writingdeveloper · Oct 21, 2026 · Oct 21, 2026 · Oct 21, 2026 · Oct 21, 2026
diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yml b/.github/workflows/release.yml
@@ -63,6 +63,11 @@ jobs:
         run: node qa/maintenance.mjs
         env:
           DEVDECK_EXECUTABLE: release/win-unpacked/DevDeck.exe
+      - name: Verify packaged Claude status signal, What's new and cockpit tools
+        if: runner.os == 'Windows'
+        run: node qa/cockpit-tools.mjs
+        env:
+          DEVDECK_EXECUTABLE: release/win-unpacked/DevDeck.exe
       - name: Verify packaged host and viewer session consistency
         if: runner.os == 'Windows'
         run: node qa/session-sync.mjs
@@ -76,6 +81,7 @@ jobs:
             qa/shots/resilience/
             qa/shots/maintenance/
             qa/shots/session-sync/
+            qa/shots/cockpit-tools/
       - uses: actions/upload-artifact@cf430e030ddbb5b0abf93d22962f4752f3646cd9 # v7.0.2
         with:
           name: release-${{ matrix.os }}

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ See what needs attention, resume the right conversation, and work on a paired PC
 
 </div>
 
-> **1.41.0** adds quick replies (one click or Ctrl+Shift+1…9 for the phrases you keep typing), a session timeline of your prompts with their times, replies and images, red boxes and arrows drawn on a screenshot and sent straight back to the session, and text, log and PDF attachments for sessions on another PC ([release notes](docs/releases/1.41.0.md)). 1.40.0 ties each screenshot to the terminal row it appeared on — hover a highlighted `[Image]` for a thumbnail, click for the full view, and jump from the viewer back to the row — says what led to each image, previews new screenshots, copies images, and adds Ctrl+↑/↓ between your prompts ([release notes](docs/releases/1.40.0.md)). 1.39.0 shows the screenshots and images a Claude session worked with — Claude Desktop shows them inline; DevDeck puts them in a strip beside the terminal, also for sessions on another PC — adds 📎 / drag-and-drop attachments (images travel to a remote PC), **Update all** for Claude Code on Windows, staggered session restores that no longer stall a PC, and ends the daily false "Login expired" ([release notes](docs/releases/1.39.0.md)). 1.38.0 made closing a session reliable across paired PCs ([notes](docs/releases/1.38.0.md)). See [the maintenance review](docs/quality-review-2026-09-08.md) and [session synchronization review](docs/session-sync-review-2026-09-08.md).
+> **1.42.0** shows what changed — a What's new window after each update, with Show me, and NEW dots on new buttons until you try them — and, as an experimental setting on Windows, lets Claude Code report its own state (working, needs approval, asking, done) instead of DevDeck reading the screen ([release notes](docs/releases/1.42.0.md)). 1.41.0 adds quick replies (one click or Ctrl+Shift+1…9 for the phrases you keep typing), a session timeline of your prompts with their times, replies and images, red boxes and arrows drawn on a screenshot and sent straight back to the session, and text, log and PDF attachments for sessions on another PC ([release notes](docs/releases/1.41.0.md)). 1.40.0 ties each screenshot to the terminal row it appeared on — hover a highlighted `[Image]` for a thumbnail, click for the full view, and jump from the viewer back to the row — says what led to each image, previews new screenshots, copies images, and adds Ctrl+↑/↓ between your prompts ([release notes](docs/releases/1.40.0.md)). 1.39.0 shows the screenshots and images a Claude session worked with — Claude Desktop shows them inline; DevDeck puts them in a strip beside the terminal, also for sessions on another PC — adds 📎 / drag-and-drop attachments (images travel to a remote PC), **Update all** for Claude Code on Windows, staggered session restores that no longer stall a PC, and ends the daily false "Login expired" ([release notes](docs/releases/1.39.0.md)). 1.38.0 made closing a session reliable across paired PCs ([notes](docs/releases/1.38.0.md)). See [the maintenance review](docs/quality-review-2026-09-08.md) and [session synchronization review](docs/session-sync-review-2026-09-08.md).
 
 <div align="center">
 <img src="docs/screenshots/projects.png" width="820" alt="DevDeck project overview with repository and session navigation" />

diff --git a/docs/quality.md b/docs/quality.md
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ Results and screenshots are written to `qa/shots/maintenance/` and `qa/shots/res
 
 The CI performance gate is `qa:perf-gate` (Windows, every push): a fixture agent instead of a real one, and units that do not depend on the runner's speed — running CSS animations and DOM mutation records on an idle deck (both must be ~0), DOM mutations outside the terminals while two tiles repaint at 10fps (a per-chunk sidebar rebuild is ~8,000 against a limit of 400), and the main process's longest event-loop stall while working and while 20,000 lines stream. Each limit was checked by injecting the regression it guards against: an infinite CSS animation, a sidebar render per PTY chunk, and a 700ms synchronous block in the main process all fail it. Results go to `qa/shots/perf-gate/results.json`.
 
-`qa:images` (Windows) drives the cockpit image strip, full-size viewer and 📎 attach against an isolated home holding a transcript with a tool screenshot, a pasted image and a written image file; its fixture `claude` echoes what it is sent, so an attached path is read back off the terminal. `qa:update` (Windows) checks "Update all": a fixture `claude` prints Claude Code's failed-update footer, and the harness asserts that `claude update` ran with no session process alive and that every conversation was resumed by id. `qa:images-remote` (Windows) pairs a host and a viewer over real TLS and checks the same from the viewer: thumbnails and the full view cross the link, an attached JPEG lands on the host as PNG with the host path typed, and a non-image named `.png` or an unindexed id is refused over the link. `qa:restore-pacing` (Windows) checks that restored agents start one at a time: a fixture that draws for 2s while booting must not see the next one launched before it finished (measured before the fix: 26–49ms apart). `qa:image-rows` (Windows) ties images to the terminal: a fixture `claude` draws a screen the way Claude Code does (`● server - tool (MCP)` calls, `⎿  [Image]` results, shaded `❯` prompts, a composer between rules) over a transcript holding the same screenshots, and the harness checks that each placeholder is marked and opens its own image, that the viewer shows what led to an image and scrolls the terminal to its row, that copying puts an image on the clipboard (the person's clipboard is restored afterwards), that a new screenshot is previewed while the strip is closed, and that Ctrl+Up/Down steps between sent prompts without entering the composer. `qa:cockpit-tools` (Windows) uses a fixture `claude` that records every byte typed into it: a quick reply from the header menu and from Ctrl+Shift+<n> arrives as the phrase followed by Enter, phrases edited in Settings are saved and offered, the timeline lists each prompt with its time, reply and image count and scrolls the terminal to it without resizing it, and a screenshot marked up in the viewer reaches the session as a PNG that has the red marks in it. `qa:images-remote` also sends a log file from the viewer and checks it lands on the host under its own name. None of these starts a real agent.
+`qa:images` (Windows) drives the cockpit image strip, full-size viewer and 📎 attach against an isolated home holding a transcript with a tool screenshot, a pasted image and a written image file; its fixture `claude` echoes what it is sent, so an attached path is read back off the terminal. `qa:update` (Windows) checks "Update all": a fixture `claude` prints Claude Code's failed-update footer, and the harness asserts that `claude update` ran with no session process alive and that every conversation was resumed by id. `qa:images-remote` (Windows) pairs a host and a viewer over real TLS and checks the same from the viewer: thumbnails and the full view cross the link, an attached JPEG lands on the host as PNG with the host path typed, and a non-image named `.png` or an unindexed id is refused over the link. `qa:restore-pacing` (Windows) checks that restored agents start one at a time: a fixture that draws for 2s while booting must not see the next one launched before it finished (measured before the fix: 26–49ms apart). `qa:image-rows` (Windows) ties images to the terminal: a fixture `claude` draws a screen the way Claude Code does (`● server - tool (MCP)` calls, `⎿  [Image]` results, shaded `❯` prompts, a composer between rules) over a transcript holding the same screenshots, and the harness checks that each placeholder is marked and opens its own image, that the viewer shows what led to an image and scrolls the terminal to its row, that copying puts an image on the clipboard (the person's clipboard is restored afterwards), that a new screenshot is previewed while the strip is closed, and that Ctrl+Up/Down steps between sent prompts without entering the composer. `qa:cockpit-tools` (Windows) uses a fixture `claude` that records every byte typed into it: a quick reply from the header menu and from Ctrl+Shift+<n> arrives as the phrase followed by Enter, phrases edited in Settings are saved and offered, the timeline lists each prompt with its time, reply and image count and scrolls the terminal to it without resizing it, and a screenshot marked up in the viewer reaches the session as a PNG that has the red marks in it. It also starts as an install updated from 1.41.0 with the Claude status signal on: the What's new window lists only what is newer and Show me rings the setting, NEW dots go once a button is used, and the fixture asks for status the way Claude Code does (OSC 7501) — the host answers on the bundled ConPTY and the header shows working, needs approval and done. The release workflow runs it against the packaged app too. `qa:images-remote` also sends a log file from the viewer and checks it lands on the host under its own name. None of these starts a real agent.
 
 Do not run these against a live development conversation. Do not equate a short loopback test with sleep/resume, VPN changes or multi-day field validation.
 

diff --git a/docs/releases/1.42.0.md b/docs/releases/1.42.0.md
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+# DevDeck 1.42.0
+
+## See what changed
+
+- **What's new, once after each update.** A window lists what is new since the version you last ran, with where each feature is and a **Show me** button. Show me takes you there and rings the button or setting. It does not open on a first install. Settings → About → **What's new** opens it again at any time, listing everything since 1.39.0.
+- **NEW dots.** New buttons carry a small orange dot until you first use them:
+  - quick replies, the timeline and the image strip in a session's header
+  - Mark up in the image viewer
+  - 📎 for a session on another PC
+  - the new setting below
+
+## Claude tells DevDeck what it is doing (experimental)
+
+DevDeck has always guessed a session's state by reading its screen: the spinner, the prompt, how long since the last output. Claude Code 2.1.295 and later can report its own state to a terminal that asks for it, and DevDeck now asks.
+
+- The session header shows what Claude reports:
+  - **Working**, with a percentage when it knows one
+  - **Needs your approval**, **Asking you a question** or **Needs sign-in**, in amber
+  - **Done**, with a line on what it just did
+  - **Stopped on an error**
+- The sidebar and tray use the same report, so "needs you" no longer depends on how the screen happens to look.
+- The Windows notification says why the session is waiting, for example "Claude is waiting for your approval".
+
+**On Windows this is off until you turn it on:** Settings → **Claude status signal (experimental)**.
+
+- **Why it is opt-in:** Windows' own console layer (ConPTY) answers the question Claude Code asks and drops DevDeck's reply, so the report never arrives. With the setting on, new sessions run on the newer ConPTY that ships with DevDeck, the one Windows Terminal uses.
+- **When it applies:** sessions started after you turn it on.
+- **If something looks wrong:** turn it off and restart the session.
+
+On macOS and Linux there is no console layer in between, so the report is always used.
+
+## Under the hood
+
+- **Checked against the real Claude Code 2.1.306:**
+  - the probe is answered once, by DevDeck itself, before any window sees the output
+  - the states went idle → working → done, with a line on what it did
+  - with Windows' own ConPTY the reply never reaches the program, and with the bundled one it does
+- **Bundled ConPTY in the installer:** if its files are missing, sessions fall back to Windows' own ConPTY and the status signal is simply not used.
+- **Fixed before release:** the wrapper that closes a session's whole process tree was hiding which ConPTY a session ran on.
+- **New automated checks (`qa:cockpit-tools`):**
+  - What's new and Show me
+  - the NEW dots
+  - the status in the header: working, needs approval, done
+  - quick replies, the timeline and markup, all on the bundled ConPTY
+- **Packaged-build check:** the release workflow now runs `qa:cockpit-tools` against the packaged Windows app as well.
diff --git a/package-lock.json b/package-lock.json
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "devdeck",
-  "version": "1.41.0",
+  "version": "1.42.0",
   "description": "Project command deck — at-a-glance state + Claude Code, Codex, and Antigravity resume",
   "main": "dist/main/main.js",
   "type": "commonjs",