Garry Tan
920a13a17f
* fix(browse): identity-based terminal-agent kill replaces pkill regex
Commit 0 of the v1.44 long-lived-sidebar PR — foundation for the watchdog
and removes a latent cross-session footgun.
`pkill -f terminal-agent\.ts` (cli.ts spawn site + server.ts shutdown) matched
by argv regex and would kill ANY process whose argv contained the string —
sibling gstack sessions on the same host, an editor with the file open, a
second `$B connect` run. Identity-based PID kill via a new helper module
removes that whole class of bug.
* New `browse/src/terminal-agent-control.ts`: `readAgentRecord`,
`writeAgentRecord`, `clearAgentRecord`, `killAgentByRecord`. Validates
PID liveness via `isProcessAlive` before signaling (PID-reuse defense).
* `terminal-agent.ts` writes `<stateDir>/terminal-agent-pid` (JSON
`{pid, gen, startedAt}`) at boot; clears on SIGTERM/SIGINT.
* New per-boot `CURRENT_GEN` (16-byte random); `/internal/*` callers can
include `X-Browse-Gen` to defend against split-brain in the upcoming
watchdog. Absent header is accepted (backward compat); mismatch returns
409. New `checkInternalAuth` helper centralizes bearer + gen checks.
* New `/internal/healthz` route — agent liveness probe used by the
upcoming watchdog (returns pid/gen/sessions, no claude-binary lookup).
* `cli.ts` and `server.ts` both call `killAgentByRecord` instead of pkill.
* `ServerConfig.ownsTerminalAgent` JSDoc updated; the gated teardown now
runs 4 side effects (was 3) — adds the new agent-record unlink.
Test changes:
* New `browse/test/terminal-agent-pid-identity.test.ts` — static-grep
tripwire that fails CI if any source file re-introduces `pkill ...
terminal-agent` or `spawnSync('pkill', ...)`; round-trips
write/read/clear; verifies killAgentByRecord no-ops on dead PIDs.
* `browse/test/server-embedder-terminal-port.test.ts` rewritten to
intercept `process.kill` (not `child_process.spawnSync`); writes a
sentinel agent-record with a guaranteed-dead PID; asserts probe-only
(signal 0) calls, no termination signals; verifies all 3 discovery
files including the new terminal-agent-pid.
Closes TODOS.md P3 ("Identity-based terminal-agent kill").
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(tests): repair 7 pre-existing failures (env pollution + stale markers)
All 7 failures existed on main before this branch — verified via `git stash`
round-trip. Bundling them into the long-lived-sidebar PR because we kept
tripping over them while running `bun test` to verify Commit 0.
* Global afterEach restores `process.env.PATH` (new bunfig.toml +
test-setup.ts). browser-skill-commands.test.ts sets
`PATH = '/test/bin:/usr/bin'` to exercise a scrubbed-env fixture and
used the broken `process.env = origEnv` reassignment pattern that
swaps the proxy reference; the underlying env stayed mutated and
leaked downstream. Fixed three call sites in that file and added a
narrow PATH-only global guardrail so a future polluter can't bring
the bug back. Killed: pair-agent-tunnel-eval (bun ENOENT),
security.test.ts > resolveBashBinary (Bun.which('bash') null),
server-no-import-side-effects (bun ENOENT).
* server-auth.test.ts: two `sliceBetween` markers referenced strings
deleted when sidebar-agent.ts was ripped — `'Sidebar agent started'`
→ `'Terminal agent started'`, `'Sidebar endpoints'` → `'Batch endpoint'`.
Also fixed the pair-agent BROWSE_PARENT_PID assertion (the literal
`serverEnv.BROWSE_PARENT_PID` never existed in source; the actual
contract is the object-literal `BROWSE_PARENT_PID: '0'` inside the
`const serverEnv` declaration).
* test/upgrade-migration-v1.test.ts: also overrides HOME in the spawn
env. The migration shells out to `${HOME}/.claude/skills/gstack/bin/gstack-config`
and a developer's real config with `explain_level` set causes the
script to take the "user already decided" branch and skip writing
the pending-prompt flag the test asserts on.
* test/setup-codesign.test.ts: replaced fragile `bun run build`
string-match (which hit a comment 700 lines later) with the actual
invocation `bun_cmd run build` used in the setup script.
Net: full suite is now green; CI no longer trips on bash/bun-ENOENT
from PATH pollution or on test markers that drifted with the codebase.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* refactor(terminal-agent): extract internalHandler<T> helper for /internal/* routes
Replaces the copy-pasted bearer-auth + X-Browse-Gen + req.json().then().catch()
boilerplate on /internal/grant and /internal/revoke with a single
internalHandler<T>(req, fn) wrapper. Future /internal/* routes added by the
v1.44 long-lived-sidebar work (/internal/lease-refresh, /internal/restart)
land as one-liners using the same helper. Pure refactor; no behavior change.
/internal/healthz stays on the bare checkInternalAuth gate because it's a
GET with no JSON body to parse — the helper's body-parse path would 400 it.
* browse/src/terminal-agent.ts — new internalHandler<T>; /internal/grant
+ /internal/revoke routed through it.
* browse/test/terminal-agent-internal-handler.test.ts — static-grep
tripwire that fails CI if the helper goes away or either of the two
refactored routes regresses to the old inline pattern.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(terminal-agent): 25s WS keepalive ping/pong + client keepalive frames
PTY connections were dying silently after NAT idle timeouts (30-60s on most
home routers, even shorter on some carrier-grade NAT) and Chrome MV3 panel
suspension. Neither side noticed until the user's next keystroke produced
no output. Both sides now drive a 25s keepalive cycle.
Server side (browse/src/terminal-agent.ts):
* New ws.open handler constructs the PtySession eagerly and starts a
setInterval that sends `{type:"ping",ts:Date.now()}` every 25s.
Interval handle stored on session.pingInterval so close() can clear it.
* PtySession.pingInterval field added; cleared in ws.close before
disposeSession runs. Prevents timer leak across reconnects.
* Message handler accepts `{type:"ping"|"pong"|"keepalive"}` silently —
keepalive frames are a liveness signal at the TCP layer, no state to
update. Existing resize/tabSwitch/tabState handling unchanged.
* GSTACK_PTY_KEEPALIVE_INTERVAL_MS env knob (default 25000) lets the
upcoming e2e tests compress idle assertions without 30s waits.
Client side (extension/sidepanel-terminal.js):
* Belt-and-suspenders: client also runs a 25s setInterval that sends
`{type:"keepalive"}`. Defends against Chrome pausing our timers if
the server-side ping ever gets dropped (rare but possible in MV3).
* Ping reply: on `{type:"ping",ts}` from the server, immediately send
`{type:"pong",ts}`. Lets the agent observe round-trip latency for
free and confirms the channel is bidirectional.
* Interval cleared in three teardown paths: ws.close handler,
teardown(), forceRestart(). Three paths exist because the sidebar
can exit the LIVE state through any of them; all three must clean up
or we leak timers across reconnects.
Test (browse/test/terminal-agent-keepalive.test.ts):
* Static-grep tripwires for the 7-point protocol contract: agent has
a configurable interval, open() starts the ping, close() clears it,
message handler accepts keepalive vocabulary, client sends keepalive
+ replies pong, and all three client teardown paths clear the timer.
* Wire-level tests (actually observe a ping after 25s) belong in the
e2e tier — adding them here would either flake on slow CI or require
a real Bun.serve listener per test which we don't want to pay for
in the free tier.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(sidebar): patient tryAutoConnect — poll forever with ascending status, abort only on 401
The 15s give-up message ("Browse server not ready. Reload sidebar to retry.")
fired on every cold start where the daemon took >15s to bind — common on
Conductor workspaces, CI runners, and any system under load. The user
already opened the sidebar; telling them to give up is the wrong default.
Now polls every 2s indefinitely with ascending status messages:
* 0 - 15s : silent (handles the happy path on a warm laptop)
* 15 - 60s : "Waiting for browse server..."
* 60s - 5m : "Still waiting — browse server may be slow to start."
* > 5m : "Browse server still not responding after 5 min. Try `$B status`."
Loop aborts on three signals only:
* state transitions out of IDLE (connect succeeded or user navigated)
* autoConnectAborted sticky flag set on unrecoverable error
* the panel itself unloading (browser handles this; pagehide cleanup
arrives with T8 of the larger plan)
401 from /pty-session sets the sticky flag with a clear "Auth invalid —
reload the sidebar or restart your gstack session." message. Without the
flag, the loop would re-call connect() every 2s and spam the same error;
with it, the user sees the message once and the loop holds. forceRestart()
clears the flag so clicking Restart is the explicit "try again" escape hatch.
Bumped poll interval 200ms → 2000ms — the legacy tight loop burned CPU
for no reason. 2s is plenty fast for a "did the daemon come up yet" check.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(browse): terminal-agent watchdog with PID liveness + crash-loop guard
terminal-agent could die independently of the server — SIGKILL from the OS
OOM killer, an uncaught exception under PTY churn, an external `pkill` from
a sibling debugging session. Pre-v1.44 the sidebar would observe the broken
connection and stay broken until the user reloaded the sidebar. Now a 60s
ticker checks the recorded agent PID and respawns via the shared
spawnTerminalAgent helper when dead.
Identity-based liveness (T4 from the eng review):
* Uses readAgentRecord + isProcessAlive (signal 0 probe), not a name match.
* Slow-but-alive agents intentionally fall through — respawning around a
living agent would create split-brain (two agents writing the port
file, tokens diverging between them, mystery upgrade 401s).
* Pairs with the v1.44 generation counter in /internal/* loopback calls:
if a stale agent does come back to life mid-cycle, its X-Browse-Gen
no longer matches and the parent's calls 409 cleanly.
Crash-loop guard:
* 3 respawn attempts inside a rolling 60s window → stop trying. A daemon
up for a week with one crash a day shouldn't trip the guard.
* On trip: one-line error to console (`respawn guard tripped`) and the
watchdog goes dormant. Manual restart via the sidebar Restart button
is the explicit signal to re-arm (added in Commit 2 of the larger PR).
Shared spawn path (refactor):
* New spawnTerminalAgent(opts) in terminal-agent-control.ts handles:
prior-PID cleanup → spawn → record stash. Both the CLI cold-start path
in cli.ts and the new server.ts watchdog route through it. Removes the
copy-paste between them; future env wiring lands in one place.
Gated on cfg.ownsTerminalAgent — embedders that pre-launch their own PTY
server (gbrowser phoenix overlay) still own the full lifecycle.
GSTACK_AGENT_WATCHDOG_TICK_MS env knob compresses the 60s tick for e2e
tests without 60s waits per assertion.
Tests:
* browse/test/terminal-agent-watchdog.test.ts — 7 static-grep tripwires
for the load-bearing invariants (ownsTerminalAgent gate, PID-based
liveness, crash-loop guard with window pruning, shutdown cleanup,
CLI cold-start uses the same helper, env knob exists).
* Live process-kill tests belong in the e2e tier; cheaper invariants
here catch refactor regressions in ~1ms each.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(cli): opt-in outer supervisor — respawn browse server on crash
Pre-v1.44 `$B connect` was fire-and-forget: spawn server detached, CLI
exits, server runs unsupervised. If the server crashed (OOM, uncaught
exception, signal kill from a runaway debugger), the user had to notice,
re-run `$B connect`, and resume work. The v1.44 terminal-agent watchdog
recovers from one layer of failure; this commit closes the outer loop.
Opt-in via `--supervise` flag or `BROWSE_SUPERVISE=1` env. Default
behavior is unchanged — every existing caller (Claude Code's Bash tool,
scripts, CI) still gets a prompt return. When the flag is set:
* CLI stays attached, polls server PID every 30s via readState() +
isProcessAlive (same identity primitive as the terminal-agent watchdog).
* On unexpected exit: respawn via the same headed-mode startServer path
used initially, then re-spawn the terminal-agent so the PTY recovers
too (otherwise sidebar Restart is the only path back).
* Crash-loop guard: 5 respawns in a rolling 5-min window → exit 1 with
a clear error. Window pruning means a long-lived daemon with sporadic
crashes does NOT trip the guard (otherwise we punish the user for the
supervisor doing its job).
* Backoff: 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, 30s capped. Env-overridable via
GSTACK_SUPERVISOR_BACKOFF for tests.
* SIGINT / SIGTERM: clean teardown — signals the supervised server
before exiting itself. Without this, Ctrl-C leaves an orphaned server.
Out of scope (deferred follow-up): routing the Chromium-disconnect
exit-code-1 path back through this supervisor. The terminal-agent
watchdog already covers the highest-frequency restart case; Chromium
crash recovery joins the queue as its own commit.
Test (browse/test/cli-supervisor.test.ts):
* 6 static-grep tripwires: opt-in default, signal wiring, crash-loop
guard with window pruning, backoff schedule env knob, tick interval
env knob, terminal-agent re-spawn after server respawn.
* Live respawn tests belong in the e2e tier (real spawn cycles take
3-8s each; spamming these in the free tier would balloon CI time).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(browse): pty-session-lease registry — stable sessionId + lease lifecycle
Foundation for Commit 2 of the long-lived-sidebar PR. Separates two
concerns that pre-v1.44 were conflated under one token:
* sessionId — stable, non-secret identifier for a single PTY session.
Safe to log, safe in URLs, safe in DevTools. Identifies "this terminal,"
not "you're allowed to use this terminal."
* lease — server-side bookkeeping that maps sessionId → expiresAt.
Re-attach within the lease window resumes the same PTY; expiry tears
it down.
The companion attach-token primitive (short-lived 30s bearer) reuses the
existing browse/src/pty-session-cookie.ts module unchanged — the lease
adds a name-space alongside, it doesn't replace anything.
Codex outside-voice (T1 of the eng review) flagged the original D4
"token IS sessionId" design as conflating identity with auth. The fix
is this lease registry: re-attach URLs carry the stable sessionId
(loggable), the short-lived attachToken stays out of logs.
API:
* mintLease() → { sessionId, expiresAt }
* validateLease(sessionId) → { ok: true, expiresAt } | { ok: false }
* refreshLease(sessionId) — validate-first, never resurrects expired
leases. Security-critical: the 30-min TTL is what bounds blast
radius for a leaked attachToken whose lease should have GC'd.
* revokeLease(sessionId) — explicit dispose path.
* leaseCount() — observability helper.
* __resetLeases() — test-only.
TTL env knob (GSTACK_PTY_LEASE_TTL_MS) lets v1.44 e2e tests compress
the detach window to 1s instead of waiting 30 minutes per assertion.
Server.ts wiring + /pty-session shape change + /pty-restart + /pty-dispose
+ /pty-session/reattach all land in subsequent commits in this branch.
Test (browse/test/pty-session-lease.test.ts):
* 8 cases pinning mint uniqueness, validate-first refresh contract,
revoke idempotency, null/undefined tolerance, and the negative case
that refresh never resurrects a revoked lease (same code path as
expired-and-pruned).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(terminal-agent): sessionId-aware grant + scoped restart + eager spawn
Wires the pty-session-lease primitive (3aada48b) into terminal-agent so
the Commit 2 work in server.ts (next commit) can route /pty-restart and
re-attach by session identity rather than by single-use token.
Changes:
* validTokens: Set<string> → Map<string, string|null>. Each grant carries
its bound sessionId (or null for legacy single-grant callers). On WS
upgrade, the agent surfaces the bound sessionId via ws.data so open()
can register the session in the new reverse index.
* sessionsById: Map<sessionId, PtySession> — populated in open(),
cleared in close(). Required so /internal/restart can find and dispose
one specific session by id rather than enumerating all live sessions.
* /internal/restart: scoped to one sessionId. Codex T2 of the eng review
caught the gap — pre-spec the route would have disposed every PTY on
the agent, breaking pair-agent and any future multi-sidebar setup.
The body now requires `{sessionId}`; missing or unknown id returns
`{killed: 0}` and leaves siblings alone.
* maybeSpawnPty(ws, session): hoisted from the inline binary-frame spawn
block so both the legacy "spawn on first keystroke" trigger AND the
new `{type:"start"}` text-frame trigger land in the same code path.
Idempotent on session.spawned.
* `{type:"start"}` text frame: explicit spawn trigger. forceRestart
(extension side, lands in Commit 2C) sends this immediately on every
fresh WS so claude boots without requiring a keystroke. Pre-v1.44 the
lazy-binary-spawn pattern made the restart feel stuck.
* close(ws): drops the sessionsById entry alongside the existing
sessions WeakMap + validTokens cleanup. Commit 3 will revisit this to
keep the session alive for a 60s detach window before disposing.
Test (browse/test/terminal-agent-session-routing.test.ts):
* 8 static-grep tripwires pinning the load-bearing properties: validTokens
is a Map (not Set), sessionsById exists, /internal/restart is scoped
(negative-assert against enumerate-all patterns), WS upgrade plumbs
sessionId, maybeSpawnPty is the single spawn entry, close() drops the
index. Live spawn cycles belong in the e2e tier.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(server): /pty-session 4-tuple + /pty-restart + /pty-dispose + lease-refresh
Wires the lease + attachToken model end-to-end on the server side. The
client side (extension) lands in the next commit; agent side already
shipped in 449144cd.
Routes:
* POST /pty-session — mints sessionId (stable, loggable) + lease
(server-side bookkeeping) + attachToken (short-lived bearer for the
WS upgrade). Returns the 4-tuple in one round trip. Legacy
ptySessionToken / expiresAt aliases kept for one minor release so
extensions on the v1.43 wire shape keep working.
* POST /pty-session/reattach — validates a sessionId's lease and mints
a FRESH attachToken bound to the same sessionId. Used by Commit 3's
re-attach loop; 410 Gone when the lease has expired so the client
knows to fall back to a brand-new /pty-session.
* POST /pty-restart — one transaction: dispose the caller's existing
PtySession on the agent (via /internal/restart, scoped to one
sessionId — codex T2), revoke the old lease, mint a fresh
sessionId + lease + attachToken, return the 4-tuple. Zero race
window between kill and mint (codex T2 + D8 of the eng review).
* POST /pty-dispose — explicit teardown. sendBeacon-compatible: accepts
auth token in the body so the extension's pagehide handler (Commit 2C)
can fire it without setting custom headers (sendBeacon doesn't
support those). Without this route, every clean browser quit leaves
a zombie PTY alive for the 60s detach window — codex T3 caught it.
* POST /internal/lease-refresh — loopback from terminal-agent on its
25s keepalive cycle (lazy: only when lease is within 5 min of
expiry). Refreshes the lease AND resets the daemon idle timer. T6
of the eng review: PTY activity (not arbitrary SSE consumers) is
what keeps the daemon alive when the sidebar is in use.
Helpers:
* grantPtyToken now accepts optional sessionId and passes it through
to the agent's /internal/grant body. The agent binds token → sessionId
in its validTokens Map so /ws upgrades carry the sessionId for
/internal/restart and Commit 3 re-attach lookups.
* restartPtySession() — new loopback helper that POSTs the agent's
scoped /internal/restart with a sessionId body. Used by /pty-restart
and /pty-dispose.
Auth contract on /pty-dispose deliberately accepts the auth token in
EITHER the Authorization header OR the request body. The body path is
required for sendBeacon (which can't set custom headers); the header
path stays available for non-beacon callers and tests.
Test (browse/test/server-pty-lease-routes.test.ts):
* 7 static-grep tripwires pinning the 4-tuple shape, validate-first
re-attach with 410 fallback, one-transaction restart semantics,
sendBeacon-compatible dispose auth, and the T6 PTY-only idle reset.
* Live route exercises (full mint + grant + WS upgrade cycle) belong
in the e2e tier — they require a real terminal-agent loopback and
take seconds per assertion.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(sidebar): forceRestart via /pty-restart + pagehide /pty-dispose
Closes the Commit 2 loop: server-side lease + restart routes shipped in
25ef24e9; this commit wires the extension client to use them. End-to-end
result — clicking Restart now actually kills the server's PTY before
opening a new WS (zero race window), and closing the sidebar / quitting
the browser disposes the PTY immediately instead of letting it linger
for the upcoming 60s detach window.
sidepanel-terminal.js:
* mintSession callers read the v1.44 4-tuple (sessionId + attachToken)
from /pty-session, with a backward-compat fallback to ptySessionToken
so a partially-updated extension still works against a fresh server
for one minor release.
* Eager spawn via {type:"start"} text frame replaces the legacy
`TextEncoder().encode("\n")` newline hack. Pre-v1.44, the lazy-binary-
spawn pattern made forceRestart look stuck until the user typed —
now claude boots before the prompt renders.
* forceRestart() rewritten as an async one-transaction handler:
1. close current WS with code 4001 (intentional-restart)
2. POST /pty-restart with priorSessionId so the server can scope
the dispose, then mint fresh sessionId + lease + attachToken
in the same response
3. Open new WS with the returned attachToken, send {type:"start"}
immediately for eager spawn
4. On 401: sticky-abort the auto-connect loop (no spam)
5. On 503 / network failure: fall back to patient autoconnect
* currentSessionId tracked and exposed on window.gstackPtySession so
sidepanel.js's pagehide handler can sendBeacon the dispose.
sidepanel.js:
* New pagehide handler fires navigator.sendBeacon('/pty-dispose',
{sessionId, authToken}) on tab close, panel close, browser quit,
or extension reload. sendBeacon-compatible: auth token rides in
the body since sendBeacon can't set custom headers (server route
accepts body-auth per 25ef24e9).
* try/catch around the entire body so a sendBeacon failure can't
interfere with the browser's unload sequence — the 60s detach
window from Commit 3 catches anything we miss.
There's bounded duplication between connect() and forceRestart() (~70
lines of WS attach/handler wiring). Extracting a shared helper is a
clean follow-up but out of scope for the v1.44 ship — both paths are
exercised by the same e2e test.
Test (browse/test/sidepanel-restart-dispose.test.ts):
* 9 static-grep tripwires pinning the 4-tuple parse, eager spawn,
close-code 4001 contract, /pty-restart wire shape, sticky-abort
401 path, sessionId window plumbing, sendBeacon body contract,
and the best-effort try/catch around pagehide.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(terminal-agent): scrollback ring buffer + detach state machine + re-attach
The agent side of Commit 3 — the "magic" feature. A network blip (wifi
hiccup, MV3 panel suspend, brief Chromium pause) now silently reconnects
the sidebar to the SAME claude session with scrollback intact. No more
"Session ended" message + manual Restart click + losing your tool-call
output. Server-side /pty-session/reattach (25ef24e9) and the extension
re-attach loop (next commit) close the loop end-to-end.
Ring buffer (T10):
* Per-session frames: Buffer[] capped at 1 MB (env-overridable via
GSTACK_PTY_RING_BUFFER_BYTES). Each PTY write is one frame, so
eviction is at frame boundaries and never cuts a UTF-8 sequence or
ANSI CSI in half.
* appendToRingBuffer eviction loop keeps at least one frame even at
extreme caps — a single oversized frame can't empty the buffer.
* Alt-screen tracking via canonical xterm CSI ?1049h / CSI ?1049l
sequences. lastIndexOf comparison so trailing state wins when both
appear in one render frame (quick tool-call open+close).
Replay payload (T5 — codex outside-voice):
* buildReplayPayload prefixes DECSTR soft reset (\x1b[!p) and
conditionally re-enters alt-screen if claude was in a tool call at
detach. The client writes RIS (\x1bc) FIRST to clear pre-blip xterm
content; the server's prelude resets character attributes; the ring
buffer replays cleanly on top.
* Order is enforced by the {type:"reattach-begin"} text frame the
agent sends right before the binary replay — client waits for it,
writes RIS, then treats the next binary frame as the replay payload.
Detach state machine (T9):
* PtySession.liveWs decouples the PTY callback from the original ws
closure. On re-attach, swapping session.liveWs is enough — the
on-data callback writes to the new ws automatically.
* close(ws, code, _reason): codes 4001 (intentional restart), 4404
(no-claude), and 1000 (clean exit) trigger immediate dispose.
Anything else (1006 abnormal, 1001 going-away from network blip /
panel suspend) starts a 60s detach timer instead. claude keeps
running, output keeps accumulating in the ring buffer.
* Detach timer is unref'd so the bun process can still exit cleanly
on natural shutdown.
* Sessions without a sessionId (legacy single-shot grants) can't
re-attach by definition — those fall through to immediate dispose.
Re-attach lookup (T9):
* WS open() checks sessionsById[sessionId] FIRST. If a detached
session is sitting there, cancel its detach timer, swap liveWs,
rebind the WS-keyed map, restart keepalive, send reattach-begin
+ replay payload. The PTY process is unchanged.
* /internal/restart now cancels any pending detach timer before
disposal — otherwise the timer would later try to dispose an
already-disposed session.
Env knobs for e2e:
* GSTACK_PTY_RING_BUFFER_BYTES — compress to 256 for eviction tests.
* GSTACK_PTY_DETACH_WINDOW_MS — compress to 1000 for "did the timer
fire?" tests without waiting a minute per assertion.
Tests:
* browse/test/terminal-agent-detach-reattach.test.ts — 10 static-grep
tripwires for the load-bearing properties: interface shape, env
knobs, eviction floor, alt-screen tracking, replay prelude
composition, re-attach lookup, close-code routing, detach timer
unref, /internal/restart timer cancellation, on-data through
session.liveWs.
* browse/test/terminal-agent-session-routing.test.ts test 7 widened
to match the new close(ws, code, _reason) signature.
* browse/test/terminal-agent-keepalive.test.ts test 3 widened
similarly. Both stay regressions for the prior contract.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(sidebar): silent re-attach with scrollback replay (Commit 3 client side)
Closes the v1.44 long-lived-sidebar loop end-to-end. When the WS dies for
a transient reason (wifi blip, MV3 panel suspend, brief Chromium pause),
the sidebar now silently re-attaches to the SAME claude session inside the
server's 60s detach window. Scrollback replays cleanly; the user keeps
typing without noticing anything happened.
State machine:
* New STATE.RECONNECTING covers the in-flight re-attach window.
setState transitions out of this state reset reattachInFlight so a
concurrent user action (Restart click, panel navigate) short-circuits
cleanly.
* Backoff schedule REATTACH_BACKOFF_MS = [1000, 2000, 4000, 8000] then
8s steady until REATTACH_WINDOW_MS (60s) elapses. Past that point
the server has disposed our session and /pty-session/reattach
returns 410 Gone.
startReattachLoop(prevSessionId):
* Posts /pty-session/reattach with sessionId.
* On 200 with a valid 4-tuple, opens the post-reattach WS directly.
* On 410 (lease expired) — short-circuits to ENDED. No retry; the user
clicks Restart for a fresh session.
* On 401 — sticky-aborts the auto-connect loop. Same defense as 25ef24e9
so we don't spam "Auth invalid" every 2s.
* On network failure or other non-OK status — schedules the next
backoff tick.
openReattachWebSocket(terminalPort, attachToken, sessionId):
* Mostly a clone of connect()'s attach wiring. Reuses the live xterm
element — RIS clears the buffer cleanly when the agent's
{type:"reattach-begin"} arrives, so the visual flash is minimal.
* Handshake: on `{type:"reattach-begin"}` text frame → write `\x1bc`
(RIS) to xterm + set nextBinaryIsReplay = true. The next binary
frame IS the server-built replay payload (DECSTR soft-reset prefix
+ optional alt-screen re-enter + ring buffer contents).
* If THIS reattach WS also dies uncleanly, recurses into another
re-attach loop with the same sessionId — the server's detach window
may still be open. State guard prevents runaway recursion.
connect() + forceRestart() close handlers (existing):
* Both updated to call startReattachLoop on transient close codes
(anything other than 1000 / 4001 / 4404). Was just setState(ENDED).
* Clean codes still bypass — re-attaching to a force-restart's
pre-restart session would be the bug we're avoiding.
Test (browse/test/sidepanel-reattach.test.ts):
* 8 static-grep tripwires for the load-bearing properties: state
constant, backoff schedule, /pty-session/reattach wiring, 410
short-circuit (no retry past lease window), 401 sticky-abort,
reattach-begin → RIS handshake, all three close handlers route
through the loop, clean-code bypass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* chore: bump version and changelog (v1.44.0.0)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test(terminal-agent): runtime tests for ring buffer + replay + alt-screen tracking
Companion to browse/test/terminal-agent-detach-reattach.test.ts (static-grep
tripwires) — calls appendToRingBuffer + buildReplayPayload directly to prove
behavioral correctness without spinning up a real Bun.serve listener.
* 11 runtime cases: append + byte counting, oversize eviction with
one-frame floor (the eviction loop guard that prevents an oversized
single frame from emptying the buffer), alt-screen tracking via
canonical xterm CSI ?1049h / CSI ?1049l, trailing-state-wins for
enter+exit pairs inside a single render frame, soft-reset prefix
ordering, optional alt-screen re-enter, payload length math.
* Exports appendToRingBuffer, buildReplayPayload, and the PtySession
interface from terminal-agent.ts (purely for testability — they
were module-private; the change is annotation-only).
* Lease registry sanity check: mint two sessions, verify distinct
sessionIds, both valid simultaneously. Catches future refactors
that accidentally couple lease + ring buffer.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(tests): explain_level unset returns the documented default, not empty
Pre-existing failure on main — the test expected gstack-config to return
"" for an unset explain_level (with the comment "preamble default takes
over"), but the script at bin/gstack-config:103 explicitly returns
"default" inline for that key. Earlier versions of the script may have
relied on shell-substitution fallback, but the current contract is
inline-default-on-get so callers always receive a usable value without
bash gymnastics.
Updated the test to match the actual contract. Also added GSTACK_HOME
override alongside GSTACK_STATE_DIR in the spawn env so developer-machine
config doesn't bleed into the test.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
gstack
"I don't think I've typed like a line of code probably since December, basically, which is an extremely large change." — Andrej Karpathy, No Priors podcast, March 2026
When I heard Karpathy say this, I wanted to find out how. How does one person ship like a team of twenty? Peter Steinberger built OpenClaw — 247K GitHub stars — essentially solo with AI agents. The revolution is here. A single builder with the right tooling can move faster than a traditional team.
I'm Garry Tan, President & CEO of Y Combinator. I've worked with thousands of startups — Coinbase, Instacart, Rippling — when they were one or two people in a garage. Before YC, I was one of the first eng/PM/designers at Palantir, cofounded Posterous (sold to Twitter), and built Bookface, YC's internal social network.
gstack is my answer. I've been building products for twenty years, and right now I'm shipping more products than I ever have. In the last 60 days: 3 production services, 40+ shipped features, part-time, while running YC full-time. On logical code change — not raw LOC, which AI inflates — my 2026 run rate is ~810× my 2013 pace (11,417 vs 14 logical lines/day). Year-to-date (through April 18), 2026 has already produced 240× the entire 2013 year. Measured across 40 public + private garrytan/* repos including Bookface, after excluding one demo repo. AI wrote most of it. The point isn't who typed it, it's what shipped.
The LOC critics aren't wrong that raw line counts inflate with AI. They are wrong that normalized-for-inflation, I'm less productive. I'm more productive, by a lot. Full methodology, caveats, and reproduction script: On the LOC Controversy.
2026 — 1,237 contributions and counting:
2013 — when I built Bookface at YC (772 contributions):
Same person. Different era. The difference is the tooling.
gstack is how I do it. It turns Claude Code into a virtual engineering team — a CEO who rethinks the product, an eng manager who locks architecture, a designer who catches AI slop, a reviewer who finds production bugs, a QA lead who opens a real browser, a security officer who runs OWASP + STRIDE audits, and a release engineer who ships the PR. Twenty-three specialists and eight power tools, all slash commands, all Markdown, all free, MIT license.
This is my open source software factory. I use it every day. I'm sharing it because these tools should be available to everyone.
Fork it. Improve it. Make it yours. And if you want to hate on free open source software — you're welcome to, but I'd rather you just try it first.
Who this is for:
- Founders and CEOs — especially technical ones who still want to ship
- First-time Claude Code users — structured roles instead of a blank prompt
- Tech leads and staff engineers — rigorous review, QA, and release automation on every PR
Quick start
- Install gstack (30 seconds — see below)
- Run
/office-hours— describe what you're building - Run
/plan-ceo-reviewon any feature idea - Run
/reviewon any branch with changes - Run
/qaon your staging URL - Stop there. You'll know if this is for you.
Install — 30 seconds
Requirements: Claude Code, Git, Bun v1.0+, Node.js (Windows only)
Step 1: Install on your machine
Open Claude Code and paste this. Claude does the rest.
Install gstack: run
git clone --single-branch --depth 1 https://github.com/garrytan/gstack.git ~/.claude/skills/gstack && cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setupthen add a "gstack" section to CLAUDE.md that says to use the /browse skill from gstack for all web browsing, never use mcp__claude-in-chrome__* tools, and lists the available skills: /office-hours, /plan-ceo-review, /plan-eng-review, /plan-design-review, /design-consultation, /design-shotgun, /design-html, /review, /ship, /land-and-deploy, /canary, /benchmark, /browse, /connect-chrome, /qa, /qa-only, /design-review, /setup-browser-cookies, /setup-deploy, /setup-gbrain, /retro, /investigate, /document-release, /document-generate, /codex, /cso, /autoplan, /plan-devex-review, /devex-review, /careful, /freeze, /guard, /unfreeze, /gstack-upgrade, /learn. Then ask the user if they also want to add gstack to the current project so teammates get it.
Step 2: Team mode — auto-update for shared repos (recommended)
From inside your repo, paste this. Switches you to team mode, bootstraps the repo so teammates get gstack automatically, and commits the change:
(cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setup --team) && ~/.claude/skills/gstack/bin/gstack-team-init required && git add .claude/ CLAUDE.md && git commit -m "require gstack for AI-assisted work"
No vendored files in your repo, no version drift, no manual upgrades. Every Claude Code session starts with a fast auto-update check (throttled to once/hour, network-failure-safe, completely silent).
Swap required for optional if you'd rather nudge teammates than block them.
OpenClaw
OpenClaw spawns Claude Code sessions via ACP, so every gstack skill just works when Claude Code has gstack installed. Paste this to your OpenClaw agent:
Install gstack: run
git clone --single-branch --depth 1 https://github.com/garrytan/gstack.git ~/.claude/skills/gstack && cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setupto install gstack for Claude Code. Then add a "Coding Tasks" section to AGENTS.md that says: when spawning Claude Code sessions for coding work, tell the session to use gstack skills. Include these examples — security audit: "Load gstack. Run /cso", code review: "Load gstack. Run /review", QA test a URL: "Load gstack. Run /qa https://...", build a feature end-to-end: "Load gstack. Run /autoplan, implement the plan, then run /ship", plan before building: "Load gstack. Run /office-hours then /autoplan. Save the plan, don't implement."
After setup, just talk to your OpenClaw agent naturally:
| You say | What happens |
|---|---|
| "Fix the typo in README" | Simple — Claude Code session, no gstack needed |
| "Run a security audit on this repo" | Spawns Claude Code with Run /cso |
| "Build me a notifications feature" | Spawns Claude Code with /autoplan → implement → /ship |
| "Help me plan the v2 API redesign" | Spawns Claude Code with /office-hours → /autoplan, saves plan |
See docs/OPENCLAW.md for advanced dispatch routing and the gstack-lite/gstack-full prompt templates.
Native OpenClaw Skills (via ClawHub)
Four methodology skills that work directly in your OpenClaw agent, no Claude Code session needed. Install from ClawHub:
clawhub install gstack-openclaw-office-hours gstack-openclaw-ceo-review gstack-openclaw-investigate gstack-openclaw-retro
| Skill | What it does |
|---|---|
gstack-openclaw-office-hours |
Product interrogation with 6 forcing questions |
gstack-openclaw-ceo-review |
Strategic challenge with 4 scope modes |
gstack-openclaw-investigate |
Root cause debugging methodology |
gstack-openclaw-retro |
Weekly engineering retrospective |
These are conversational skills. Your OpenClaw agent runs them directly via chat.
Other AI Agents
gstack works on 10 AI coding agents, not just Claude. Setup auto-detects which agents you have installed:
git clone --single-branch --depth 1 https://github.com/garrytan/gstack.git ~/gstack
cd ~/gstack && ./setup
Or target a specific agent with ./setup --host <name>:
| Agent | Flag | Skills install to |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI Codex CLI | --host codex |
~/.codex/skills/gstack-*/ |
| OpenCode | --host opencode |
~/.config/opencode/skills/gstack-*/ |
| Cursor | --host cursor |
~/.cursor/skills/gstack-*/ |
| Factory Droid | --host factory |
~/.factory/skills/gstack-*/ |
| Slate | --host slate |
~/.slate/skills/gstack-*/ |
| Kiro | --host kiro |
~/.kiro/skills/gstack-*/ |
| Hermes | --host hermes |
~/.hermes/skills/gstack-*/ |
| GBrain (mod) | --host gbrain |
~/.gbrain/skills/gstack-*/ |
Want to add support for another agent? See docs/ADDING_A_HOST.md. It's one TypeScript config file, zero code changes.
See it work
You: I want to build a daily briefing app for my calendar.
You: /office-hours
Claude: [asks about the pain — specific examples, not hypotheticals]
You: Multiple Google calendars, events with stale info, wrong locations.
Prep takes forever and the results aren't good enough...
Claude: I'm going to push back on the framing. You said "daily briefing
app." But what you actually described is a personal chief of
staff AI.
[extracts 5 capabilities you didn't realize you were describing]
[challenges 4 premises — you agree, disagree, or adjust]
[generates 3 implementation approaches with effort estimates]
RECOMMENDATION: Ship the narrowest wedge tomorrow, learn from
real usage. The full vision is a 3-month project — start with
the daily briefing that actually works.
[writes design doc → feeds into downstream skills automatically]
You: /plan-ceo-review
[reads the design doc, challenges scope, runs 10-section review]
You: /plan-eng-review
[ASCII diagrams for data flow, state machines, error paths]
[test matrix, failure modes, security concerns]
You: Approve plan. Exit plan mode.
[writes 2,400 lines across 11 files. ~8 minutes.]
You: /review
[AUTO-FIXED] 2 issues. [ASK] Race condition → you approve fix.
You: /qa https://staging.myapp.com
[opens real browser, clicks through flows, finds and fixes a bug]
You: /ship
Tests: 42 → 51 (+9 new). PR: github.com/you/app/pull/42
You said "daily briefing app." The agent said "you're building a chief of staff AI" — because it listened to your pain, not your feature request. Eight commands, end to end. That is not a copilot. That is a team.
The sprint
gstack is a process, not a collection of tools. The skills run in the order a sprint runs:
Think → Plan → Build → Review → Test → Ship → Reflect
Each skill feeds into the next. /office-hours writes a design doc that /plan-ceo-review reads. /plan-eng-review writes a test plan that /qa picks up. /review catches bugs that /ship verifies are fixed. Nothing falls through the cracks because every step knows what came before it.
| Skill | Your specialist | What they do |
|---|---|---|
/office-hours |
YC Office Hours | Start here. Six forcing questions that reframe your product before you write code. Pushes back on your framing, challenges premises, generates implementation alternatives. Design doc feeds into every downstream skill. |
/plan-ceo-review |
CEO / Founder | Rethink the problem. Find the 10-star product hiding inside the request. Four modes: Expansion, Selective Expansion, Hold Scope, Reduction. |
/plan-eng-review |
Eng Manager | Lock in architecture, data flow, diagrams, edge cases, and tests. Forces hidden assumptions into the open. |
/plan-design-review |
Senior Designer | Rates each design dimension 0-10, explains what a 10 looks like, then edits the plan to get there. AI Slop detection. Interactive — one AskUserQuestion per design choice. |
/plan-devex-review |
Developer Experience Lead | Interactive DX review: explores developer personas, benchmarks against competitors' TTHW, designs your magical moment, traces friction points step by step. Three modes: DX EXPANSION, DX POLISH, DX TRIAGE. 20-45 forcing questions. |
/design-consultation |
Design Partner | Build a complete design system from scratch. Researches the landscape, proposes creative risks, generates realistic product mockups. |
/review |
Staff Engineer | Find the bugs that pass CI but blow up in production. Auto-fixes the obvious ones. Flags completeness gaps. |
/investigate |
Debugger | Systematic root-cause debugging. Iron Law: no fixes without investigation. Traces data flow, tests hypotheses, stops after 3 failed fixes. |
/design-review |
Designer Who Codes | Same audit as /plan-design-review, then fixes what it finds. Atomic commits, before/after screenshots. |
/devex-review |
DX Tester | Live developer experience audit. Actually tests your onboarding: navigates docs, tries the getting started flow, times TTHW, screenshots errors. Compares against /plan-devex-review scores — the boomerang that shows if your plan matched reality. |
/design-shotgun |
Design Explorer | "Show me options." Generates 4-6 AI mockup variants, opens a comparison board in your browser, collects your feedback, and iterates. Taste memory learns what you like. Repeat until you love something, then hand it to /design-html. |
/design-html |
Design Engineer | Turn a mockup into production HTML that actually works. Pretext computed layout: text reflows, heights adjust, layouts are dynamic. 30KB, zero deps. Detects React/Svelte/Vue. Smart API routing per design type (landing page vs dashboard vs form). The output is shippable, not a demo. |
/qa |
QA Lead | Test your app, find bugs, fix them with atomic commits, re-verify. Auto-generates regression tests for every fix. |
/qa-only |
QA Reporter | Same methodology as /qa but report only. Pure bug report without code changes. |
/pair-agent |
Multi-Agent Coordinator | Share your browser with any AI agent. One command, one paste, connected. Works with OpenClaw, Hermes, Codex, Cursor, or anything that can curl. Each agent gets its own tab. Auto-launches headed mode so you watch everything. Auto-starts ngrok tunnel for remote agents. Scoped tokens, tab isolation, rate limiting, activity attribution. |
/cso |
Chief Security Officer | OWASP Top 10 + STRIDE threat model. Zero-noise: 17 false positive exclusions, 8/10+ confidence gate, independent finding verification. Each finding includes a concrete exploit scenario. |
/ship |
Release Engineer | Sync main, run tests, audit coverage, push, open PR. Bootstraps test frameworks if you don't have one. |
/land-and-deploy |
Release Engineer | Merge the PR, wait for CI and deploy, verify production health. One command from "approved" to "verified in production." |
/canary |
SRE | Post-deploy monitoring loop. Watches for console errors, performance regressions, and page failures. |
/benchmark |
Performance Engineer | Baseline page load times, Core Web Vitals, and resource sizes. Compare before/after on every PR. |
/document-release |
Technical Writer | Update all project docs to match what you just shipped. Catches stale READMEs automatically. Builds a Diataxis coverage map (reference / how-to / tutorial / explanation) so gaps are visible in the PR body. |
/document-generate |
Documentation Author | Generate missing docs from scratch using the Diataxis framework. Researches the codebase first, then writes reference / how-to / tutorial / explanation docs that actually match the code. Invokable standalone or chained from /document-release when the coverage map finds gaps. Learn more: tutorial • how-to • why Diataxis. |
/retro |
Eng Manager | Team-aware weekly retro. Per-person breakdowns, shipping streaks, test health trends, growth opportunities. /retro global runs across all your projects and AI tools (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini). |
/browse |
QA Engineer | Give the agent eyes. Real Chromium browser, real clicks, real screenshots. ~100ms per command. /open-gstack-browser launches GStack Browser with sidebar, anti-bot stealth, and auto model routing. |
/setup-browser-cookies |
Session Manager | Import cookies from your real browser (Chrome, Arc, Brave, Edge) into the headless session. Test authenticated pages. |
/autoplan |
Review Pipeline | One command, fully reviewed plan. Runs CEO → design → eng review automatically with encoded decision principles. Surfaces only taste decisions for your approval. |
/learn |
Memory | Manage what gstack learned across sessions. Review, search, prune, and export project-specific patterns, pitfalls, and preferences. Learnings compound across sessions so gstack gets smarter on your codebase over time. |
Which review should I use?
| Building for... | Plan stage (before code) | Live audit (after shipping) |
|---|---|---|
| End users (UI, web app, mobile) | /plan-design-review |
/design-review |
| Developers (API, CLI, SDK, docs) | /plan-devex-review |
/devex-review |
| Architecture (data flow, perf, tests) | /plan-eng-review |
/review |
| All of the above | /autoplan (runs CEO → design → eng → DX, auto-detects which apply) |
— |
Power tools
| Skill | What it does |
|---|---|
/codex |
Second Opinion — independent code review from OpenAI Codex CLI. Three modes: review (pass/fail gate), adversarial challenge, and open consultation. Cross-model analysis when both /review and /codex have run. |
/careful |
Safety Guardrails — warns before destructive commands (rm -rf, DROP TABLE, force-push). Say "be careful" to activate. Override any warning. |
/freeze |
Edit Lock — restrict file edits to one directory. Prevents accidental changes outside scope while debugging. |
/guard |
Full Safety — /careful + /freeze in one command. Maximum safety for prod work. |
/unfreeze |
Unlock — remove the /freeze boundary. |
/open-gstack-browser |
GStack Browser — launch GStack Browser with sidebar, anti-bot stealth, auto model routing (Sonnet for actions, Opus for analysis), one-click cookie import, and Claude Code integration. Clean up pages, take smart screenshots, edit CSS, and pass info back to your terminal. |
/setup-deploy |
Deploy Configurator — one-time setup for /land-and-deploy. Detects your platform, production URL, and deploy commands. |
/setup-gbrain |
GBrain Onboarding — from zero to running gbrain in under 5 minutes. PGLite local, Supabase existing URL, or auto-provision a new Supabase project via Management API. MCP registration for Claude Code + per-repo trust triad (read-write/read-only/deny). Full guide. |
/sync-gbrain |
Keep Brain Current — re-index this repo's code into gbrain via gbrain sources add + gbrain sync --strategy code, refresh the ## GBrain Search Guidance block in CLAUDE.md, and auto-remove guidance when the capability check fails. --incremental (default), --full, --dry-run. Idempotent; safe to re-run. |
/gstack-upgrade |
Self-Updater — upgrade gstack to latest. Detects global vs vendored install, syncs both, shows what changed. |
/ios-qa |
iOS Live-Device QA (v1.43.0.0+) — drive a real iPhone over USB CoreDevice via an embedded StateServer in the app. Read Swift source, codegen typed @Observable accessors, run the agent loop. Optional --tailnet flag exposes the device to OpenClaw or any HTTP-capable agent on your Tailscale tailnet so remote agents can run iOS QA without ever touching the hardware. Capability-tier allowlist (observe/interact/mutate/restore), per-device session lock, audit log. |
/ios-fix, /ios-design-review, /ios-clean, /ios-sync |
iOS bug-fix loop, designer's-eye HIG audit, debug-bridge cleanup, and accessor resync. See docs/skills.md. End-to-end walkthrough: docs/howto-ios-testing-with-gstack.md. |
New binaries (v0.19)
Beyond the slash-command skills, gstack ships standalone CLIs for workflows that don't belong inside a session:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
gstack-model-benchmark |
Cross-model benchmark — run the same prompt through Claude, GPT (via Codex CLI), and Gemini; compare latency, tokens, cost, and (optionally) LLM-judge quality score. Auth detected per provider, unavailable providers skip cleanly. Output as table, JSON, or markdown. --dry-run validates flags + auth without spending API calls. |
gstack-taste-update |
Design taste learning — writes approvals and rejections from /design-shotgun into a persistent per-project taste profile. Decays 5%/week. Feeds back into future variant generation so the system learns what you actually pick. |
gstack-ios-qa-daemon |
iOS QA daemon — Mac-side broker between an agent and a connected iPhone over USB CoreDevice. Loopback by default; --tailnet opens a Tailscale-facing listener with identity-gated capability tiers. Single-instance via flock on ~/.gstack/ios-qa-daemon.pid. See docs/howto-ios-testing-with-gstack.md. |
gstack-ios-qa-mint |
iOS allowlist manager — owner-grant CLI for the tailnet allowlist. grant/revoke/list against ~/.gstack/ios-qa-allowlist.json (mode 0600). Remote agents never auto-allowlist; this is the explicit-intent path. |
Continuous checkpoint mode (opt-in, local by default)
Set gstack-config set checkpoint_mode continuous and skills auto-commit your work as you go with a WIP: prefix plus a structured [gstack-context] body (decisions, remaining work, failed approaches). Survives crashes and context switches. /context-restore reads those commits to reconstruct session state. /ship filter-squashes WIP commits before the PR (preserving non-WIP commits) so bisect stays clean. Push is opt-in via checkpoint_push=true — default is local-only so you don't trigger CI on every WIP commit.
Domain skills + raw CDP escape hatch
Two new browser primitives compound the gstack agent over time:
$B domain-skill save— agent saves a per-site note (e.g., "LinkedIn's Apply button lives in an iframe") that fires automatically next time it visits that hostname. Quarantined → active after 3 successful uses → optional cross-project promotion via$B domain-skill promote-to-global. Storage lives alongside/learn's per-project learnings file. Full reference: docs/domain-skills.md.$B cdp <Domain.method>— raw Chrome DevTools Protocol escape hatch for the rare case curated commands miss. Deny-default: methods must be explicitly added tobrowse/src/cdp-allowlist.tswith a one-line justification. Two-tier mutex serializes browser-scoped CDP calls against per-tab work. Output for data-exfil methods is wrapped in the UNTRUSTED envelope.
Want raw CDP with no rails, no allowlist, no daemon — just thin transport from agent to Chrome? browser-use/browser-harness-js is a different philosophy (agent-authored helpers vs gstack's curated commands) and a good fit if you don't want gstack's security stack. The two can coexist: gstack's
$B cdpand harness can both attach to the same Chrome via Playwright'snewCDPSession.
Deep dives with examples and philosophy for every skill →
Karpathy's four failure modes? Already covered.
Andrej Karpathy's AI coding rules (17K stars) nail four failure modes: wrong assumptions, overcomplexity, orthogonal edits, imperative over declarative. gstack's workflow skills enforce all four. /office-hours forces assumptions into the open before code is written. The Confusion Protocol stops Claude from guessing on architectural decisions. /review catches unnecessary complexity and drive-by edits. /ship transforms tasks into verifiable goals with test-first execution. If you already use Karpathy-style CLAUDE.md rules, gstack is the workflow enforcement layer that makes them stick across entire sprints, not just single prompts.
Parallel sprints
gstack works well with one sprint. It gets interesting with ten running at once.
Design is at the heart. /design-consultation builds your design system from scratch, researches what's out there, proposes creative risks, and writes DESIGN.md. But the real magic is the shotgun-to-HTML pipeline.
/design-shotgun is how you explore. You describe what you want. It generates 4-6 AI mockup variants using GPT Image. Then it opens a comparison board in your browser with all variants side by side. You pick favorites, leave feedback ("more whitespace", "bolder headline", "lose the gradient"), and it generates a new round. Repeat until you love something. Taste memory kicks in after a few rounds so it starts biasing toward what you actually like. No more describing your vision in words and hoping the AI gets it. You see options, pick the good ones, and iterate visually.
/design-html makes it real. Take that approved mockup (from /design-shotgun, a CEO plan, a design review, or just a description) and turn it into production-quality HTML/CSS. Not the kind of AI HTML that looks fine at one viewport width and breaks everywhere else. This uses Pretext for computed text layout: text actually reflows on resize, heights adjust to content, layouts are dynamic. 30KB overhead, zero dependencies. It detects your framework (React, Svelte, Vue) and outputs the right format. Smart API routing picks different Pretext patterns depending on whether it's a landing page, dashboard, form, or card layout. The output is something you'd actually ship, not a demo.
/qa was a massive unlock. It let me go from 6 to 12 parallel workers. Claude Code saying "I SEE THE ISSUE" and then actually fixing it, generating a regression test, and verifying the fix — that changed how I work. The agent has eyes now.
Smart review routing. Just like at a well-run startup: CEO doesn't have to look at infra bug fixes, design review isn't needed for backend changes. gstack tracks what reviews are run, figures out what's appropriate, and just does the smart thing. The Review Readiness Dashboard tells you where you stand before you ship.
Test everything. /ship bootstraps test frameworks from scratch if your project doesn't have one. Every /ship run produces a coverage audit. Every /qa bug fix generates a regression test. 100% test coverage is the goal — tests make vibe coding safe instead of yolo coding.
/document-release is the engineer you never had. It reads every doc file in your project, cross-references the diff, and updates everything that drifted. README, ARCHITECTURE, CONTRIBUTING, CLAUDE.md, TODOS — all kept current automatically. And now /ship auto-invokes it — docs stay current without an extra command.
Real browser mode. /open-gstack-browser launches GStack Browser, an AI-controlled Chromium with anti-bot stealth, custom branding, and the sidebar extension baked in. Sites like Google and NYTimes work without captchas. The menu bar says "GStack Browser" instead of "Chrome for Testing." Your regular Chrome stays untouched. All existing browse commands work unchanged. $B disconnect returns to headless. The browser stays alive as long as the window is open... no idle timeout killing it while you're working.
Sidebar agent — your AI browser assistant. Type natural language in the Chrome side panel and a child Claude instance executes it. "Navigate to the settings page and screenshot it." "Fill out this form with test data." "Go through every item in this list and extract the prices." The sidebar auto-routes to the right model: Sonnet for fast actions (click, navigate, screenshot) and Opus for reading and analysis. Each task gets up to 5 minutes. The sidebar agent runs in an isolated session, so it won't interfere with your main Claude Code window. One-click cookie import right from the sidebar footer.
Personal automation. The sidebar agent isn't just for dev workflows. Example: "Browse my kid's school parent portal and add all the other parents' names, phone numbers, and photos to my Google Contacts." Two ways to get authenticated: (1) log in once in the headed browser, your session persists, or (2) click the "cookies" button in the sidebar footer to import cookies from your real Chrome. Once authenticated, Claude navigates the directory, extracts the data, and creates the contacts.
Prompt injection defense. Hostile web pages try to hijack your sidebar agent. gstack ships a layered defense: a 22MB ML classifier bundled with the browser scans every page and tool output locally, a Claude Haiku transcript check votes on the full conversation shape, a random canary token in the system prompt catches session exfil attempts across text, tool args, URLs, and file writes, and a verdict combiner requires two classifiers to agree before blocking (prevents single-model false positives on Stack Overflow-style instruction pages). A shield icon in the sidebar header shows status (green/amber/red). Opt in to a 721MB DeBERTa-v3 ensemble via GSTACK_SECURITY_ENSEMBLE=deberta for 2-of-3 agreement. Emergency kill switch: GSTACK_SECURITY_OFF=1. See ARCHITECTURE.md for the full stack.
Browser handoff when the AI gets stuck. Hit a CAPTCHA, auth wall, or MFA prompt? $B handoff opens a visible Chrome at the exact same page with all your cookies and tabs intact. Solve the problem, tell Claude you're done, $B resume picks up right where it left off. The agent even suggests it automatically after 3 consecutive failures.
/pair-agent is cross-agent coordination. You're in Claude Code. You also have OpenClaw running. Or Hermes. Or Codex. You want them both looking at the same website. Type /pair-agent, pick your agent, and a GStack Browser window opens so you can watch. The skill prints a block of instructions. Paste that block into the other agent's chat. It exchanges a one-time setup key for a session token, creates its own tab, and starts browsing. You see both agents working in the same browser, each in their own tab, neither able to interfere with the other. If ngrok is installed, the tunnel starts automatically so the other agent can be on a completely different machine. Same-machine agents get a zero-friction shortcut that writes credentials directly. This is the first time AI agents from different vendors can coordinate through a shared browser with real security: scoped tokens, tab isolation, rate limiting, domain restrictions, and activity attribution.
Multi-AI second opinion. /codex gets an independent review from OpenAI's Codex CLI — a completely different AI looking at the same diff. Three modes: code review with a pass/fail gate, adversarial challenge that actively tries to break your code, and open consultation with session continuity. When both /review (Claude) and /codex (OpenAI) have reviewed the same branch, you get a cross-model analysis showing which findings overlap and which are unique to each.
Safety guardrails on demand. Say "be careful" and /careful warns before any destructive command — rm -rf, DROP TABLE, force-push, git reset --hard. /freeze locks edits to one directory while debugging so Claude can't accidentally "fix" unrelated code. /guard activates both. /investigate auto-freezes to the module being investigated.
Proactive skill suggestions. gstack notices what stage you're in — brainstorming, reviewing, debugging, testing — and suggests the right skill. Don't like it? Say "stop suggesting" and it remembers across sessions.
10-15 parallel sprints
gstack is powerful with one sprint. It is transformative with ten running at once.
Conductor runs multiple Claude Code sessions in parallel — each in its own isolated workspace. One session running /office-hours on a new idea, another doing /review on a PR, a third implementing a feature, a fourth running /qa on staging, and six more on other branches. All at the same time. I regularly run 10-15 parallel sprints — that's the practical max right now.
The sprint structure is what makes parallelism work. Without a process, ten agents is ten sources of chaos. With a process — think, plan, build, review, test, ship — each agent knows exactly what to do and when to stop. You manage them the way a CEO manages a team: check in on the decisions that matter, let the rest run.
Voice input (AquaVoice, Whisper, etc.)
gstack skills have voice-friendly trigger phrases. Say what you want naturally — "run a security check", "test the website", "do an engineering review" — and the right skill activates. You don't need to remember slash command names or acronyms.
Uninstall
Option 1: Run the uninstall script
If gstack is installed on your machine:
~/.claude/skills/gstack/bin/gstack-uninstall
This handles skills, symlinks, global state (~/.gstack/), project-local state, browse daemons, and temp files. Use --keep-state to preserve config and analytics. Use --force to skip confirmation.
Option 2: Manual removal (no local repo)
If you don't have the repo cloned (e.g. you installed via a Claude Code paste and later deleted the clone):
# 1. Stop browse daemons
pkill -f "gstack.*browse" 2>/dev/null || true
# 2. Remove per-skill directories whose SKILL.md points into gstack/
find ~/.claude/skills -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d ! -name gstack 2>/dev/null |
while IFS= read -r dir; do
link="$dir/SKILL.md"
[ -L "$link" ] || continue
target=$(readlink "$link" 2>/dev/null) || continue
case "$target" in
gstack/*|*/gstack/*)
rm -f "$link"
rmdir "$dir" 2>/dev/null || true
;;
esac
done
# 3. Remove gstack
rm -rf ~/.claude/skills/gstack
# 4. Remove global state
rm -rf ~/.gstack
# 5. Remove integrations (skip any you never installed)
rm -rf ~/.codex/skills/gstack* 2>/dev/null
rm -rf ~/.factory/skills/gstack* 2>/dev/null
rm -rf ~/.kiro/skills/gstack* 2>/dev/null
rm -rf ~/.openclaw/skills/gstack* 2>/dev/null
# 6. Remove temp files
rm -f /tmp/gstack-* 2>/dev/null
# 7. Per-project cleanup (run from each project root)
rm -rf .gstack .gstack-worktrees .claude/skills/gstack 2>/dev/null
rm -rf .agents/skills/gstack* .factory/skills/gstack* 2>/dev/null
Clean up CLAUDE.md
The uninstall script does not edit CLAUDE.md. In each project where gstack was added, remove the ## gstack and ## Skill routing sections.
Playwright
~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright/ (macOS) is left in place because other tools may share it. Remove it if nothing else needs it.
Free, MIT licensed, open source. No premium tier, no waitlist.
I open sourced how I build software. You can fork it and make it your own.
We're hiring. Want to ship real products at AI-coding speed and help harden gstack? Come work at YC — ycombinator.com/software Extremely competitive salary and equity. San Francisco, Dogpatch District.
GBrain — persistent knowledge for your coding agent
GBrain is a persistent knowledge base for AI agents — think of it as the memory your agent actually keeps between sessions. GStack gives you a one-command path from zero to "it's running, my agent can call it."
/setup-gbrain
Four paths, pick one:
- Supabase, existing URL — your cloud agent already provisioned a brain; paste the Session Pooler URL, now this laptop uses the same data.
- Supabase, auto-provision — paste a Supabase Personal Access Token; the skill creates a new project, polls to healthy, fetches the pooler URL, hands it to
gbrain init. ~90 seconds end-to-end. - PGLite local — zero accounts, zero network, ~30 seconds. Isolated brain on this Mac only. Great for try-first; migrate to Supabase later with
/setup-gbrain --switch. - Remote gbrain MCP — your brain runs on another machine (Tailscale, ngrok, internal LAN) or a teammate's server; paste an MCP URL and bearer token. Optionally pair with a local PGLite for symbol-aware code search in split-engine mode. Best for cross-machine memory without standing up a local DB.
After init, the skill offers to register gbrain as an MCP server for Claude Code (claude mcp add gbrain -- gbrain serve) so gbrain search, gbrain put, etc. show up as first-class typed tools — not bash shell-outs.
Keeping the brain current. Run /sync-gbrain from any repo to re-index its code into gbrain (incremental by default, --full for a full reindex, --dry-run to preview). The skill registers the cwd as a federated source via gbrain sources add, runs gbrain sync --strategy code, and writes a ## GBrain Search Guidance block to your project's CLAUDE.md so the agent prefers gbrain search/code-def/code-refs over Grep. The block is removed automatically if the capability check fails — no stale guidance pointing at tools that aren't installed.
Per-remote trust policy. Each repo on your machine gets one of three tiers:
read-write— agent can search the brain AND write new pages back from this reporead-only— agent can search but never writes (best for multi-client consultants: search the shared brain, don't contaminate it with Client A's work while in Client B's repo)deny— no gbrain interaction at all
The skill asks once per repo. The decision is sticky across worktrees and branches of the same remote.
GStack memory sync (different feature, same private-repo infra). Optionally pushes your gstack state (learnings, CEO plans, design docs, retros, developer profile) to a private git repo so your memory follows you across machines, with a one-time privacy prompt (everything allowlisted / artifacts only / off) and a defense-in-depth secret scanner that blocks AWS keys, tokens, PEM blocks, and JWTs before they leave your machine.
gstack-brain-init
Running gstack in Conductor? Conductor explicitly strips ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and OPENAI_API_KEY from every workspace's process env, so paid evals and gbrain embeddings won't work out of the box. Set GSTACK_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and GSTACK_OPENAI_API_KEY in Conductor's workspace env config instead — gstack's TS entry points promote them to canonical names at runtime. Full details and the contributor checklist for adding the import to new entry points: Conductor + GSTACK_* env vars.
Full monty — every scenario, every flag, every bin helper, every troubleshooting step: USING_GBRAIN_WITH_GSTACK.md
Other references: docs/gbrain-sync.md (sync-specific guide) • docs/gbrain-sync-errors.md (error index)
Docs
| Doc | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Skill Deep Dives | Philosophy, examples, and workflow for every skill (includes Greptile integration) |
| Builder Ethos | Builder philosophy: Boil the Lake, Search Before Building, three layers of knowledge |
| Using GBrain with GStack | Every path, flag, bin helper, and troubleshooting step for /setup-gbrain |
| GBrain Sync | Cross-machine memory setup, privacy modes, troubleshooting |
| Architecture | Design decisions and system internals |
| Browser Reference | Full command reference for /browse |
| Contributing | Dev setup, testing, contributor mode, and dev mode |
| Changelog | What's new in every version |
Privacy & Telemetry
gstack includes opt-in usage telemetry to help improve the project. Here's exactly what happens:
- Default is off. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you explicitly say yes.
- On first run, gstack asks if you want to share anonymous usage data. You can say no.
- What's sent (if you opt in): skill name, duration, success/fail, gstack version, OS. That's it.
- What's never sent: code, file paths, repo names, branch names, prompts, or any user-generated content.
- Change anytime:
gstack-config set telemetry offdisables everything instantly.
Data is stored in Supabase (open source Firebase alternative). The schema is in supabase/migrations/ — you can verify exactly what's collected. The Supabase publishable key in the repo is a public key (like a Firebase API key) — row-level security policies deny all direct access. Telemetry flows through validated edge functions that enforce schema checks, event type allowlists, and field length limits.
Local analytics are always available. Run gstack-analytics to see your personal usage dashboard from the local JSONL file — no remote data needed.
Troubleshooting
Skill not showing up? cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setup
/browse fails? cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && bun install && bun run build
Stale install? Run /gstack-upgrade — or set auto_upgrade: true in ~/.gstack/config.yaml
Want shorter commands? cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setup --no-prefix — switches from /gstack-qa to /qa. Your choice is remembered for future upgrades.
Want namespaced commands? cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setup --prefix — switches from /qa to /gstack-qa. Useful if you run other skill packs alongside gstack.
Codex says "Skipped loading skill(s) due to invalid SKILL.md"? Your Codex skill descriptions are stale. Fix: cd ~/.codex/skills/gstack && git pull && ./setup --host codex — or for repo-local installs: cd "$(readlink -f .agents/skills/gstack)" && git pull && ./setup --host codex
Windows users: gstack works on Windows 11 via Git Bash or WSL. Node.js is required in addition to Bun — Bun has a known bug with Playwright's pipe transport on Windows (bun#4253). The browse server automatically falls back to Node.js. Make sure both bun and node are on your PATH.
On Windows without Developer Mode (MSYS2 / Git Bash), setup falls back to file copies instead of symlinks because ln -snf produces frozen copies that don't refresh on git pull. Re-run cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setup after every git pull so your skill files match the repo. setup prints a one-line note reminding you. Unix and WSL keep symlinks and don't need the re-run.
Claude says it can't see the skills? Make sure your project's CLAUDE.md has a gstack section. Add this:
## gstack
Use /browse from gstack for all web browsing. Never use mcp__claude-in-chrome__* tools.
Available skills: /office-hours, /plan-ceo-review, /plan-eng-review, /plan-design-review,
/design-consultation, /design-shotgun, /design-html, /review, /ship, /land-and-deploy,
/canary, /benchmark, /browse, /open-gstack-browser, /qa, /qa-only, /design-review,
/setup-browser-cookies, /setup-deploy, /setup-gbrain, /sync-gbrain, /retro, /investigate,
/document-release, /document-generate, /codex, /cso, /autoplan, /pair-agent, /careful, /freeze,
/guard, /unfreeze, /gstack-upgrade, /learn.
License
MIT. Free forever. Go build something.