MoonshotAI / MoonshotAI/kimi-code
feat(tui): run `!` shell commands interactively (PTY) so prompts can be answered
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- TypeScript
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Description
What feature would you like to see?
Run foreground ! shell commands interactively — under a PTY, with the user's keystrokes forwarded to the running command — so interactive commands can be answered.
Motivating example: !gh auth login prompts (Where do you use GitHub?, (Y/n)-style confirmations), but there is no way to answer. The same applies to ssh, sudo, npm init, scripts using read -p, etc. Today the only option is to leave the TUI and run these in a separate terminal.
Why it can't work today: ! commands reuse the agent's non-interactive Bash tool. The process is spawned with piped stdio and no TTY, and the RPC surface only exposes runShellCommand / cancelShellCommand — there is no path to forward user input to the running process. Note that a stdin pipe alone is not sufficient: gh auth login requires a TTY for its prompts (it hangs even with stdin redirected), so the motivating cases need a real PTY.
Proposal:
- Spawn foreground
!commands with a PTY (node-ptyis already a dependency of the CLI and agent-core). - While a
!command is running, route editor keystrokes to its stdin; keep Esc / Ctrl+C as cancel. - Stream and record output in the transcript as today (
shell_commandcontext message).
Deliberately out of scope: a persistent / stateful shell session (the !! mode proposed in #2213). This request is only about answering the prompts of a single foreground command.
Additional information
- Related issues: #2213 (closed as not planned — a much broader persistent-shell request; this is the narrow slice), #2915 (raw escape sequences from foreground Bash output — PTY output makes control sequences unavoidable, so transcript rendering needs a decision: sanitize vs. interpret).
- A stdin-only variant (forward keystrokes, no PTY) would cover simple line-based prompts (
read -p) but not TTY-checking tools likegh/ssh/sudo; PTY seems required for the motivating cases. - Open questions for maintainers: PTY vs stdin-only; how the transcript should render control sequences; whether the recorded context should capture the raw stream or cleaned text.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Trace the existing runShellCommand and cancelShellCommand RPC paths and the TUI editor keystroke handling; node-pty is already listed as a CLI and agent-core dependency. Resolve the PTY and transcript-rendering questions, then verify that a foreground ! command accepts input, preserves Esc/Ctrl+C cancellation, and records its output.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- node.js, shell, typescript
- Domain
- cli, tooling
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100