Prior art: how terminal dashboards let plugins take keys #9

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1. shayan-ys

   added

   wayfinder:research

   on Oct 9, 2026
2. shayan-ys

   added a parent issue on Oct 9, 2026

   • Map: integration key contract #8
3. shayan-ys

   marked this as blocking 2 issues on Oct 9, 2026

   • Delivery: how a key press reaches the integration command #11
   • Focus and conflicts: which section a key goes to #13
4. shayan-ys

   self-assigned this

   on Oct 9, 2026
5. shayan-ys commented on Oct 9, 2026

   

   shayan-ys

   on Oct 9, 2026

   OwnerAuthor

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   Resolution

   Findings: plugin-keys-prior-art.md (throwaway branch research/plugin-keys-prior-art).

   • Delivery: k9s, lazygit, and tmux re-run a one-shot command per key, which matches devdash's contract. Only Zellij uses a long-lived plugin that receives key events, with a different lifecycle.
   • State: one-shot tools pass the selection to each run (k9s env vars, lazygit templates). Long-lived plugins keep their own state.
   • Focus: none of them needs globally unique keys. They scope keys by context or panel (k9s, lazygit), by focus with Tab/Shift-Tab or a number key (WTF, Zellij), or by key table (tmux). No source documents rejecting duplicate keys.
   • Key syntax: case-sensitive printable keys (lazygit A ≠ a) plus named special keys (<enter>, <up>, Left, F1) and modifiers.
   • Discoverability: lazygit lists custom keys in its ? menu; k9s shows the shortcut and description in its menu.
   • In-flight runs: no source specifies what happens when a key arrives during a run. This is open design for Key-triggered runs: redraw, overlap, and errors.
6. shayan-ys

   closed this as completedon Oct 9, 2026