Seance: Human first, agent friendly. Tiling terminal+ workspaces (Rust+GPUI)

Seance, a new multi-pane terminal for Linux that lets humans and AI agents work side by side in shared workspaces, has been released as version 0.9.13 under an MIT license. Built on the GPUI framework, the tool features live multi-pane terminals, agent orchestration, human-in-the-loop controls, and a daemon architecture for persistent sessions.

A shared space where humans and agents work together, live. Seance is a candlelit multi-pane terminal for Linux. Every pane is on the human’s screen. Agents Claude, Codex, Grok, any CLI and shells sit beside you — not hidden in a background job. They can see each other, ask you questions, propose commands for your approval, and leave notes on a scratchpad you both flip into. Visibility is the point. Native app on GPUI https://www.gpui.rs/ . Sessions live in a long-lived daemon; the window is disposable. License: MIT · Platform: Linux Wayland / X11 · Status: 0.9.13 Release notes: CHANGELOG.md /zackham/seance/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md . Most agent tooling optimizes for the agent alone . Seance optimizes for engagement in a shared space : | human | agent | |---|---| | watches every pane live | runs in a real terminal on that screen | | flips notes, steers, takes over a shell | drives siblings via seance ctl | answers ask toasts; Enter/Esc on ghost commands | prefers propose over silent risk | | triages by status badges + stage strip | reports planning / working / needs-human | | inspects pad drawer without flipping | opens file panes so edits appear live | Attribution is first-class: actions are logged as human / agent:<pane / cli . The timeline answers “what happened while I was looking elsewhere?” Any command is a pane. Default summon is a shell so you can always take the keyboard . Point --command at whatever agent CLI you use. Live multi-pane terminals — real PTYs, selection, scrollback; weighted tile grid with drag sashes n≥2 Workspaces — keep circles of work apart; sidebar drag-reorder Notes on the back of every pane — shared markdown $SEANCE SCRATCHPAD Pad drawer — stage chip / ▤ shows task inject body + pad tail live-refreshes Stage strip — urgency-sorted roster chips click focus+pad, double-click zoom File panes — live markdown/text + history/diff when co-editing Control plane — seance ctl so any pane or external script can spawn, send, wait, harvest Orchestrator A+ — --agent profiles, evidence-bound wait --status done , send --file , task envelopes, harvest , event-driven wait, boot-clear Human-in-the-loop — ask , propose , seize/release/drive Phone a pane — ☎ / ctl phone opens a telegram topic and seeds a stage card workspace, roster, ctl how-to . No participant claim — you drive panes with normal seance ctl on this host. Optional needs-human one-liners post to the topic when linked. Daemon architecture — upgrade binary without killing the circle concurrent-upgrade gate Event bus — sequenced, attributable events + seance ctl watch Capabilities — policy open|propose required|locked + per-principal grants ./scripts/bootstrap-deps.sh pinned gpui checkout — see docs/PLAYBOOK.md cargo build --release first build can take ~10 min ./target/release/seance ln -sf "$ pwd /target/release/seance" ~/.local/bin/seance optional Requirements: recent Rust, Vulkan-capable drivers, a monospace font default CaskaydiaMono Nerd Font Mono — change in src/term font.rs . seance ctl skill agent-facing protocol ⚡ arm / paste seance ctl doctor seance ctl roster seance ctl new --name w --agent claude --wait-ready seance ctl send w --file /tmp/task.md seance ctl wait w --status done --timeout 600 --cat seance ctl harvest w1 w2 w3 --timeout 900 seance ctl phone w telegram topic + stage card no claim Multi-agent live test: ./scripts/agent-collab-test.sh Thorough smoke: ./scripts/e2e-thorough.sh Upgrade load test: ./scripts/upgrade-load-test.sh upgrades live daemon | key | action | |---|---| | ctrl+shift+n | new pane shell by default | | ctrl+shift+w | banish kill active pane | | ctrl+shift+s | flip notes ↔ face | | ctrl+shift+p | pop pane to its own window | | ctrl+shift+k | precanned prompt palette | | ctrl+shift+j | fuzzy jump pane / workspace | | ctrl+shift+z | focus-zoom active pane | | ctrl+shift+f | last failed shell command | | ctrl+pageup / pagedown | cycle workspaces | | ctrl+shift+pageup / pagedown | cycle panes in this workspace | | ctrl+shift+v | paste | | ctrl+click / middle-click | open OSC-8 / URL | | stage chip click | focus + pad drawer | | stage chip double-click | zoom | | ⚡ | arm agent ctl skill orientation | | ☎ | phone pane telegram stage card | | ▤ | pad drawer | | 💬 | whisper — compose a steer into the pane | | sash drag | resize 2-pane ratio or multi-pane weights | | process | role | |---|---| seance daemon | owns PTYs, grids, state; Unix socket | seance GUI | shared space UI; reconnects safely | seance ctl … | JSON-lines client for agents, shells, scripts | Do not pkill -x seance to reload — that kills every session. Prefer cargo build --release && seance upgrade , or seance restart-gui for UI-only. | path | | |---|---| | state | ~/.local/share/seance/state.json | | scratchpads | ~/.local/share/seance/scratch/<slug .md | | layout weights | ~/.local/share/seance/layout.json | | events | ~/.local/share/seance/events.jsonl | | socket | $XDG RUNTIME DIR/seance.sock | Injected into every pane: SEANCE SESSION , SEANCE WORKSPACE , SEANCE SCRATCHPAD , SEANCE SOCKET . Workspace scoping is automatic inside a pane — agents only see their circle unless you pass --all . | doc | | |---|---| | docs/DAEMON.md /zackham/seance/blob/master/docs/DAEMON.md docs/ORCHESTRATION.md /zackham/seance/blob/master/docs/ORCHESTRATION.md docs/SHELL-INTEGRATION.md /zackham/seance/blob/master/docs/SHELL-INTEGRATION.md docs/PERF-TERMINAL.md /zackham/seance/blob/master/docs/PERF-TERMINAL.md CLAUDE.md /zackham/seance/blob/master/CLAUDE.md on this repoCanonical agent instructions: seance ctl skill . ./scripts/bootstrap-deps.sh cargo test cargo build --release && seance upgrade ./scripts/e2e-thorough.sh Pin discipline: gpui-component rev-pinned; zed patched to deps/zed at 1a246efd… . Bump only as a pair — PLAYBOOK. - OSC-133 shell-agnostic markers bash hooks + cmdlog work today; OSC-8 open shipped Full continuous session replay grid recorder + browser player — filed in vita working doc; not the retired timeline HTML export- GPU glyph atlas CPU path is multi-pane smooth — explicit non-goal for now - worktree-backed agent rooms, best-of-N MIT — see LICENSE /zackham/seance/blob/master/LICENSE . Uses zed’s alacritty fork https://github.com/zed-industries/alacritty Apache-2.0 , GPUI https://www.gpui.rs/ , and gpui-component https://github.com/longbridge/gpui-component .