-file appkit status item (menubar/main.swift, LSUIElement) polling @agent/@agent_state pane options every 2s: counts in the bar, per-pane rows with click-to-focus via switch-client. daemon now also writes an @agent label per pane so the menu bar and tmux status-right can render agent names without duplicating identification logic.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Mon, 19 Oct 2026 16:35:40 +0300
wait for tmux at startup, force utf-8 for tmux clients, add launchd packaging running under launchd, the tmux client defaults to the c locale, which makes tmux mangle tab-separated -f output into underscores, so every pane parsed as one field and the watcher silently saw nothing; invoke tmux with -u so format output is locale-independent. drop the startup fail-fast: the watcher now waits for a tmux server and attaches when one appears, which is the right shape for a login agent. ship the launchd plist under packaging/launchd.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Mon, 19 Oct 2026 16:19:10 +0300
initial dingger: tmux agent watcher with herdr's detection engine extract detect-core from herdr's src/detect (engine + 22 manifests, tests unchanged) and add the dingger binary: tmux capture-pane watcher, process-tree agent identification, herdr's notification policy, embedded notification sounds, @agent_state write-back, and catalog-based manifest refresh. viewer screens are non-observations per the engine contract; reviewed by a three-model panel (opus 5.5, gpt 6.1 sol, kimi k3) with all confirmed findings applied as deletions.
Igor Soarez igor@soarez.org
Mon, 19 Oct 2026 16:02:57 +0300