Terminal Control

Terminal Control

Use termctrl to observe the actual visible terminal state and drive interaction deterministically.

Start With The Smallest Workflow

Read a disposable terminal application's settled visible screen when no further interaction is required:

termctrl show -- my-terminal-app

Keep an application alive when interaction or repeated inspection is required:

termctrl start app -- my-terminal-app
termctrl wait app "Ready"
termctrl show app
termctrl send app text:help enter
termctrl wait app "Commands"
termctrl show app
termctrl stop app

Always stop named sessions after use unless the user explicitly wants the live process retained.

Keep an application visible and human-controlled in the current terminal pane while exposing the same session controls to agents:

termctrl run -- /usr/bin/nvim
termctrl run editor -- nvim

The form without NAME uses the executable basename (nvim) and fails on a name collision; it never chooses a suffixed name. Pass an explicit name when running multiple copies.

Choose The Correct Observation

• Use show for current visible screen text. Prefer it for reasoning about full-screen TUIs.
• Use logs for readable retained output from normal-screen tools and log-like commands.
• Use save --format ... --out ... only when a persisted artifact is required.
• Use video only after explicitly recording a timeline with --record.

Do not treat logs as the visible state of an alternate-screen TUI.

Named-session reads return immediately by default. Add settling only when intentionally waiting for quiet output. wait defaults to five seconds; set --timeout only when choosing another limit.

For fast demos, keep the session alive, omit --pace-ms unless slow typing is intentional, and combine a known transition into one shell call:

termctrl send app text:help enter && termctrl wait app "Commands" && termctrl show app

The wait ends as soon as the text appears; its timeout is a maximum, not a fixed delay. Do not insert sleeps between these commands. Inspect text during interaction, save PNGs only for visual checks or requested evidence, and export video after driving the app. With MCP, prefer interact with waitFor to combine keyboard input, readiness, and a screen read in one tool call.

Drive Input Precisely

Send plain text with text:<value> and named keys as separate input atoms:

termctrl send app text:/connect enter
termctrl send app down enter
termctrl send app ctrl-c
printf '%s' 'multiline prompt' | termctrl send app --stdin

Use wait after sending input instead of sleeping or assuming that the interface has updated.

For mouse-enabled applications, use typed mouse commands with zero-based cell coordinates:

termctrl mouse app move 12 4
termctrl mouse app click 12 4
termctrl mouse app down 12 4
termctrl mouse app move 20 4
termctrl mouse app up 20 4

move hovers when no button is held; down/move/up drags. --button right or middle, --shift, --alt, and --ctrl are optional. The app must enable mouse reporting; hover requires any-event tracking. Coordinates outside the resized viewport fail. Do not work around disabled reporting by injecting raw escape sequences. Restart older named sessions if the command requests it.

For recorded demos, opt into video --pointer-overlay to show mouse input with smooth travel, subtle press compression, and fades. This defaults to 60 fps and does not delay actual input. Use --pointer-reduced-motion to keep fades only. Trim/speed/hold edits stay on the same source clock. Only typed mouse commands provide overlay evidence; raw bytes and forwarded human input do not. show/save remain plain terminal evidence, separate from the video overlay.

Operate OpenTUI Applications

Use the OpenTUI host handshake for applications such as OpenCode:

termctrl start app --host opentui --cols 112 --rows 34 -- opencode
termctrl wait app "/connect"
termctrl show app
termctrl show app --format semantic

Use resize when the application requires more visible area. Use restart app to reuse stored launch settings after a deliberate application restart.

Retain Evidence Deliberately

Save only requested formats:

termctrl save app --format txt --format png --out artifacts/current

Record demos only when the user wants a retained timeline or video. Add markers while the session is running, inspect them after stopping, then export with an explicit edit plan:

termctrl start app --record artifacts/run.termctrl -- my-terminal-app
termctrl wait app "Ready"
termctrl mark app ready
termctrl send app text:demo enter
termctrl wait app "Done" --timeout 60000
termctrl mark app done
termctrl stop app
termctrl markers artifacts/run.termctrl
termctrl show --recording artifacts/run.termctrl --at-marker done
termctrl video artifacts/run.termctrl --edit artifacts/run-edit.json --footer --out artifacts/run.mp4

Use edit-plan speed values conservatively when terminal text should remain readable. Use hold_ms or --tail-ms when the final frame is the payoff. Pass --footer when a polished demo should show the clip caption, elapsed timecode, and TERMINAL CONTROL branding in a bottom footer; omit it for ordinary videos.

Treat .termctrl recordings, ANSI transcripts, screen artifacts, command arguments, and terminal input as potentially sensitive. Do not retain them unless needed, and do not expose their contents unnecessarily.

Recover From Problems

• Run termctrl status app to inspect state and launch settings.
• Run termctrl list to discover running named sessions. Add --state, --command, or --cwd when narrowing discovery; use --all only when retained exited or unavailable entries are relevant.
• MCP agents can pass state, command, or cwd to list_sessions and use get_session_status({ name }) for complete structured status without parsing CLI output.
• If a session socket path is too long, set TERMCTRL_RUNTIME_DIR to a short private directory under /tmp before starting sessions.
• If termctrl is unavailable, install Terminal Control with cargo install terminal-control or ask the user which installed binary to use.