Merge pull request #473 from irisitymichaelgrundberg/feat/session-watching-badge

feat(approvals): let a session watching its own background work keep quiet (#468)

# Conflicts:
#	src/config/cli-registry/stock.ts

docs/cli-registry.md

@@ -36,7 +36,8 @@ interface CliEntry {
   launch: CliLaunch; // the structured argv template
   env: CliEnv; // exports, tmux setenv keys, the env-override allowlist
   capabilities: CliCapabilities; // what every call site reads instead of the id
-  //   .workDetect?: { promptGlyph, workingLine } — how this CLI's pane shows work
+  //   .workDetect?: { promptGlyph, workingLine, watchingLine?, watchingLines? } — how
+  //   this CLI's pane shows work, and how it shows work it started in the background
   overlays: CliOverlays; // remote-SSH / Docker pane commands, credential store
 }
 ```
@@ -45,10 +46,46 @@ interface CliEntry {
 
 ### Regexes that come from config
 
-Two capability fields carry a regular expression an override file can set: `discovery.version.regex` and `capabilities.workDetect.workingLine`. Both go through `compileVersionRegex()`, which caps the source at 200 characters, refuses the nested-quantifier shapes that cause catastrophic backtracking, and returns `null` rather than throwing so every caller degrades instead of crashing.
+Three capability fields carry a regular expression an override file can set: `discovery.version.regex`, `capabilities.workDetect.workingLine` and `capabilities.workDetect.watchingLine`. All three go through `compileVersionRegex()`, which caps the source at 200 characters, refuses the nested-quantifier shapes that cause catastrophic backtracking, and returns `null` rather than throwing so every caller degrades instead of crashing.
 
 `workingLine` is the one that matters most, because it is compiled once per session and then run against every accumulated PTY chunk and every pane capture. A nested quantifier there is a ReDoS against the event loop for the whole server, not just that session. The guard therefore runs in two places, and neither is redundant: `schema.ts` rejects the entry at LOAD time so a bad pattern never reaches a session, and `_workingLinePattern()` in `session.ts` compiles through the same helper so the runtime cannot end up with a pattern the schema would have refused.
 
+`watchingLine` reads a different row of the same screen. A CLI draws it while work the agent
+itself started is still running — Claude prints `⏵⏵ bypass permissions on · 1 monitor · ← for
+agents` while a monitor, a backgrounded shell or a cloud session is live. Codeman turns that
+into `Session.watching`, and an idle prompt from such a session opens already acknowledged,
+so a pane waiting for its own background work never raises an alert a human cannot answer.
+Group 1 is the label, and a CLI that declares no pattern reports no background work.
+
+Two CLIs declare such a row today, and they put it in different places. Claude writes its
+chip on the last row of the screen, so it keeps the default one-row window and anchors on
+the `·` its footer joins items with. Codex pins
+`1 background terminal running · /ps to view · /stop to close` ABOVE its composer, which
+puts the row third from the bottom once the status line and the composer are counted, so its
+entry declares `watchingLines: 3` and matches that row end to end. Both were measured
+against live panes rather than read out of a binary, which is the standard for adding a
+third.
+
+That label is the one value in the registry that an AGENT can influence, because it comes off
+the agent's own screen. Two things keep it honest, and both belong to whoever adds a pattern
+for a new CLI. `watchingLabel()` in `session-activity.ts` searches only the last few
+non-blank rows, which should be the part of the screen the CLI draws rather than the agent,
+and the pattern should anchor on chrome only that CLI can produce. Keep the window as small
+as the layout allows, since every row it adds is another row the agent may be able to write.
+The label is also ANSI-stripped and length-capped at the source, and every interpolation of
+it into markup goes through `escapeHtml()`, since it ends up on a badge and in an approval
+card.
+
+The two shipped entries do not sit equally well behind that rule, and the difference decides
+what a pattern is allowed to do. Claude's chip is the last row, so its one-row window holds
+nothing the agent can write — not even the status line above it, whose command a session
+running with permissions bypassed can write into its own `.claude/settings.json`. Codex's row
+shares its slot with the last row of the transcript whenever no terminal is running, so a
+message ending in that exact line is matched. What keeps that harmless is `hooks: 'none'`: no
+hook event from a codex session reaches the approvals inbox, so a forged label costs a wrong
+badge and cannot silence an alert. Before giving a CLI both hook signals and a pattern, make
+sure its row is one the agent cannot write.
+
 ### Three capabilities that must stay independent
 
 `external`, `hooks` and `altScreen` describe three different, deliberately unequal sets, and deriving any one from another has already shipped a bug. `shell` has no hooks but is **not** an external CLI, so a hooks predicate written as `!isExternalCliMode()` accepted `until=stop` on a shell session and then blocked the caller for their entire timeout. `deepseek` is the mirror image: it IS external and it DOES have hooks.

docs/wiki/Notifications-And-Approvals.md

@@ -103,6 +103,30 @@ locked phone and the agent continues.
 With the inbox off, the buttons are stripped from the notification payload entirely rather
 than being shown and failing.
 
+## When a session is watching its own work
+
+An agent that starts a monitor, puts a shell in the background or hands a task to a cloud
+session is told by its CLI to end the turn and wait to be notified. The pane then goes
+quiet, and the CLI's idle notification arrives about a minute later — for a session that
+wants nothing from you.
+
+Codeman reads what the CLI prints about its own background work and treats that prompt
+differently. It raises no tab alert, no desktop notification and no push, the session stays
+out of NEEDS YOU on every surface, and the row wears a blue **watching** badge instead. Hover
+it, or read it on a phone through your screen reader, and it says what is running: "1
+monitor", "2 shells", "1 background terminal".
+
+The prompt itself is not thrown away. It sits in the Approvals drawer as an ordinary card,
+still answerable, with a line reading "quiet, watching 1 monitor" where a card you had
+already looked at would say nothing. The next time that session goes quiet for an ordinary
+reason, it alerts you exactly as before.
+
+Two limits are worth knowing. A permission prompt or a question dialog still goes red
+whatever else the agent started, because that one blocks it outright. A question asked in
+plain prose is not a dialog, so an agent that starts a monitor and then writes "which branch
+should I target?" is quiet along with the rest — check a watching session yourself if it has
+been quiet longer than the work it is waiting for should take.
+
 ## The phone overview
 
 On phones, tapping the "C" logo gives a session overview with **NEEDS YOU** first, then