1.44.0: Claude's background sessions in the sidebar

README.md

@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ See what needs attention, resume the right conversation, and work on a paired PC
 
 </div>
 
-> **1.43.0** runs parallel sessions in separate workspaces — each in its own git worktree and branch, so two agents never edit the same files — with its changes in the header and a clean-up that warns before unmerged work is lost ([release notes](docs/releases/1.43.0.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).
+> **1.44.0** lists Claude Code's own background sessions (`claude --bg`, the agent view) in the sidebar, marks the ones waiting for you, and opens one in a tile by attaching to it ([release notes](docs/releases/1.44.0.md)). 1.43.0 runs parallel sessions in separate workspaces — each in its own git worktree and branch, so two agents never edit the same files — with its changes in the header and a clean-up that warns before unmerged work is lost ([release notes](docs/releases/1.43.0.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" />

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. 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. It also starts a separate workspace from the header, checks its branch and that the project stays clean, sees a change counted, and cleans it up through the warning. 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.
+`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. It also starts a separate workspace from the header, checks its branch and that the project stays clean, sees a change counted, and cleans it up through the warning. Its fixture also answers `claude agents --json`, so the harness checks the Claude background sessions group, the waiting mark, and that a click opens the session with `claude attach <id>`. 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.
 

docs/releases/1.44.0.md

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+# DevDeck 1.44.0
+
+## Claude's background sessions in the sidebar
+
+Claude Code can run sessions in the background: `claude --bg`, or the sessions you dispatch from its agent view. DevDeck never started them, so it never showed them, and a background session waiting on you could sit unseen for days.
+
+- **Listed:** the sidebar now has a **Claude background sessions** group. Each row shows its name, project and state:
+  - **waiting for you**, marked like any session that needs you
+  - running or working
+  - idle
+  - failed, listed for a week
+- **Counted when collapsed:** the waiting ones count toward the "needs you" number on the collapsed rail.
+- **Open one:** click it. It opens in a tile by attaching to it (`claude attach`), and the conversation and the session carry on exactly as they were. Once it is open in a tile it leaves the group.
+- **Other PCs:** sessions running on a paired PC are listed too, from PCs on 1.44.0.
+- **Not shown:** only sessions working in a folder DevDeck shows. Finished ones are not listed.
+
+The list comes from Claude Code itself (`claude agents --json`, about 0.2 s), read every 30 seconds while DevDeck is in front of you. If Claude Code is not installed, the group simply does not appear.
+
+## Also
+
+- **Browser screenshots open from another PC:** in a session on a paired PC, clicking a screenshot Claude took with Claude in Chrome (`[image] ~\AppData\Local\Temp\claude-chrome-screenshots-…\screenshot-….jpg`) said "Image unavailable". That folder was not among the temp folders an image may be sent from. It is now, and other applications' temp files still are not. The PC running the session needs 1.44.0.
+- **Update all is undisturbed:** background sessions are not listed while Update all replaces Claude Code. Listing them starts `claude` briefly, which would hold the very file the update is replacing. The automated Update-all check caught this.
+- **Release reliability:** the performance check in CI now exits as soon as it has printed its verdict. On the v1.42.0 release it passed, then kept the job open until it timed out, which cancelled the release until it was rerun.
+
+## Under the hood
+
+- **Command line:** the only value that reaches it is the short hex id Claude Code assigns. Anything else in the listing is dropped.
+- **Tests:**
+  - New unit tests cover parsing the listing and the sidebar grouping.
+  - `qa:cockpit-tools` uses a fixture `claude` that answers `agents --json`. It checks the group, the waiting mark, and that clicking starts `claude attach <id>` in a tile.

package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "devdeck",
-  "version": "1.43.0",
+  "version": "1.44.0",
   "description": "Project command deck — at-a-glance state + Claude Code, Codex, and Antigravity resume",
   "main": "dist/main/main.js",
   "type": "commonjs",

qa/claude-update.mjs

@@ -32,6 +32,8 @@ const log = ${JSON.stringify(log)}; const locks = ${JSON.stringify(sandbox)};
 const running = (pid) => { try { process.kill(pid, 0); return true; } catch { return false; } };
 const alive = () => fs.readdirSync(locks).filter((f) => f.startsWith('alive-') && running(Number(f.slice(6)))).length;
 const args = process.argv.slice(2);
+// The sidebar's background-session listing: not a session, and never counted as one.
+if (args[0] === 'agents') { fs.appendFileSync(log, 'list alive=' + alive() + '\\n'); process.stdout.write('[]'); process.exit(0); }
 if (args[0] === 'update') { fs.appendFileSync(log, 'update alive=' + alive() + '\\n'); console.log('Successfully updated from 2.1.1 to 2.1.2'); process.exit(0); }
 const me = path.join(locks, 'alive-' + process.pid); fs.writeFileSync(me, '');
 const bye = () => { try { fs.unlinkSync(me); } catch {} process.exit(0); };