# TUI agent guidance
Scope: the terminal UI, its embedded runtime engine, and user-visible behavior.
Read the repository guidance first.
## UI contracts
- One owner per fact: mode/permission/context in the header; work in the top
strip; receipts and the active row in the transcript; phase, route identity,
cost, and detail controls in the footer.
- Status-bar ink goes through `palette::grammar` (`docs/design/STATUS_BAR_COLOR_GRAMMAR.md`).
Do not invent an eighth semantic or spend Failure red on non-failure chrome.
- Derive state from typed enums such as `ShellPhase` and `OceanTreatment`.
Renderers must not infer state from English strings or invent lifecycle state.
- Keep settled output still. Motion is semantic, bounded, and fully disabled by
reduced-motion settings.
- Route notices through the toast system, with typed level and lifetime; do not
add new writes to the legacy `status_message` sink.
- Compact layouts remove chrome before content. Selectable rows need recorded
hitboxes, visible focus, keyboard/mouse parity, and confirmation for
destructive actions.
- User-visible prose uses `tr(locale, MessageId::...)`. Commands, key names, and
glyphs are composed in code. Follow `locales/AGENTS.md` for string changes.
## Verification
Select the smallest evidence that answers the actual risk. Direct PTY or
terminal behavior is stronger evidence for visible UX than an assertion over
render internals. Use a focused existing test for safety, data integrity,
protocol, or a reproduced regression when useful. Do not add tests by default,
and do not require both full suites or workspace Clippy for an unrelated leaf
change. These are available release/cross-cutting gates, not per-edit ritual:
```sh
cargo test -p codewhale-tui --lib --locked
cargo test -p codewhale-tui --tests --locked
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets --locked -- -D warnings
```
`--lib` and `--tests` are disjoint; choose the target that owns the behavior.
Use both or the workspace gate only when the risk genuinely spans both.
`scripts/dev-test.sh <area|path> [filter]` prints and runs the fastest
targeted invocation for a source path (for example
`scripts/dev-test.sh crates/tui/src/elapsed.rs`). It uses `cargo nextest
run` when nextest is installed (`CODEWHALE_DEV_NEXTEST=0` forces libtest)
and applies `scripts/dev-cache.sh` so a new worktree gets an isolated
Cargo build-dir. For PTY
failures, reproduce the behavior directly before changing it. Script one input
at a time and capture after the UI settles. Choose the terminal sizes relevant
to the change from 40x12, 60x16, 80x24, 100x32, and 140x40; judge motion from
repeated frames, not a single screenshot. Remove inherited `NO_COLOR`,
`TERM=dumb`, and tmux motion overrides when they would invalidate the
observation.