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Ghostty: no per-tab TTY/PID — missing cross-reference and TTY switch fallback #63
Description
Summary
Ghostty and cmux lacks per-tab TTY/PID in their APIs, which prevents two capabilities that iTerm2 has:
-
Detection cross-reference — for bare
claudeorclaude -rsessions with in-session/rename, iTerm2 can match PID → TTY → tab name → custom title → session ID. Ghostty/cmux cannot do this, so the purple dot may be on the wrong session. -
Switch TTY fallback — for
-r <uuid>sessions without/rename, iTerm2 can use TTY matching to switch to the correct tab even without a custom title. Ghostty/cmux fall back to cwd matching which may switch to the wrong tab.
What's needed
Either per-tab TTY or PID exposed via the terminal's API (AppleScript or CLI). Either one enables cross-referencing with claude process TTYs (ps -o tty=).
Upstream tracking
| Terminal | Item | Status | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ghostty | Issue #11592 — Add pid/tty to AppleScript terminal class | Open | Would enable both cross-reference and TTY switch fallback |
| Ghostty | PR #11354 & PR #11922— Expose PID/TTY on TerminalEntity | Open | Implementation in progress |
| cmux | PR #2040(released) | — | Could expose per-surface TTY via CLI (list-pane-surfaces or similar) |
Current workaround
Users should use claude -n "name" or /rename + exit + resume for same-cwd sessions on Ghostty/cmux. See README and design doc for the full accuracy matrix.
Related
- Detection layer: purple dot mapped to wrong session for same-cwd sessions #60 — Detection layer purple dot issue (fixed for most cases, iTerm2 cross-reference in PR feat: iTerm2 cross-reference for detection layer (purple dot) #62)
- PR fix: three-layer iTerm2 switch + custom title encoding + grep precision #56 — iTerm2 three-layer switch matching
- PR fix: detection regex matches -r for correct purple dot #61 — Detection regex fix + title disambiguation
🤖 On behalf of @grimmerk — generated with Claude Code
Activity
grimmerk commentedon Mar 30, 2026
Update: cmux per-surface TTY is now supported via manaflow-ai/cmux#2040 (merged). CodeV cmux cross-reference detection implemented in PR #64 (merged).
Remaining: Ghostty still lacks per-tab TTY/PID — pending upstream ghostty#11592.
Note: With the discovery of
~/.claude/sessions/(#65), cross-reference may become unnecessary for detection —sessions/<PID>.jsonprovides direct PID→sessionId mapping. Cross-reference would still be needed for switch layer TTY matching on Ghostty (once TTY is available upstream).🤖 On behalf of @grimmerk — generated with Claude Code
grimmerk commentedon Mar 30, 2026
Update: cmux now has three-layer switch matching (title → TTY → cwd), same as iTerm2. PR #69.
Remaining: Ghostty still lacks per-tab TTY — pending ghostty#11354. When Ghostty adds TTY/PID support, the changes needed in CodeV are:
openSessionInGhostty(same pattern as iTerm2/cmux —ps -o tty=→ match against Ghostty tab TTYs)crossRefDisambiguatealready has a placeholder (byTerminal['ghostty']→ cwd fallback) — replace with TTY matchingBoth are small changes once upstream support lands.
🤖 On behalf of @grimmerk — generated with Claude Code
[-]Ghostty/cmux: no per-tab TTY/PID — missing cross-reference and TTY switch fallback[/-][+]Ghostty: no per-tab TTY/PID — missing cross-reference and TTY switch fallback[/+]00-kat commentedon Apr 24, 2026
I have absolutely no clue what CodeV is, I come here from GitHub's xref in ghostty-org/ghostty#11354; FYI, selecting a TTY/PID is now supported on tip, xref ghostty-org/ghostty#10756, ghostty-org/ghostty#11592, and ghostty-org/ghostty#11922. This will make it into a release around September (unless it's backported to 1.3, which I doubt).
grimmerk commentedon Oct 22, 2026
Update: Ghostty tip builds now expose per-terminal
ttyandpid(ghostty-org/ghostty#11922, merged; not yet in a release as of v1.3.1). #165 uses it for both items listed above: the switch layer (tty and title in pid-provenance order, then cwd) and Ghostty's branch ofcrossRefDisambiguate. Measured on tip build 18371: with 16 terminals sharing one directory, the old cwd-only switch sent every un-renamed session to the same tab; by tty each reached its own. Stable Ghostty keeps today's title → cwd behaviour, since the property is read by its raw code insidetry.🤖 On behalf of @grimmerk — generated with Claude Code